Hypothetically speaking..

I started to write a post detailing the joys of having Little Miss Sulky in the classroom, and how she's managing to infuriate some of us with her antics, but then I thought that perhaps it might be too close to slanderous, and decided against it. Suffice it to say, I have not worked with somebody quite so ... special... for a very long time.

But, Gentle Readers, I'm not letting her bother me. I'm still having a good time cutting, stapling, nailing (whoo hoo, yesterday we got the big guns out to use on our Slipper Chairs), pulling said nails out, band-sawing, sanding and, yes, even sweeping the floor. Pretty exciting stuff. Although I was a bit frustrated with our lovely teacher Mr G because although I told him I already knew how to use a band-saw and a belt sander, he still took away one half of my bits [so to speak] and did them himself to demonstrate what I already knew. I guess I need to be more forceful when explaining to him that I learnt how to use those tools in our garage, when I was somewhere between 12 & 17.


Anyway, the back of the chair now has rails, I still have all my fingers, and I'm not too bothered by the fact that I got the positioning of the rails completely wrong and had to remove the nails with two huge screwdrivers (used for leverage) and re-do it. Hah!


However, yesterday was not quite so much fun. probably the worst day I've had so far... and it's all to do with flock. Flock is defined as "A soft material for stuffing cushions, quilts, and other soft furnishings, made of wool refuse or torn-up cloth". Yes, well, it is. But it also has the very annoying quality of being huge. Here's a picture of how we started out, after finishing off the stringing of the springs:

These wicker baskets are about a metre/3.28 feet long, and about 50cm/1.6 feet wide.  They're not particularly heavy, but they hold heaps of flock... and half a basket of this stuff goes into each footstool:

And then you have to pound it down, and pound it, and pound it, and stretch the calico (and remember! Calico has no stretch!), and pound it, and I could go on and on, but I won't - my hands are still sore from all the stretching, and my elbows are sore from the pulling, but this is what the almost finished thing looks like:

See all the holes in the calico?  That's from the constant undoing of the staples as you restretch it.  Gah.  When this was taken, all I had left to do is the corners.  Once I'd done those, it became ready for covering, which I'm hoping to do on Monday.  I've chosen this:

because I've decided to keep it.  I wasn't going to keep it at all, but then I thought... there's so much more work in this one than there was in the foam-topped one (for work, read "sweat, tears and swearing"), I should cover it in something nice & keep it.   The other one is going off to a good home at Mr Golightly's younger sister's house.

And now, Gentle Readers, I must get clean, dressed, respectable.  We're off to the 21st Birthday (barefoot bowls, whoohoo!) this afternoon of the son of one of Mr Golightly's oldest friends, and I have made a commitment to the Peppermint Penguin that I will go & see the man at Pittwater Upholstery to talk about job options... and on that front, Miss Natalie had a brainwave, but I need to talk to Miss Cathy about that first.

Secret Squirrel and more, then, later!

Ciao!