Reasons to be cheerful, part X

So, Gentle Readers, here we are less than two weeks away from my return to work, and by work I mean the paid kind, the unpaid kind not garnering any kind of recognition in the universe I inhabit... and I'm up at 4.44am.  Actually I woke up at 4.03am, but tried very hard to avoid getting up until something more closely resembling a decent hour, and failed.  Obviously.


So, is it linked?  Well, in the determinist view of the universe, probably not.  In some of the more esoteric views of the universe which are out there, probably.  I'm not really a fan of the 'everything happens for a reason' theory of life, because most of the time us poor saps never get to find out what the reason was, leaving us angry and frustrated.  That's why I can't do the whole 'organised religion' thingy, because the fundamental requirement of faith kind of leaves me cold.


Anyway, I have had two job interviews for my return to the August Institution, and on Wednesday, at the worst possible time, I have the final interview with the Head Kahuna herself.    Why is it the worst possible time, I hear you ask?  Well, Gentle Readers, I was planning on going to Upholstery School on Wednesday (which is not normally a day we attend) to finish the Slipper Chair.  I lost half a day yesterday to the Dentist (warning:  TMI Moment approaching:  acute periodontal infection), and I had planned to be there all day Wednesday to get the damn thing finished.  

Well.  The interview is from 3.30pm to 4.00pm on Wednesday afternoon, not in the conveniently located, only 10 minutes down the road, by car, Olympic Park.  Oh No.  The interview is In town.  So now I have to leave at 2.00pm, take a change of clothes, change, drive to the station carpark, get the train into town, walk up to the office, have the interview with probably the scariest woman on the planet after Angela Merkel, then do it all in reverse, wasting at least 3 hours of solid slipper-chair time.  


Let's hope I get the damn job after all that.  Do I really want it?  Well, no.  But it pays well, the hours shouldn't be too demanding, certainly not as demanding as the last time I worked there, and as I'm only going to be doing 4 days per week, how bad can it be? Hah. Famous last words.  I'll let you know.


Ciao!

Catching up with me, catching up with you...

My poor, loyal Gentle Readers.  I feel very bad that I've hardly posted at all in the past month, but the up- and downness of the internet has a lot to do with it.  It still isn't fixed, because we went to Perth for what was supposed to be five days, but ended up being six, as our fixation with volcanic ash flared up again, and stranded us.  And what has that to do with the router? Well, unless you keep on the case, the provider closes the ticket, and we have to start all over again.


I don't know whether to ramble on about being sick again, or the joys of dealing with Qantas - perhaps we'll start with the illness.  The sore throat turned into a chest infection, which I just left alone because, well, I'd already been to the doctor, hadn't I?  and I wasn't going to go again, because that would make me a hypochondriac, right?  Well, no.  I suffered on with great lumps of slime and a terrible cough that kept us both awake for about 10 days, nearly driving poor Mr Golightly to uxoricide.  Look it up, I had to!


Then, just when I was over it, we had to deal with linters, at upholstery school.  It's cotton fibre, not very far removed from the cotton boll, and so quite unrefined, and very dusty.  I started sneezing, and the next day I had a full blown sinus infection.  Co-incidence?  Maybe.  I don't attribute any significance to the chain of events, but rather, I'm blaming Miss Badhair, who has been really sick all term but insists on coming to class and giving it to us.


Anyway, the sinus infection (also unrelieved by a visit to the Doctor) came with me to Perth, home again, and is just fading into insignificance, thank the Ghoddess.  It made a significant contribution to my fading desire to blog, in that I was so tired I'd be falling into bed at 8.30pm, when normally I might spend an hour or so perusing my bloglist & composing endless witticisms to delight you all with.  Ahem.


