Got Velvet?

A fellow blogger on My Notting Hill  @ http://mynottinghill.blogspot.com/ recently posted a photo of a small bolster pillow covered in velvet with an unusal welt and asked if anyone knew where to get the fabric.  Ever interested in an internet quest, I took off googling.  I didn't find the fabric she was asking about; others commented with resources; but I found a site with an incredible supply of velvet fabrics.  It is Fashion-Fabrics-Club Online. The prices are...well, inexpensive.  I'm thinking cheap but didn't want to say it.  I want to share this swatch sample of what I found.

My former mother in law had an exquisite loose cushioned velvet sofa in this color.  I grieved when I learned that my ex had given it to the Salvation Army after her death.  He disliked it because it was a low sofa and uncomfortable for him.  Complimentary colors in her room were mostly shades of tan and yellow in linen weaves and a small open-armed loveseat in pale yellow brocade.  One wall was panelled in wormy chestnut with bookshelves and the fireplace.  The rest of the room's walls were a creamy natural linen to pale yellow color.  Draperies virtually the same, maybe a couple of shades darker.  Her decorator, who passed away many years ago, was great.  Her own house was a feast to the decorator's eye.  One thing she did that kept folks talking for a while was carpet a stairway with an oriental runner nap down.  In other words, she used the rug upside down.  She collected figas and glass candlesticks and we adored her. Who would have thought a tour through velvet fabrics would have brought her memory back so strongly today?   "I am a part of all that I have met" and she influenced me to break the mold or at least test the limits. 

Add:  I realized when I cleaned off my desk last night and found the note, I didn't offer the identification of the swatch above.  It is called Cannes Swirl Mushroom Velvet and is listed at $12.85 per yard.  I want it on something. 

Metaphoric Chair.

I am a chair fool.  I love chairs.  I collect chairs.  This chair has haunted me since I first saw it on 1st Dibs.  I  would like to know its story.  Provenance is a good word but I want the story of this chair.  It is listed by David Skinner as "18th Century Corner Metamorphic Chair.  England circa 1770.  A unique 18th century mahogany metamorphic reading chair with detachable book and candle arms".  I spent a few moments considering the term "metaphoric" and decided that unless it meant the chair has mixed periods, I didn't care much why the term was used except as it adds to the romance.

My thoughts were about the lady or gentleman who used the chair in its period.  Perhaps it was sat in by an educated gentleman of class who wore a powdered wig and knee britches.  Fashion was changing during this time and he might have been considering that Ben Franklin had recently appeared in a French court sporting his own unadorned hair.  No wig?  Surely there was some comfort in that trend.

 I much prefer to consider that the chair was used by a young woman, perhaps pursuing some avenue of study.  If so, she might have been dressed like these ladies engaged in needlework.

Reading is more of a solitary pursuit, unless she were reading to someone else in the room.  In my story, though, she is a young lady who has her feet propped on another piece of furniture and she is so completely lost in her novel that she is unaware that wax is dripping from the candle onto her skirts.  How do I know she has her feet propped up?  She has kicked off her shoes!!

Note:  I googled metaphoric chair.  Most of the image results show chairs that can also function as library steps. 

Country Living

I was shabby before it was chic. Not really, but I thought it sounded good. I have always been a little bit country. I was selling painted and faux-aged pie safes, cherry corner cupboards and bootjack benches at shows around the southeast in the eighties when Country Living was the best selling home decor magazine on the stand. Do you remember the first widely distributed American magazine to show country furniture and lifestyle? It was Early American Life. The paper was quality and photos minimal, but I loved those pages.

I was a pushover when Country Living came along in 1978. I looked forward to its arrival monthly and my husband would point out to me if a photo included some decorating idea that I had used. It happened often. My romance faded as the pages became more and more filled with fifties enamelware and massive collections of tin nailed to walls and hanging from ceilings. The scenes became jumbled and messy. I wanted to go back to days of one handsome container of bittersweet on a well scrubbed pine or maple farm table with a Dutch Colonial chair as master.

Ah, bittersweet. We country folk adore it for fall decorating. It grows in my area but there was a movement afoot a while ago to stamp it out. I think bittersweet may be winning. I hope so. If I am lucky enough to go bittersweet hunting this fall, maybe I will drop a few berries along the way as I bring it home. I saved the photo above for the shades while working with a client to show the shades hung inside the window frame. It's clean! I came across it just this morning and thought how much I loved the clean country gentlemanly air. Decorators take great care to hide electrical cords but they show in this room. I like the honesty. Did you notice the walls are grey?

