06/01/2026
🏆 Chair of the Year 2025
One of my biggest and most meaningful projects of 2025.
This very tired Parker Knoll rocking chair came to me carrying a lifetime of memories. Inherited from my client’s Great Aunt Janet, who lived near Rhossili Bay on the Gower Peninsula, it was deeply tied to lots of amazing family holidays by the sea.
After a lot of Google searching for refurbished rocking chairs, Lydia discovered my website. For reasons I still find slightly amusing, I seem to have become something of a specialist in rocking chairs — and she felt my work was the right fit for something so personal. She wanted this chair to become truly special.
The chair’s old lacquered varnish was badly marked and chipped so we made the bold decision to strip it right back and return the wood to a natural finish. Little did I know this would involve hours of hard, dusty, hand-aching work — but it was absolutely the right choice. I love how you can see the natural grain of the wood.
For inspiration, I was given a cushion from the room where the chair would live and asked to incorporate these colours. Lydia chose the main colour for the chair —beyond that, I was trusted with almost complete creative freedom. A privilege I never take lightly.
The surface design itself became a landscape. Using a combination of appliqué, machine and hand embroidery, I layered velvets, linen and wool to create depth and texture. Fabric paint was then used to add subtle highlights and movement, picking out the light on the sea, the warmth of the sand and the drama of the cliffs.
Inspired by the Gower’s landscape, light and sense of calm, this chair now holds both past and present — still rocking with memory, but ready for a new chapter.
This is why bespoke work matters.
