To be Sat in Green: Voluptuous Velvet

If you've ever watched Gone With the Wind or seen the Carol Burnett sketch about it, you'll probably remember the scene when down-on-her-luck Scarlett O'Hara descended the staircase in a magnificent green velvet dress that was made from the salvaged drapes of her plantation home, Tara. She may have been war-weary and hungry, but that green velvet looked resplendent on her. I've always craved a green velvet sofa. There's something so bohemian, yet luxurious about it. That lustrous sheen. It could look totally at home in a Brooklyn loft apartment, a Spanish-influenced Florida home near the beach or in an 80s contemporary in Dublin, NH. That dramatic green seems so shocking, and yet earthy at the same time. Clearly, I'm not the only one who admires a green velvet sofa; an online search produced tons for sale, from vintage couches to brand new styles at every price point. A big temptation is to buy an ornate antique sofa and have it reupholstered. If you've already got a vintage Victorian sofa you love, then go for it. Prepare to spend some money. I've written before about the upholstery class I took a few years back. Well, that wingback chair has been relegated to the basement as a cat chair—its new upholstery a lost dream of mine. Upholstery is hard work and it costs more than you usually think it will, though with every penny of it being earned. If you don't have your heart set on a particular sentimental antique sofa, I say, just buy new. According to The History of Silk Velvet, an uncredited piece at www.holisticsilk.com, velvet is the fabric of royalty. Historians believe the fabric originated in either China or Egypt (one scrap of velvet found in China was dated to 400 BC). Originally, it was all produced using silk and due to the complexity of manufacturing it, only the very wealthy could afford velvet, that is, mostly royalty. Velvet is woven on specialty looms that puts together two sheets of backing material between which the finest thread is woven back and forth between the two and then cut apart into two pieces of fabric, both having the dense pile we glide our fingertips over. An incredibly laborious process, velvet-making was quite expensive and out of the common person's reach until much later when industrial power looms could produce it rapidly. Eventually velvet began being traded in Europe via the Silk Road. Once Europe began velvet production, Italy took the lead and expanded materials used to include cotton, linen and wool. Today you can also find velvets made from synthetics and rayon. In our old Victorian on Court St. in Keene, I had one of our borders sew red velvet drapes for the drawing room (our primary living room). Experienced in theater costuming, he had his own sewing machine and we traded rent for drape production. I bought the gorgeous red rayon velvet at Jo-Ann's, using one of their fabulous (and infamous) 50% off coupons. Even with the savings, we needed yards and yards of it; so, it was then nice to have the production of them traded off for a room rental. To finish the drapes, I used brass curtain rings with clips. That way, if you wanted to get really dramatic, you could just fling those heavy drapes open and let the sunshine in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, all the while singing along to Bobby Vinton's classic, Blue Velvet.