Upholstering A Stool

 

When 'im outdoors was looking for an upholster earlier in the year, we found one nearby and I couldn't help but notice she was also running courses, one of which caught my eye - a one day workshop on how to upholster a stool.

So this weekend I visited The Upholstery Yard to see what I could learn.

 

We started off with a basic Ikea wooden stool.  We would learn how to add padding (not foam) and then cover it - how hard could it be!  

 

First we attached hessian to the top of the stool.  With the hessian in place we used a massive scary mattrice needle to add loops to the hessian.  Into each loop we hooked coir until we couldn't see the wooden stool top or hessian and we had a big hairy mass.  

 

Once we'd worked all the lumps out we covered it with a wool and cotton wadding.  This had to be long enough to cover the coir all the way round without being so long it tucked under the wooden stool top.

 

At this point we stopped for lunch and Georgina showed us some of the things she'd made in the past and some of the projects her long term students are working on.  There was some very impressive work.

After lunch we started on the next part of the process.  Over the top of the wadding we placed a sheet of calico.  This was then wrapped round and tacked to the bottom of the wooden stool top.  We had to do this several times to get the tension we needed to keep everything in place.

 

With the calico stapled in place we then had to form the corners.  This was the hardest part of the whole workshop.  But it was worth the time to get it right.  And suddenly I had something that looked like a pillow!

 

On top of the calico we placed a sheet of wool felt, which is a natural fire retardent.  We stapled this in place too, then used glue on the corners so it didn't get too bulky.

 

Finally it was time for our fancy material.  I hadn't bought any with me, so chose some from Georgina's stash - a pretty green tweed.  We did much the same we'd done with the calico here but being more careful with our corners as they would actually be on show!

 

With everything in place and the excess material cut away we put a piece of black bottom material over everything to give a neat finish, before screwing the wooden stool top to the wooden legs.

 

Suddenly I had a finished stool.  It was very satisfing to sit on it!

I am so pleased with how it turned out.  I love the material and I'm really pleased with the finish.  Looking at it now its hard to believe I did that.  And I've got a pretty good idea what I want to do with it too.  More on that later.

It was a great workshop with two other ladies and I learnt a lot.  My only complaint was that I ended up with very cold feet as we were in an old barn with a concrete floor.  I need warmer shoes!  Anyway it was a great use of a Saturday.