Curb Collective Update

As our regular followers will know, last year nearly 20 students graduated from Reuse Repair Recycle Furniture - A partnership with TAFENSW Outreach and The Bower designed to teach skills to the local community.This year many of those students are continuing their study, workshopping ideas and business models to build a social enterprise that suits them. They also meet weekly to continue to hone their repair skills, working on a number of chairs and small foot stools in need of reuse and repair love.

Last week the group completed their first commission. Karen's chair was a street find - she saw the potential but didn't find the time to restore it herself (Sound familiar?!). Curb Collective also saw the potential for a contemporary new look for the piece and set to work stripping the yellow paint and upholstering the seat.
Although they bought fabric to complete the job, the group was keen to stick to The Bower's waste not ethos, and selected a panel of discontinued designer fabric from a remnant warehouse.

We couldn't be more excited to see what the group will come up with next, or how they will evolve, so stay tuned!

If you have a question, a query or a commission for Curb Collective send email to curbcollective@bower.org.au.

- Maaike

Graduation Night at Shed 107

Tuesday was a long day for Curb Collective! We rushed faster than ever to finish all our chairs in time for the graduation night on Tuesday evening and for the Finders Keepers market this weekend.

Sam and I sanded and painted two dining chairs on which we will put the butterfly cushions the group made last semester. You could feel our stress of not finishing on time, but we made it! Stuart and Mick finished another dining chair with the help of Maaike and Jeanette - one of the brightest of our collection: it's orange and red!

Miki and Dominique tried as hard as they could to finish the pair of yellow and pink chairs started at the Newtown festival, but unfortunately they would have needed more time as they refused to sacrifice quality to rapidity... You'll therefore be able to see them next term! They will be great as first pieces of the new collection!

Some students stayed after the class to set up everything for the Graduation Night. We were hugely proud and excited: our furniture looks so different when they are on platforms!

A big BRAVO to Maaike and Richard who created an amazing screen out of wooden doors found at The Bower, where they displayed pictures of the transformation of the furniture. This new way to raise awareness about reuse impressed everybody, and our only problem with it will be to prevent people from buying it at the market!

The Graduation Night was a great success. 5 different courses from TAFE Outreach graduated, among them our Shed neighbours WEAVE's construction and repair students who did an amazing job patching, fixing, organising and painting the shed and Hobo Gro who create vertical gardens in reused palettes, and, of course, Curb Collective!

And guess what? We already sold 5 pieces of furniture!!! So come as soon as you can to the Finders Keepers market on Friday and Saturday if you want to admire/buy our work, the furniture won't stay there for a long time!

 - Claire M -

The Home Stretch

With only 3 more classes before Curb collective graduate and show off their debut collection at Finders Keepers, there was no messing around this week!

Pete got stuck into a second coat of choc-walnut stain on the dining suite. Mark elected to start a brand new project, taking on the challenge of the 'mummy chairs' it took 4 hours for Mark, Sam and Sam to strip just one of these uglies back to basics. They won't be recogniseable when the group are finished with them though!

Jeanette and Jane chose a lovely red jaquard for an occasional chair - all Jeanette's research on upholstery is obviously paying off!

Fiona got a lesson in measuring and mitring timber from Cathy, using a length of old skirting board that provided just the right channel for her latest project - a perspex topped coffee table.

 Speaking of tables, This table was donated to The Bower with the top raw and unfinished. We took it to Curb Collective to see what they could do.

In between classes, Lesley tightened the legs and applied widths of walnut laminate to the top, she added a few coats of diluted timber stain to make the top match the legs and now it's ready for resale!

Finished with the table, Lesley joined Min and our newest collectee Tanh; applying the patchwork of fabric swatches to the plantation chair. The group learned how to cut templates on the fly, to fold, roll, niggle and tweak until the edges can be tidily tacked into place.

Next week we'll put the back on and our two big upholstery projects will be complete!

Miki and Claire were determined to finish their duck egg blue timber arm chair - but not at the expense of perfection! The pair worked very hard to match their stripes and make their final stitches invisible.

We stayed back for 20 minutes in the end, so determined were we to finish the chair!And voila!

 You can't appreciate the delicate blue/lemon stripe on the back of this chair from a photo - you'll have to come and see us at finders keepers. Here's a peek at other things you'll see if you stop by the Curb Collective stall on the 2nd or 3rd of December;

 

All proceeds from the sale of restored items will restock our shelves with paint, glue, laquer, needles and thread so we can keep flying the reuse flag in the city of Sydney.

Newtown Festival 2011

The sun was shining this Sunday for the 75,000 visitors of the Newtown festival!

Curbside Collective were there, right in the middle of the Local Vocal Village, easily visible thanks to the amazing tent built out of reused materials picked up at The Bower by John, our chairman of the Board: the structure was made out of palettes and the top out of an advertising banner which provided shade to everyone. A big thanks again from everybody, John!

Fiona and Emmanuel ran workshops during all day to show people what Curb Collective do at 107, seconded by Amanda, Cathy, Jeanette, Peter and Lesley who came to give them a hand at various stages throughout the day. We worked on an occasional chair collected weeks ago by The Bower and on a beautiful white rocking chair found by Fiona... on her way to the festival!

The Curbside Collective spirit has definitely gotten under her skin!

What's more, people were welcomed to bring their own pieces of furniture to learn one or two tricks on them. Many thanks to the lady who brought us 'thank you' chocolates, such a lovely surprise!

