We’ve got it covered! Upholstery workshops at City College Peterborough

[prev]… the course does cover a huge range. But if it’s a period piece, it is restored traditionally, using traditional materials. That’s something I’m very particular about.’ She has, in the past, had pieces 150 years old that have been lovingly restored. ‘But every piece is interesting in its own way,’ she insists. ‘Someone might bring in an old wing armchair – something that might be thought a bit old fashioned – and put a modern fabric on it, a check, or bold stripe, and it just looks completely different. Many times I’ve had people who have rescued something from a skip… And it’s been fabulous at the end.’ Essentially, as long as the frame is sound, something can be done with it.

‘A fabulous look – the sort of style you see in glossy magazines, where it would cost an awful lot more than it’s cost her!’

‘At the moment,’ says Sue, ‘someone is working on a sofa that she paid £15 for in a second-hand shop, which didn’t look anything at all. Just a wooden frame, wooden arms and upholstered back and seat. She rubbed it down, left the beechwood exposed rather than painting it, and has now done it in a gorgeous contemporary linen in bright colours, and buttoned it with different coloured buttons that we’ve covered with all different coloured fabrics. A fabulous look – the sort of style you see in glossy magazines, where it would cost an awful lot more than it’s cost her!’

The sessions runs by Sue and fellow upholstery tutor Linda Cree are informal – workshops, rather than classes – and while that might suggest the need to be armed with a whole battery of practical skills, Sue insists that no special experience is needed. ‘Everyone who comes, almost without exception, has never done anything like this before. But I don’t think anyone has come into the class and not been amazed and inspired at what you can do.’

City College Peterborough runs a number of daytime and evening upholstery courses, with a one-day Saturday course on 17 May. To find out more about these and the wide range of other courses available visit www.citycollegepeterborough.ac.uk, phone (01733) 761361, email admin@citycollegepeterborough or pop into the College in Brook Street.