27 May Texture Tuesday – Cut Velvet Memories!

NOTE: I would like to dedicate this week’s #TextureTuesday to all the families across Texas that have greatly suffered from the severe flooding over Memorial Day weekend. Precious lives, homes, and even family heirlooms were lost. But amidst all this tragedy, I heard one heartwarming story tonight about a family’s treasure box with all their mementos seemingly lost forever, only to be found 15 miles away and returned to them completely intact. As rain is still in our forecast, please keep Texas in your thoughts and, if you can, please DONATE, thank you! Now for a little distraction with beautiful textiles on #TextureTuesday..

Nothing sends me into orbit like an ultra-soft cut velvet!  I love the rich colors and the cut out part – like “velvety furrows” my husband announces. There is just something so sumptuously textural about cut velvets that the touch thrills me to no end….especially if they’re super soft like the one above.

I think it goes back to a chair and ottoman my mother sat in. It was her chair, and as a child I would run my fingers through the spaces as if they were roads or pathways to another place (I know you know what I’m talking about).

Cut velvets give a child something to do while they’re sitting there (and the adults are talking)  –  like a world of it’s own, a maze, where you run your finger through it, all the while dreaming of a new bicycle or some far away land. There is something magical about it all!

Thankfully I still have the chair.  I’ve never let go of the really good quality furniture my family had, as it’s so rock solid.  And frankly, for me, there are memories tied up into family furniture. Some people don’t care about heirlooms, but I’m not one of those. I place a lot of value on furnishings passed down from one generation to the next. So I have a wing back chair, a wing back love seat and my mother’s chair and ottoman (and many of my grandmother’s pieces too!) and I guess by now they’re all family heirlooms.

At the time, I hated the fabric my mother selected for it! It seemed so dated in the 70’s, but today it would be utterly divine.  It was a cream silk background with shades of gorgeous orange and gold cut velvet.  In fact, I’ve been searching high and low for a vintage one just like it.

I have a vast collection of vintage French cut velvets that are gorgeous, but none are doing the trick for me. I’ve been on the hunt for a cut velvet to bring my mother’s chair and ottoman back to it’s full glory. Because you see, in my last remodel, 16 years ago, I got it reupholstered in this ghastly floral below.

See how everything matches!?! Eeeeh Gods!!  (But there’s a peek of the vintage blue velvet, nail-head tuxedo sofa, off to the left, that is a focal point to our living room remodel yet to come!) Yes, I was all “matchy-matchy” back then and now I just really can’t stand most florals.  It has to be a Fortuny, a Robert Allen, or a Schumacher floral to really excite me. And this one on the chair right now has absolutely NO luxurious feel at all.

And if I’m really baring my soul here…I might as well confess that I even took out all the feather and down from the cushions (cause I thought them too floppy…lol!) and made them foam. I know….I know….I feel terrible about it!!  And I’ve learned my lesson since then – you never mess with a good thing. So, I want to make it like it was. A beautiful feather and down club chair and ottoman with over-the-top gorgeous cut velvet on it!

So I’m on the hunt folks!! Please enjoy some beautiful cut velvets that Katherine at locally-owned Bolt Fabrics dug out for me during my 15 minute creative reprieve from shuttling my girls to and fro last week while my husband David was out of town. The more I told Katherine about what I was looking for, the deeper she dug to find beautiful cut velvets for me to look at.

Then, she brought out the luxury brand Robert Allen and I was smitten.  It’s funny, but when you feel a really high quality, top of the line textile, it’s like you can never go back.  The way textiles feel is so important to me!

I’m still on the hunt for that perfect cut velvet. Till then, wish me luck! XO PG

NOTE: This post is not sponsored by any textile company or fabric store. All images and words are my own.