In front of the stall, John was building an impressive sculpture out of dozens of little bits of woods found in the backyard of The Bower, with the aim of building a huge arch for the ARC. Come to admire it, it's in front of The Bower at the moment!

It was a very busy day for each of us. We talked to a lot of people and were positively impressed by the number of signatureson our mailing-list  from people wanting to be kept in touch with the activities of Curbside Collective. If you forgot to write your name down, it's not too late! Just send an email to gm@bower.org.au and we'll add you to it!

- Claire M

Fabric Fantasies - Week 12

Time is a funny thing. It feels like we're only just getting started, but we're already on the home stretch to exhibition. By the end of next week we should have most of our chairs finished.

Miki and Fiona are working on a 50's timber arm chair. Last week Miki found a lovely blue and lemon stripe she wanted to use, but there wasn't enough to cover the whole chair. We were fortunate to find some new duck egg blue linen to help our reuse fabric stretch the distance. It's hard to believe but this will be finished next week, Timber arms and all!

Speaking of timber, Sam and Jeanette got stuck into the choc-walnut stain, giving our ever-growing dining suite a brand new look. 5 of these chairs have Street banner seats ready to go, and a very similar looking pair have elegant neutral seats. We're waiting till that stain is totally dry before we put the seats in place though!

Min & Leslie started a sample swatch patchwork for the timber plantation chair. In their absence, Emmanuel chipped in, completing a third section of patchwork for the outer back of the chair. Next week this will all suddenly be finished too!

And finally, we attached and covered the backs of some chairs, an d learned about using hot-glue-guns (scary stuff around fine silks!) to apply decorative trim so the backs of our parisian triplets could be completed.

There are other projects in the pipe line - a small table that Leslie is going to laminate, a pair of steel table legs sprayed up and attached to a new (recycled) timber top, and a bedside unit or two - proving we can break the chair mold!!

Can't wait for next week?! Stop by The Newtown Festival and say hi to Curb Collective and The Bower This Sunday 10-4

-Maaike

Business Time!

Last week we stood back and took a furniture count - We've started no less than TWENTY FIVE pieces in 9 weeks. Now we're at the business end of the semester, we've split into smaller working parties, working in twos and threes to determine the final look of each chair.

Miki finished her pair danes with a bedspread akin to woven sunshine from Pollyanna's own collection. I like to think of these as a pair of kitsch-en chairs. They remind me of kitten heels and martinis and Summer - all good things!*

*Good things outside of a workshop environment. Inside, we like steel caps and fruit cup cordial with our Summer.

Mark has been working patiently on his own black velvet glamour piece. We're waiting for diamante studs to arrive from China to finish off his elegant concept - fingers crossed they come for next week!

Min and Leslie found themselves responsible for a plantation chair that has done the rounds, so to speak. The girls began the piece late last Semester, then Fiona and Anthony have pitched, Stuart and Mick helped spring it, Claire and Glen padded it, and someone else again did the linseed oil!

Min took some time to sew up a lovely neutral patchwork for the final upholstery during the week.

Peter put a few coats on his ply stool and sanded down the chrome legs - You'd never know it used to be a timber laminate chair!

Cathy was hard at work helping all of us redowel, drill, clamp and sand as necessary, and even took the time to show us a little bit of home maintenance - the art of masonry drilling and plugging is a very useful one to know!

All of us are super excited as we were accepted in to The Finders Keepers Market.
Not only is it one of the most selective markets in Sydney, it draws a HUGE crowd, allowing us to promote our Reuse & Repair ethos to plenty of customers, just in time to inform their christmas shopping.

More info on that coming soon!

- Maaike

A little bit fancy

Yesterday we took some fancy photos of the group's work so far as part of the Redfern TAFE/Bower Project

The work so far has been so great we wanted to get something nice for the group, so we went to visit our friends at Bev's Remnant House who gave us great prices on some beautiful remnants we can piece together - fitting in nicely with our belief in lifecycle extension wherever possible! You can see some of those pieces below. Will they end up on the plantation chair? We'll have to wait and see what each working group decides!

We're gearing up towards a final exhibition/end of year extravaganza in late November/early December - Stay tuned!

Reuse Fabric Upholstery

107 : the place where the sun shines even when it’s raining outside!

Yesterday, Maaike started the course with a lesson: Phil had brought seats from home, and Maaike took this opportunity to teach us how to cover a seat cushion with some striped fabric, to show us how to watch out for pattern distortion. The secret? To smooth the cloth carefully, without pulling too much on it, and to take one's time, not hesitating to reposition staples.

To finish the cushion properly, we learnt how to put a dust cover under it to avoid the dirt from going in the chair. 

It was then time to take care of a chair we've all had a hand on to finalise it. The fabric chosen was some black velvet, and the tricky part was to fix it getting around its legs on the corners. It was not easy as we had to cover all the Dacron, but to leave the wood apparent. After having cut the excess of fabric, we put tackles on it so that it doesn’t move, and then we sew the two pieces of fabric with a curved needle. 

After that, each of us went on to other projects. Look at the armchair I filled with Glen: we first put coconut fibre until we cannot feel the springs anymore, then some flock to smooth it, and finally we covered everything with some Dacron to suppress the last bumps.

It was about time for the final test: sitting on it!

 
After the habitual feast, Miki and Peter went on with the gorgeous sunny yellow chairs we had started last week, using the curved needle tips Maaike had just taught us.

HURRAY! One of them is almost finished! 

With the black velvet one and the red stalls painted last week, our efforts start to bear fruits and we are prouder than ever of our projects!

 

- Claire M