Fiber Dreams

I sometimes wonder how they keep track of all those feet.

Couch update

Dave and I took the fabric sample books back to the upholsterer on Friday afternoon. While there we got a tour of the small shop, saw a couple works in progress, and looked at tons more sample books.

First off, we should have known better than to try to go over there on a Friday afternoon. The traffic was horrendous. It probably would have taken an hour or more to get there if we’d stayed on the freeway. Luckily, we’re both adventurous enough to brave the wilds of the city streets. It took longer to get there than it would have had we’d been able to stay on the freeway, but still not that bad. Took us less than half an hour to get home again, and it was just after 4:00 when we left.

But I digress.

They have a small, but nice shop. Oh, there are bits of batting and threads from fabrics floating around a bit, and the shop was a mess as they were in the middle of several projects, but it was clean. No huge dust bunnies, no dust coating the leather hanging on the wall or disguising the bolts of fabric on the shelf. And they do beautiful work. The patterns match from one portion of a cushion to the next, flow up the back of the sofa or chair, just as they should, but is rarely done any more.

The young man who had come out to the house the other day was there to take care of us, as he was raised here, and speaks English like the native southern Californian that he is. His father wasn’t originally from here, and doesn’t trust his English, so lets his son do most of the talking. He seems to understand quite a bit, however, and he pays attention. He dug out a sample book just before we left and showed us a fabric that he thought would work well on the couch that we’d like. We liked it. I wrote down the information…

Fast forward to yesterday. Not wanting to make a fabric decision without shopping around a bit more, I went to two upholstery places yesterday. Turns out they’re next door to each other. Odd, that. But handy. I looked at hundreds of fabrics. There just isn’t much out there that will work for this couch, with the self-imposed color restrictions. I don’t want anything resembling golds or browns. Dave abhors greens (though there were some lovely ones). I will not have a seven-foot black couch in the TV room. The reds were all dull, listless things. And there weren’t many blues that were remarkable in the positive sense, though plenty that were just plain awful.

But you know what I did find? A larger sample of that last fabric we saw on Friday. I was able to borrow the sample, bring it home, see how it is here. Flowers. Nice jacquard. Not too fussy. Shiny bits and dull bits, for texture. Hm. Looks good in the bright family room upstairs. Took it down to the TV room, draped it over the beast. The TV room isn’t nearly as bright as the room upstairs. Deck shading the one window. There it is. What do you think? The fabric is dark, but not as dark as black. The shiny parts give it a little light. There are no lights on in the room for this picture, so it won’t always look just like this. The more I look at it, the more I like it.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website