A beautiful wingback Buchanan Ancient tartan chair kindly donated by David Waterhouse
David has provided the below information on the chair and why he has chosen to support My Name'5 Doddie Foundaiton:
Being born and raised in Widnes, meant that I was always going to be a rugby fan, as it is a strong rugby league town. However, this does not mean I don’t like rugby union, I still watch the six nations and I think it’s a great competition. When I saw Doddie Weir story highlighted on the BBC as an accompanying sports piece to the six nations coverage, I came intrigued about Doddie’s battle with motor neurone disease and what he was trying to accomplish with raising awareness about MND I was blown away. A recent interview between Doddie Weir and Rob Burrow (ex Leeds Rhinos player) a fellow MND sufferer, prompt me to do this chair to raise funds for MND research.
Before starting my upholstery course at the Ministry of Upholstery I had never upholstered anything before in my life. The format of the Business start-up course at the Ministry of Upholstery slow teaches you all the techniques you would need to become a modern upholster. The course starts out with a small Queen Anne footstool, then a deep button stool, before progressing onto a plain wingback chair. The course teaches you a range of upholstery techniques, with the previous project enabling you to complete the next project, as you slowly build up your knowledge and skills in upholstery. The most challenging aspect of the wingback chair is the pattern matching process itself. However, once you have mastered the pattern matching process the end result is something to behold and that’s the most rewarding aspect of the project. When you see the final project completed and you can say to yourself, I did that.
My advice to anyone thinking about doing an upholstery project is to check if there is an upholstery course in their local area. What I have learnt while doing this course at the Ministry of Upholstery there is no substitution for experience. If people want to try and learn upholstery off youtube they can do, but once you end up in difficulty there is going to be no one there to help you. So, my advice to anyone interested in doing upholstery is to find a reputable course and learn the basic, this will then provide you with the necessary skills for you to tackle some of your own upholstery projects.
I’m not connected to any tartan by family name, however I think the Buchanan Ancient tartan provided to me by the Scotland shop is a fantastic tartan for this project. It’s a traditional Scottish tartan, however the vibrant colours lend themselves to be easily worked into a modern piece of furniture.
