upholstering a footstool - workshop with Sue Macnab - 22/10/25

On 22 October 2025, we had the pleasure of welcoming Sue Macnab, upholsterer, who taught us how to upholster a footstool from scratch, or renovate an old one. The first step was sticking a thick piece of foam to the wooden or plywood base to hold it in place. This was then covered by a piece of wadding, then by a larger piece of Calico cotton, which was tightened and held in place on the underside of the wood with tacks on all 4 sides, but leaving the corners free. The cotton was then further tightened and retacked to create a smooth, rounded padded surface. With the tacks only lightly hammered in, it was easy to remove and reposition them. Then, once the tension was perfect, the corners were folded neatly and tacked into place before using a staple gun to fix everything down, removing the tacks we went. We then added our upholstery fabric, using the same process as for the Calico cotton, to first tack it in place, retighten, fold the corners and finally using the staple gun to hold everything in place. The underside of the stool was then covered with another fabric, stapling the folded in edges in place with a staple gun. Finally we added the legs and all our footstools were done! They were all different and equally stunning. Thank you to Sue for a fantastic class where we not only learned a lot, but amazingly all managed to finish! And we even got a bit of an upper body workout in the process!