Upholstery Workshops with Carla Pyle

Make new friends and take home upholstery skills that will last a lifetime – sign up for a weekend workshop in Livingston, Montana!

New workshops for 2020:

Winter Warmer Weekend Upholstery Workshop.  Bring your chair, roll up your sleeves and prepare to be warmed! Join us in a weekend of making, learning & sharing in good company. Then carry your experience home in the form of your own newly upholstered (& transformed) chair. Feb 22-23, 2020.

Saturday Boxed Cushion Workshop – Learn how to build a welted, zippered box cushion for a sofa, chair, or even a stagecoach! Save the date: March 28, 2020 Details coming in January!

Springtime in the Rockies – Weekend Upholstery Workshop. The ‘hope’ is for spring weather, though we who live in the Rockies know there is no predicting the weather! This workshop is scheduled to follow the same format as the Winter Warmer Workshop (2-day intensive), with a possible change-up depending on where student skill and interest lies. If there is sufficient demand for a more advanced course, and students have completed a previous course with Carla or another instructor, we’ll consider extending this to a 3-day intensive. Save the dates: Apr 25-26 or April 24-26, 2020. Contact Carla to ‘cast your vote’ for either the beginner level or a more advanced level workshop.

Sign up for the mailing list to receive all future class schedules & updates.

Learn creative ways to repurpose instead of throwing stuff away!

Go Wild! Chair Workshop This is an easy class to set up at your local Maker Space. Go wild and explore your creative muse! Energize your work with an infusion of creativity – brainstorming & idea-sharing with others in the class. Students have commented on the powerful feeling of being swept up in the collaborative energy of the workspace!

Got a group of friends who want to do a class around a theme, celebration, or just want to CREATE some wild chairs together? Contact Carla to schedule a custom class tailored to your group’s theme! Workshops in Livingston, Montana or at your location (additional travel charge will apply).

a simple chair + your creative vision = a unique maker’s story

What’s your Uphol-story? Whether your particular chair means the world to you or you’re just looking for a way to not throw it away here’s your chance to give that piece of your life a new story.

Share your story:

Choose a specific project and answer these two questions, and be sure to include ‘my uphol-story’ in the subject line:

1. What makes your chair special to you?
2. How do you think your story can inspire others to join the upholstery maker movement?

Share in the comments below, and you may be chosen to have your project featured in an upcoming video.

We love participating in projects that benefit our thriving art community here in Livingston, Montana, and we’re always excited to meet new people, and create something together for everyone to enjoy! We organized the Funky 50s Sofa project to benefit The Shane Center for the Arts. Fifteen volunteers participated in our series of free workshops over the course of several months – a collaborative effort that everyone can be proud of.

Got a project you’d like us to consider? Let us know in the comments below!

Our Mission is to share the knowledge and skills you need to complete your own upholstery project. We believe that transformation of the current wasteful practices in the furniture industry begins with empowering people at the local level. And yes. We know that acquiring the tools and skills to do this may not be an easy step for many of you who are ‘making’ at home.

We want to see upholstery become a core offering in maker spaces around the country and the world. Here in Livingston, Montana we’re located far from a large population center, and have no established maker spaces nearby that can accommodate regularly scheduled upholstery workshops. For now, our local workshops and community events are the stand-in for a maker space. Carla continues to travel to learn more about what’s happening in other parts of the world. She recently traveled to NIMBY in Oakland, CA to conduct an informal workshop.

We’re excited to be building a comprehensive online educational resource with this website. We hope that our videos & free downloads will help you learn upholstery and make healthy furniture on your own.

Join NaturalUpholstery.com’s mailing list to receive our monthly newsletter with reupholstery tips, creative inspiration, and resources for using natural, non-toxic materials for upholstery.