Fabric hunt

For the past few months, I've been searching for a nice upholstery fabric with which to recover a small armchair for Moot. I was given this task by my mother-in-law, who plans on doing the recovering in her upholstery class.

My main problem has been not wanting to travel into central London to look at fabric samples - I'm usually too tired after work, and I don't feel the need to attempt an hour's browsing with Moot in tow and that after an hour on public transport.

At first, I had in my mind a deep raspberry red linen, then I decided that it was too girly, and bid on some short lengths on ebay, but got outbid every time.

Then I remembered a nice fabric company I'd seen, Elanbach, based in Wales. Some of the prints are drab, some are lovely. I was particularly keen on this one.



But after paying for a fist-full of samples, I found out that it wasn't heavy enough.

Then I decided to try finding some funky fabric from GP & J Baker. I had a chair an old chair of my mother's covered in some of their fabric, bought on eBay.



Bid on some, lost.

Then I thought, why not try Marimekko? They have nice, modern prints that will contrast nicely with the dark wood and classic shape of the chair. My heart skipped a beat when I saw this fabric on their website, sold online here.



It's fresh and graphic, with a hand-drawn quality that I love. But not upholstery weight.

Then I read an article about Celia Birtwell in a paper, and remembered that I'd looked up her fabrics when hunting for fabric for the armchair. There are some lovely fabrics on her website, but the only ones that are suitable are from her Jacobean collection, and even they are not particularly hard-wearing, according to the woman who answered the phone in the shop. And they are not my favourites.

Last time I was in Liberty, oh, about a year ago it feels, they were still stocking some fantastic and fantastically expensive Svenskt Tenn fabric - about 70 quid a metre and up, and we need two metres. And the scale is wrong on some of them, the designs are too big.

These are great, among many others.



And do you recognise this? I bought some Japanese fabric just like it from kitty craft last year.



I think this is my favourite. A steal at about 55 quid a metre. Ha.



So, besides sharing my so-called fabric woes, the point of this is to ask if any of you have some top upholstery fabric ideas up your sleeves!