The following is a description of how a basic sprung seat is built up from the bare wood to the final piece.
If you are a beginner to upholstery you would want to bring along a
simple sprung chair. At the beginning of the week you will fill in any
holes left from previous upholstery, web and spring and prepare the
seat for the stuffing.
Once all the stuffing is on the chair and "fluffed up" it starts to look
like your teenage sons hair after a late night. But the good news is that this is not for long!...
Things start to resemble normality and you start to see the beginning of the shape of the chair.
The chair now needs regulating (moving the stuffing around under the hessian with a long needle-like tool to make sure there are no holes) and then stitching to finally bring the seat down to a firm, flat, base.
At this point a second stuffing is added and a thick cotton wadding (that compresses down to just a couple of millimetres!) is placed on top.
After the second stuffing and wadding you put on a strong calico and at this point you again check for any holes or dimples in the shape of the seat. Basically, what you see with the calico is what you will see with the top fabric so any flaws need sorting out now!
A poly wadding is placed over the calico to stop any friction and rubbing of the top fabric and then (drum roll...) the chair is ready for the final stage...
This is the moment when people new to upholstery start getting nervous. Up to now, any cutting errors are not too damaging: a piece of calico can be replaced without breaking the bank for example; the top fabric is somewhat more expensive or perhaps even the end of a line. Hands holding scissors start to shake!
However, it's easy enough to take a piece of scrap fabric and practice cutting around those pesky back legs until you are confident of the type of cut you need to do. And it's worth it in the end...
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