Monday 27 June 2011

Pot handles, Papier Mache and a Fox!

I can't believe it, I've reached my 200th post and had over 9300 page views. Many thanks to you all for your support, I hope you have managed to find something useful or interesting in my random ramblings!

So what's new? Last week was a busy one, but something a little bit different did come into the workshop to break up the monotony of rush work - this little silver pot handle wrap.


It's a little hand hammered tea pot with a very pretty border around the lid and top, so a fine, intricate handle weave was needed I thought to do justice to the delicate detail. It's a variation of a design used on a lot of the Liberty Tudric metalwork designed by Archibald knox, except this handle wrap has been re-woven in 1.6mm wide cane instead of 3.0mm, so it took a bit longer than usual!

The other unusual thing that arrived this week was this amazing lacquered and inlaid papier mache chair.


It needs a lot of work which should be started next month, but I couldn't help myself, I just HAD to see how it would look by cleaning just a little bit....


Ooooh it's going to be a treat working on this one! Look at how the mother of pearl starts to shine with a little bit of cleaning.

And lastly at the weekend we saw this very sorry sight.


This young and incredibly skinny fox was wandering around the garden in broad daylight eating the bird food - he must be starving. He was so weak that he didn't even try to run away when he saw us.

6 comments:

Janet said...

Your handle is lovely !!!

The chair is unique, and will be fun to clean up.

The fox looks like a baby--- maybe an orphan--- did you feed it anything? I wonder what they eat---
Jan

Kim said...

Thanks Jan! I am looking forward to the clean up of the chair, but I'm going to have to wait, lots of other more important but less interesting things to do first unfortunately!

Yes poor fox must have been left alone, we didn't feed him, if we did we might have a problem afterwards because they sometimes come back in packs and raid the neighbourhood rubbish bins.

Janet said...

I forgot to ask-- what are you using to clean the chair? The difference is amazing !

And, yes, I understand about feeding wild animals. I have had to call our Wildlife people for raccoons !
Thoroughly enjoy your blogs and info !
Jan

The Chairman said...

Please keep us up on the repairs to the inlaid papier mache chair. It looks to be a very interesting project to follow.

Jim Boerman said...

I hope you keep us up on the restoration of the inlaid papier mache chair. I think this is a very interesting project and would be fascinating to see its progression.

Kim said...

Thank you all. I promise I will blog the progress of the chair, it is mine so it will take a bit longer than client work! We are researching it at the moment but are pretty sure it is a Jennings and Betteridge chair made in the late 19th century. I'm just removing the overcoating of french polish very carefully with meths at the moment Jan, tedious but satisfying!