About Us
The Team
Our open and free-flowing work environment allows us to harness the best of expert guidance and individual flair. Promoting input through honest and considerate discussion, we are focused on driving adaptability and the development of a wide array of skills within our team.
needle rock
Becoming a full member of The Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMUSF) in 2019, Needle Rock continues to push the envelope in terms of quality, style and design.
Ali – Head honcho and Creative Director, Ali is trained in professional design of both traditional and modern upholstery by the AMUSF. Ali loves to push the bounderies when it comes to creative upholstery, mixing different colours, styles and textures that shouldn’t work – but somehow do. For a consultation to design your upholstered statement piece, contact Needle Rock and ask directly for Ali.
Ali can often be found walking the Welsh countryside with her 2 Airedale Terriers, Maeve ‘bear’ & Rosco ‘beans’. She also loves growing growing her own veg and traveling to far flung places.
Jason started his role at Needle Rock in a Kickstart position – a 6 month role funded by WS – working across both sewing machinist & upholstery disciplines. He works alongside Rosie on the sewing machines and Ann on the Workbenches. Jason is now on an apprenticeship at Needle Rock and has recently completed his first PK wingback armchair, a complex job with an exceptional result.
Jason can often be found on the beaches in Aber, having bonfires with friends and attending local Rock Society events.
Rosie started her journey at Needle Rock working one day a week. She is now on an apprenticeship and is the main sewing machinist wihtin the Needle Rock fold. Rosie’s skills are improving all the time, with Ali bringing in more & more complex machining tasks. Rosie is also a dab-hand fixing the many industrial machines in the workshop. More recently, she has become acquainted with the upholtery tack hammer – and can be found tap, tap, tapping away at any spare opportunity.
In her spare time, rosie is an online gamer and is often found designing builds & creating stories within Minecraft – interacting with fellow gamers across the globe.
The Workshop
Cradled in a verdant green fold of the Welsh countryside surrounded by burbling streams, sheep-grazed pastures and piebald (moo) cows, our workshop sits in an ancient stone barn – complete with slit windows and a winding gear harking back to the bygone age of steam.
Visitors often make comparisons the popular BBC TV series ‘The Repair Shop’. Also being set in an old barn in open countryside, life is restored to a dazzling diversity of cherished family heirlooms, with a familiar level of care and sympathy to our own.
The Name
The ‘Gulls Needle’, a rocky pillar on that stood on our local beach in Llanrhystud, serves as inspiration for our partial namesake. Long since having washed away, it is pictured here as it stood 117 years ago.
This, along with ties to traditional upholstery and the dynamic nature of both our work and the Welsh coastline – form the identity that is “Needle Rock“.
Needle Rock Ltd. is registered in England & Wales. Company registration number: 08457328
Registered office: Charberlee, Pengarreg, Llanrhystud, Ceredigion, SY23 5DH
Designed by HowardAdair.co.uk