To weave or not to weave...?

I feel happy about my chair, even though it is not as tightly done as when the upholstrer of Green Furniture Sweden make T-shirt Chair 'rag editions' out of fabric left overs from their sofa manufacturing. And with a small choice of rags and worn cloths, colours are what they are (again not as neatly chosen as by the uphostrer that has a large variety to pick from) - but they are colours of my and my family's history...! I did not get to describe the fabric from my grand parents sofa, the cloth that we bought to cover our baby-girl Saga in Dominican Republic (Saga now soon 10 years old), etc, etc... :-)

But also buying a neetly upholstered T-shirt Chair 'rag edition', one can change a rag now and then, and the chair slowly takes of your history. Someone called this a Slowblog...

T-shirt Chair 'rag editions' at Room, Stockholm

The place of weaving made it all...

Time passes...
I moved the chair under construction to another room, and suddenly I did not naturally pass it every day anymore...
...and the project stalled.
Until I understood the mechanism, and I moved it in front of the TV, decided I had taken enough photos of cloths and weaving and that writing down all the stories of the cloths would stop me from getting the work done - I quickly finished the whole chair in one late evening while watching a film. Yet some detailes can be adjusted, but it feels nice to at last have a chair that can be used!

T-shirt Chair full of memories, almost ready (a few details to fix)

#4, weaving flowers

What: Dark blue ecological hemp fabric from Ecolution with eco test print. Very thick quality. Size 30x140cm

How: I decided to be more systematic on the folding before weaving, this is how I fold:

Folding from the right, using
a weight to hold in place

Folding from the left side

Folding the left side on top of the right,
forming a pocket on one side

...and folding a package to move to weaving 

And now to the weaving. One time on the top, and back again underneath, and inserting into the pocket:

The last end before inserting into the pocket

...and done.

Reflection: Using clothespins to hold the folding in place is a hit (better then a weight - the pins can follow to the weaving. Also hear I cut off some 10-15cm in the end before inserting in to the pocket.

Special for my frame: As my frame has an extra enforcement (early prototype) in the middle I have skipped going down under the mid wire - every second weft will have a 3 grid wide part in the middle, but this goes only for my frame, nothing to worry about for other frames out there...

Colourful Flour Flowers

The 'Flour Fellow' bean bags should have prints in the style of flour bags of the old days (the icon is of the flour miller taking a nap on his newly filled bags...), and invited four artists to make artwork for the bags (Barbro Wesslander, Carina Nibér, Ann-Sofie Lennstrand-Hallberg och Johanna Hansson - you can see them sitting on their bags here). 

And sustainable bags should be machine washable - we started looking for local fabric printers that could make washable prints using ecological ingredients, and found Svenskt Textiltryckeri AB in Sölvesborg, Sweden. They made a test print on one of the test hemp fabrics that we had received from Ecolution, using an existing pattern that they had. And here it is, ready to be part of my T-shirt Chair, some colour and a good contrast to the kaki and yellow that I started off with... 

#3, something baggy

Hemp fabric 'Brod' from Ecolution

What: Test fabric part of 'Brod' - hemp fabric from Ecolution.
Size: 140x50cm

How: I still fold from the two long sides, but now a little bit wider then the grid (it's nice if it 'flows over' the grid a little bit when weaving) forming an app 6cm wide, 140cm long, flat band of fabric with a slot/pocket on one side where the band can be inserted into itself on the bottom side. 140 cm was a little bit to much, I cut of some 10 cm before inserting the last end.

Reflection: This was a lot better! Easier with an even fabric, and I did not tighten as hard this time. The hemp is of course as far from elastic as anything can be - elastic I think would have been even easier and given an even  nicer flow line. But I am satisfied with this one! Now to look for more colour!
...and choosing, weaving and remembering is actually lots of fun!!!

the hemp part and one of the jean legs. Here you can also see that the frame I got (a test from the grid factory) has an extra enforcement in the middle which actually is not needed - I'll have to think of a way of making that one disappear visually... 

the first hemp

My first contact with hemp fabric

A few years ago I got the idea of making a natural bean bag, the way Fatboy successfully had done, but now made of breathing (and non static electric!), ecologically produced nice materials. I fell for hemp - it grows like weed (literally...) without fertilizers and pesticides, makes a strong fiber (used in rope since centuries) and nice fabric in many qualities. There is no Swedish hemp fabric, but I found eco hemp at Ecolution in Rumania...
...and here is the first sample I received, marked with the type name "Brod". To be added to the chair.

And the product that we since then make from hemp, the Flour Fellows

This is what the fabric looks like in the final product,
Flour Fellow by Green Furniture Sweden

#1 and 2, first weaving

One leg of the pair of jeans

What: My favorite but worn out jeans. Size 32/36. Light yellow/green-blueish.

How: Cut into two pieces. On the second piece I removed a pocket to make a thinner ending. The length was just right for going from left to right and back again which makes a very good attachment. I fold the weft (the woven fabric) so that it makes a pocket on the bottom side and press the ends into the pocket (Oh, that sounded complicated, I think I need to make a photo of this some time...).

Reflection: Somewhat thin maybe... It's nice if the fabric 'flows over' the grid a little bit sidewise when weaving - the jeans could have been larger - not slim fit :-)  - and I could have folded them to a wider band (now I tried matching the grid size of 5 cm). Maybe I could even have use both legs together and than have cut off part of the waste where there is more fabric?

Weaving. I cut of the label and pushed it in afterwards,
we'll see how it goes with its coming neighbors 

First thing to add

We store a lot of old fabrics at home, I went out to check if anything really could be called waste, and be used as a first T-shirt Chair part...

...and I came back with The favorite jeans - the-once-far-to-expensive-but-oh-so-nice-Lindeberg-slim-cut, that I wore till they couldn't take more, then coloured yellow and they became my 'designer-outfit-jeans' :-) (the colouring was a success - the mix of the pale shifting blue jean with the yellow creating a yellow and green mix...!), and then wore till they virtually fell into pieces...

I am now glad I saved them...! Here they are ready to make a first milestone:

My first memory to weave into furniture

The grid of the story

The first T-shirt Chair frame from production,
ready to be roles out by Green Furniture Sweden

Test weaving with with sofa fabric leftovers

Together with Maria Westerberg, the designer of the T-shirt Chair, I visited Glimåkra in southern Sweden today - the place where T-Shirt Chairs will be produced (or rather woven, stuffed, upholstered or however you decribe somthing new like this).

Task: Examining the first production T-shirt Chair frame + testing upholstry with fabric waste from sofas + instructing on how to weave a chair and how to make nice colour mix from waste fabric...

Nice colour mix!

Outcome: The pieces of fabric stay in place due to that the fabric waste here comes in full role width (usually 140cm), sizes for different fabric types set, and Peter nailed to dig into being a T-shirt Chair artist - choosing nice fabrics and weaving the chairs in production.

Other outcome: Well there were two frames made, I ended up with the faulty one (too stiff and heavy) in the back of my car...
...and now it stands here on my living room floor asking for attention...  :-)

Fabric waste to use