Mary's Chairs

Mary founded her upholstery workshop in 2015 at the Sylva Foundation's Wood Centre in Oxfordshire, having trained at the Traditional Upholstery Workshop in Carmarthenshire. She moved the business to Skye in June 2023 and built a new workshop at Park Cottage in Duisdale Beag, on the Sleat peninsula, with room for three students at a time and a view over the bay. Classes cover modern and traditional upholstery, sewing, lampshade-making and other fabric crafts, offered as single weekend workshops, week-long courses or regular weekly sessions. Christine, who trained alongside Mary and qualified in 2016, now works from Oxfordshire but returns to Skye as a visiting tutor. Students have restored more than 250 chairs between them, from small footstools to full chaise longues, since the workshop began.