Polly Granville

This royal-ish and cheerful fabric had all eyes on it at the workshop. The client came to me with her French Louis XVI style window bench and a great idea for giving it a fresh new personality. She chose this wonderful screen-printed fabric inspired by the Florentine Giglio - the iris flower that features on the flag of Florence and grows wild around the city 💚🤍💛

There’s something wonderfully joyful about the combination of the classic bench and this lively botanical pattern. We finished it with a double piping detail , which gives the whole piece a lovely tailored finish.

I have a feeling this one is going to get plenty of compliments from the her guests.

Sometimes the smallest chairs have the biggest personalities. This lovely vintage barrel chair has such a cheerful, tulip or cupcake-like shape that it was impossible not to fall for it!  Small in size, but beautifully reupholstered.

The chair belonged to the client’s grandmother, so they really wanted to save it. It was brought to us in a very well-worn and damaged condition, luckily Richard, who is part of our community here at the studios, is a metal worker so he fixed the framing and replaced the missing metal struts. Given the heavy octagonal metal framing running along the bottom, the chair likely dates from the post-war era.

Tom restored this one using traditional materials, rebuilding it from the inside out. Underneath the cover, there's no block of foam, but a carefully built structure of webbing, coil springs, cotton wadding, cotton wool, hessian and ginger coir fibre - the sort of craftsmanship that has supported comfortable chairs for well over a century.

For the finish, the client chose Cove in Sunflower by - a wonderfully joyful linen inspired by choppy waves. The pattern nicely wraps around the curved shape, giving it movement and variation from every angle, while the warm golden tones bring a lovely sense of sunshine.

A beautiful reminder that the best upholstery isn't just about the fabric you see. It's about everything that's carefully rebuilt underneath it too.

Red often gets a bad reputation for being bold, but looking back at some of our favourite little red one-offs from recent years, I've found it can be surprisingly cheerful, cosy or classic – all depending on the shade, texture and pattern.

Deep berry velvets, soft corals, rich plums, warm terracottas and everything in between. Somehow this colour keeps finding its way into our workshop and into our clients' homes.

Perhaps it's because red has a wonderful way of making a room feel alive. A little warmer, a little more welcoming and a lot more memorable.

Now I’m wondering what our next red upholstery project will be ❤️

Only Fabrics & Horses :) When you think of fabrics, do you think of horses? Neither do I.

Last week, Tom and I had such a wonderful time at in Castle Cary. Founded in 1837, this remarkable factory is one of the last places in the world still weaving horsehair fabric, using original looms and techniques passed down through the generations. Sadly we couldn't photograph inside as the looms are patented, but it was just extraordinary to see looms designed in the late 1800's that had the ability to pluck a single horsehair from a tail and weave it in the fabric. The warp is made of linen and the weft is the horsehair, meaning that the fabric can only be 54cm wide as that's the length of a tail. Truly we were all agog at the precision of such old machinery that hasn't needed to be updated in all these years.

The horsehair comes from all over the world and is turned into beautiful and incredibly durable textiles, used for upholstery, wall panelling, fashion and even handbags. Proper craft, proper heritage and a joy to see it up close. Tom has worked with them for some years now, helping them set up their stands at design shows.

I’d love to work with this fabric on a future project, it has the most incredible sheen to it and will uplift any piece of antique furniture, as long as it's small enough! If you’re curious to learn more about this stunning material, DM me.

Fabrics and projects
Handbags

A little look back at some of my favourite occasional chairs and stools we’ve had through the studio.

Playful, colourful, full of texture - each one completely different and made to suit its home and its owner. That’s always the joy of bespoke work, no two pieces ever quite the same.

So many lovely projects, wonderful clients and truly beautiful fabrics to work with along the way. I feel very lucky to be part of these little transformations, watching each chair find its place and bring a bit of character into a room.

Which one would you have at home?

Behind the seam [sic] today… 8 metres of kitchen banquette coming to life!

This rather magnificent kitchen banquette has completely taken over the studio. Eight metres of it. When the client delivered the wooden structure, Tom got straight to work and the whole place quickly started looking like a very ambitious game of upholstery Tetris.

We are bringing you some atmosphere from our workshop today: fabrics being cut, foams carefully shaped, pieces sewn together, plenty of pulling and stapling, and then the final fine-tuning to get everything just right.

The banquette will come together in three sections, each one carefully built and upholstered before being transported and assembled on site.

It’s going to be wrapped in a soft dark rust-brown fabric, adding the perfect balance of warmth and depth to the space.

Projects like this are always a bit thrilling. Big scale, lots of fabric, and the satisfying moment when something enormous starts to take shape.

Stay with us for the reveal of the final banquette!

How cute is this? The reveal of our handmade aprons is here, along with the entire behind-the-scenes.

From blank cloth to finished colourful aprons, screen printed by the Polly Granville team, Polly and Koni, using Christopher Farr patterns. We started with colour experiments, paint buckets and squeegees and finished with imperfect edges, plenty of laughter and just enough muscle to get everything right.

Seeing how designs come to life by hand was so inspiring. Thanks for opening your doors and showing us how the print fabrics we admire are made.

Watch the process and tell us what you think of our aprons.