Covering everything from from furniture restoration to wallpaper printing, workshops and evening classes are a great way to learn the skills you need to make a stylish home, writes ALANNA GALLAGHER
Ruth Shaw, a fine-art graduate from NCAD who went on to study interiors at Griffith College, runs The Craft Lounge with her business partner Katie Townend, a textiles and embroidery designer who works under the label Eliza Vale. They offer Leinster-based classes and workshops, including lessons in how to cover a lampshade and machine embroidery classes where you learn how to decorate place mats, a table runner or a wall hanging.
Their screen-printing class allows you to print your own image on to anything up to A3 size, and they also run a wallpaper printing class in which you block print one roll of paper. The class costs €110.
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OLD TRICKS
Nigel Barnes is a furniture restorer who runs antique restoration weekend workshops with his partner, Pepie O’Sullivan, from their home at Clooneenagh House, Kilrush, Co Clare. They take up to five students per weekend and will show you everything from French polishing to woodwork and upholstery. You bring the piece of furniture you want to restore with you and they show you how. It costs €175 and includes lunch on both days. You can stay onsite for €30 per night for BB and evening meal. The weekends will run in September and October.
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BURN BABY BURN
Craft Lounge offers a soy candle making class, €35, a great idea for anyone planning to give home-made gifts this Christmas. You can fill tea cups and saucer sets, glass tumblers or jam jars. You bring your own receptacles to the class. The wax doesn’t damage the containers.
FINE PRINT
Sisters Joanna and Stephanie Sloan run screen printing classes from their Wicklow studio, The Old Rectory. Joanna used to run an interior design business, Stephanie worked as a print designer in the textile and fashion industry. Their core business is an organic cotton clothing and accessories collection for children, which is stocked in Avoca and boutiques including Pearl on Dublin’s South King Street and Wooden Heart in Galway. At a one-day session you can print a ready-made organic cotton cushion-cover, wall poster or set of six napkins. The workshops cost €95 and run from 10am to 4pm on September 15th, October 17th and November 9th.
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TOOL'S PARADISE
A really practical class is DIY for Women, a course run by Dún Laoghaire College of Further Education. The course covers subjects such as an introduction to power tools, shelving, plastering, insulating, plumbing repairs, wallpaper hanging, painting, tiling and flooring. The 10-week course is held on Tuesdays from 5.45pm to 7.45pm starting September 21st and costs €160. Dlcfe.ie
SEW FAR SEW GOOD
At the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun, classes run by fashion designers and technicians include a cushion-making workshop using recycled textiles on September 25th. This costs €45, materials are provided and you get to make and take home two cushions on the night. They also offer a day-long quilting seminar on October 13th. It costs €90.
Fashion designer turned educator Maebh Walsh holds one-day introduction to curtain-making at her Stillorgan studio, It's Sew Easy. You learn how to take measurements, and how to line and interline a French pleat-style sample curtain. The class runs Saturdays and includes all fabrics (€135). Seweasy.ie