CHINOISERIE DEFINED (FOR ME)

A few days ago a romp through some of my favorite blogs brought me to a question about a usage in trade terminology. For whatever time I've known the term Chinoiserie, to me it has meant some sort of Oriental themed drawing on a lacquered surface. While wandering the blogosphere, I came across mention of Chinoiserie and the photos shown were of furniture pieces that were plain. Not plain in the sense of having no style but plain in that there were no Oriental figures, wobbly little trees or ladies with umbrellas painted on. That sent me on a search for a definition of Chinoiserie. Wikipedia has a full page of interesting information. Google Chinoiserie and the Wikipedia definition should be near the top of the page. I kept looking, promising myself to go back and read the whole thing on Wiki. I found a page advertising the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show from which I harvested the photo above. The definition given on that page is: "Western Art that incorporates or imitates Eastern design elements and techniques - a popular conceit across numerous styles for the past 400 years". Hmmm. That doesn't answer my question.  But wait, there's more: "Asian motifs, real and imagined, such as pagodas, parasols, flowers and birds have adorned all manner of architecture, interiors, furniture, decorative and fine arts". Chinoiserie. Who's gonna argue with San Francisco?

BTW, I'm also going back and read some of the links that showed up when I googled San Francisco Art Show. One could express great joy in the internet if there weren't so many glitches and opportunities spoiled by hitting the wrong button. I did that while writing this blog and it took forever to find the definition again. The next page that came in response to my query was just like the one I first saw in every way except there was a tiger where the Chinoiserie had been and no definition. Nothing if not tenacious. Some call it stubborn.  I found it again so that I could share it. 

PRUNELLE...

This is a repeat of a post from the old blog with a few edits to make it timely.  Not outdated, I think, since I've seen a lot of purple in design blogs in recent weeks so I brought this back.. 

 

I read a number of home decorating magazines itermittently. It's my business. There was a time when I stacked them up month by month. Would you believe I once had ALL the Victorias ever published? I miss Southern Accents terribly.  I buy Veranda sometimes and wish Elle Decor were more available to me.  Others I pick up sporadically or sometimes a friend passes one on.  I like shopping for magazines from a rack and just will not trust the mailman to deliver one unscathed.

In this brave new internet world we have some wonderful decorating and design blogs - there are so many but I've found some I can trust to offer inspiration regularly.  We'll link to them when we can. Two years ago there was a piece on The Peak of Chic about colors and how their names are more interesting in French than in English. The color being discussed was called prunelle by some famous designer. Purple. Brownish purple. The color doesn't sound any more appetizing than it's namesake but it is a fantastic design color for upholstery or accents. I would love to do a room with dove grey walls and shades of grey, prunelle and yellow in upholstery and accents.  Perhaps red.  I think a rich bullfight red and prunelle would be luscious next to each other.  It is a well known decorator maxim that every room should have a dot of red or black.   Notice I didn't say "pop".  I don't want anything to "pop" in my rooms.  I'm bored with the use of the word in fashion and decorating. 

Would I do the walls of a room in prunelle? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe.  Is it a new color or a new name?  In the same evening I browsed some clothing catalogs and found that JJill knew about prunella since there were at least six items in the online outlet close to that color. Come to think of it, I have an old and worn Life Is Good t-shirt that is faded prunella. I knew I liked that color.  Don't go looking at JJill now.  Remember I first wrote this post in 2009. 

The photo above is of Italian prunes and the one shiny one is the best exemplification of the color I could find. Isn't it rich??

~ Sami

Blogger! I'm almost defeated...

But not quite.  I have spent three days now trying to figure out some Blogger issues.

We closed the retail store that was the namesake (or whichever way that goes) of our old blog.  So, I changed the name to something more closely related to my home where my office will be now.
PONTIFICAL'S PORCH!  Pontifical is a one-dimensional wooden figural pig with Prince Albert can patches who reigns over my back porch overlooking the creek.  He has reigned over two porches in his lifetime.  This is his third. 

PONTIFICAL'S PORCH. 
Easy enough, right?
Wrong? 

When I realized the URL was still PIGEON STREET STALLS, I changed it and, from there on, my friends, it has been a battle.  I don't think I'm the only one with the problem since I spent most of the next two days on the internet looking for help.  There are many questions about the problem I encountered but none that work.

The problem:  If I enter the URL for PONTIFICAL'S PORCH it takes me to three cached pages from PIGEON STREET STALLS.  That is only if I click on the word "cached" on the link.  Otherwise, I come slam up against one of those "it ain't there no more" pages.

The other problem that caused much consternation is that when one enters an apostrophe to indicate that it is Pontifical's Porch, Blogger gives the apostrophe a full space but won't allow two spaces after the S.   We tried and tried, even going into the HTML to center the title and to get a space between the S and the P.  No luck.  No luck either with centering the title

So....here we are.  Pontifical has another blog.  I suppose the other one will die an unnatural death at some point.  All the hard work that I have put into the PST blog over several years is gone. 

Gone...gone...gone.

As far as I can tell Blogger has no sympathy!!