Cherry Dobson - The Upholstery Bible

This book is a complete course in upholstering furniture, including tooling up, selecting stuffings and outer textiles, techniques and cutting plans.

Starting with the basic tools, this section gives an overview of the equipment youll need, including springs, stuffings and textiles.

Most of the techniques are demonstrated on chairs but the same principles can be applied to larger pieces of furniture in need of upholstery.

This part identifies what lies beneath the skin of different types of furniture. No two pieces of furniture are identical: use this section as a guide to plan how to measure your project and how to cut fabric to minimize the quantity you have to buy. In many cases, cutting plans are provided for both plain and patterned fabric.

UPHOLSTERERS ORDER OF WORK

Find a piece of furniture to upholster. If you are a beginner choose something simple, such as a chair with a drop-in seat.

Strip the furniture (), making a note of the materials that have been used and how they were applied.

Apply the webbing () to create a platform for the stuffings.

Check the condition of the springs and either reuse or replace them ().

Add hessian to cover the springs ().

Apply the first layer of stuffing ().

Apply a stitched edge for shape retention ().

Apply a second stuffing of hair ().

Measure and cut the new coverings and apply ().

Add buttoning if required ().

Add the finishing touches, such as piping, braid, gimp and studs ().

Finish the piece with lining underneath the chair to conceal the workings of the upholstery ().

Traditional methods of upholstery are still used today despite the invention of synthetic fibres. Upholstery is a skilled craft requiring judgement and dexterity and every piece of furniture needs to be approached differently. The stuffing is built up gradually following the contours of the frame and the upholsterer has to judge whether the shape and height look and feel right.

An ornate French armchair, from the reign of Louis XVI. With upholstered seat, back and arm rests. This is the work of a famous Paris-based master upholsterer called Georges Jacob (17391814).

Early upholstery was rudimentary. Girthweb the type of webbing used for making saddle girths was woven across the frame and tacked at the edges. In France it was close-woven, but elsewhere there were large gaps between the girths. The webbing was then covered with a piece of hessian or coarse sackcloth and some form of padding was piled on, either feathers, wool, animal hair or vegetable matter such as straw, chaff, rushes or dried grasses and leaves. Occasionally the padding was roughly secured with bridle ties before the top cover was nailed on. The backs of chairs were usually stuffed with washed and curled real hair, which was more expensive, stitched onto a linen or canvas backing. After about 1660 real hair was used to a much greater extent and the front and sometimes the sides of the seats, which received the greatest wear, were strengthened with an extra band of stuffing sewn into a roll of hessian or canvas. Additional layers of fabric, usually wadding or linen, were placed between the real hair and the top cover to prevent the hair from working its way through the fine fabric above. Some chairs had loose cushions filled with down or feathers.