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You can learn how to do almost anything in New York City: acrobatics, robotics, singing and dancing, coding, sewing, knitting and crochet … and now you can learn how to make your own throw pillow worthy of a home goods store shelf.
In May, I took a pillow-making class with Ruti Wajnberg, the founder of Find the Thread, an upholstery company based in Brooklyn that specializes in bringing new life to the cushions of well-loved furniture. It doesn’t take long when talking with Wajnberg to see how much she loves upholstery and sharing her passion with others.
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“I love color and pattern, and I love keeping old things in the world but making them feel more modern and new,” she tells me before the class begins. “I think a lot of people are kind of craving that kind of tactile accomplishment, and so it’s fun for me at the end people are like ‘I made that!’”
The workshop, which takes about three hours at $115 per person, is a challenging but low-stakes, fun night out for friends looking to expand their skills (and pillow collection). Wajnberg provides wine and cheese as well as all the materials needed to craft the perfect project: fabric, zippers, synthetic down inserts and industrial-grade machines.
At the start of the four-person class, we each picked out two fabrics for our pillows from Find The Thread’s multicolored stash. We could choose whatever fabric we wanted based on the size of the pillow we wanted to make—either a big square pillow or a bolster-type pillow. I chose a thick woven yellow material for the back of my square pillow and a deep green, thinner material with a beautiful botanical print for the front.
Wajnberg then walked us through making the simple pattern for each throw pillow using a ruler and pencil, how to use the serger machine to keep our fabric ends from fraying and the sewing machine to fuse them together and how to add an “invisible zipper.”
I was the only one who had any sort of experience with a sewing machine in the class, but it wasn’t even necessary. Wajnberg patiently guided us through every step of using the machines, from lifting the foot to sewing around corners.
“I feel like anybody can do it,” she says. “You don’t need to know how to sew. It’s just a reminder that we can make beautiful things with our hands. I think a lot of us feel distance from that type of satisfaction. And I’ve seen firsthand how fun it is for people to hold something in their hands that they made and be like ‘I made this.’ So I want people to come here and like, get that feeling.”
I certainly did. When I look at my pillow, now perfectly adding a pop of color to my couch, I still feel a sense of pride. I can’t believe I made a pillow that looks like something I could’ve picked out at West Elm, except it’s custom-made and didn’t take any new materials to make.
That’s kind of what drew Wajnberg to upholstery. In her old life, she was a software developer who needed a creative outlet. After taking an upholstery class in the East Village, something clicked—and it quickly became an “intense hobby.” It wasn’t until after the pandemic and she had a child that Wajnberg realized she needed to leave tech and take on upholstery full-time. After working at an upholstery shop for custom furniture in Brooklyn for three years, she was ready to open her own with a focus on recovering heirlooms.
“There’s just something about making something I can hold that feels so much more fun than making something on a computer,” she says. “There’s just so much cheap furniture out there and we have so much old, nice furniture that could last forever that’s getting thrown away because it’s torn or stained. And that’s so unnecessary. So what I’m really trying to do is find things that are beloved, that have a history and a story that means something to you and help you save them and make them maybe fit more to your lifestyle and your style…and not your grandmother’s.”
You can sign up for Find The Thread’s monthly pillow-making class at findthethread.com. Watch our TikTok about the class below!
@timeoutnewyork Still dreaming of the pillow-making class we took at Find the Thread in Brooklyn ☁️💤 #nycthingstodo #nyc #nycclasses #foryou #brooklyn #upholstery #creative ♬ missedcalls (sped up) - Kudasaibeats & sped up