Now, Qantas.  We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch our 12.20pm flight.  We checked in.  Mr Golightly printed his bag tag, I stood there looking slightly smug and superior, because I bought an electronic one some time ago with FFP*, (and so no more hard-to-apply bag tags for me), then we dumped our bags on the belt, whisked through check-in and sat down on the incredibly uncomfortable chairs they have in Perth airport, to wait.  At 12.40 (note the time...) they announced that our flight was cancelled due to the ash cloud.  Anyway, we had to retrieve our bags, see the staff and then go somewhere else.  We took a cab back to Mum's, and kept a close eye on the website, as instructed.


Well.  Let me just say that the Vatican gives out more info on how to commune with the Devil than Qantas gave out about what do do.  Not only did they say absolutely nothing about how we were going to get home, they didn't even offer up information about how to get our money back.


So, in order to get home, we ended up buying tickets early on Thursday morning at the very reasonable cost of $574.00 each (versus $189 to get there), and hopefully our insurance will cover the difference, after we get our money back.  Apparently we have to go to the Qantas website and beg, nicely, for that to happen.


Anyway, I missed another day of upholstery school, and so I now have to abandon my slipper chair to start on the Club chair, which we need to get to a certain stage before we go into Second year, to make sure we aren't too far behind the students who are already working on theirs.  


I'm going into school on Wednesday (all day and half of the night) to get the slipper chair finished, because there's not that much left to do... blah, blah blah.  You remember the list from the other week?  All that's gone from it is 'cover bottom of the seat with calico' (which I don't even think was on the list), 'put the border on' and 'attach the box and the chair'.  Still a way to go, but I should be able to finish it on Wednesday.  Hopefully.

And here for your delectation is a picture of Miss Caroline's finished chair - absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion.

And that, Gentle Readers, is where I was last week.  I promise more later, after I've crawled out of bed.  And yes, it is 11.43am.  I like to live it up, you know.

I'm still alive...

Here we are, Gentle Readers, in Perth, visiting my lovely Ma and Hank for the Queen's birthday long weekend. 


There's still no progress on having our router fixed, but Mr Golightly advises it has escalated to our national carrier, who are, theoretically, responsible for the provision of the copper wire upon which all our broadband signals are run.  I am so very sick of the whole issue, having bought & failed to successfully use not one but two mobile broadband sticks... the reception in the back of our house is terrible... and the router just keeps going up down up down up down up down...


Anyway, the chair continues apace:

And all that's left to do is:


Make a circle of the piping, fit it to the box, sew it to the skirt, put the skirt on, cover the bottom of the chair, attach the box to the chair, cover the box in calico and handstitch the back down.  Not much work, really.  


Miss Natalie has finished her chair already, partly as a response to the suggestion of the Head Teacher that she's too old to successfully continue next semester in the day class... me too, and also Miss Caro, who is 4 years younger than Miss Nat.  I'm 10 years older than Nat, and 14 years older than Miss Caro.  That makes us geriatrics, and unemployable, to boot, apparently. 


I think that the Head Teacher could have handled the situation a little differently - apparently the number of vacancies for the day-class was fewer than he thought he would have, and so he chose the youngest class members to continue in the day class.  It would have been nice if he'd checked with them first, but he didn't... to cut a long story short, after he'd gone round & checked with the rest of the class, he found out that he could actually fit us oldies in because the youngsters didn't actually want to do the day class.  Don't you love the methodology?

This is the back of the chair, waiting to be hand sewn...


I promise I'll be back after we return from Perth... and hopefully the line will be fixed by then... 


Ciao!  

Did I mention...

That in the middle of all of this good fun, the three Upholstery Musketeers (Natalie, Caroline and me!) went off to Burnt Street Upholstery on Tuesday morning for an outing of sheer unbridled fabric porn?  


Caroline was looking for the perfect combination of pattern, stripe and plain for her Slipper chair's front, back & piping, and I was looking for some plain cornflower blue to match the Amy Butler Temple Doors, to use as piping... and also some aqua to go with the Joel Dewberry for the sprung footstool. That's why I walked away with 30 metres of powder blue cotton damask, at only $10/metre.  

And why, I hear you ask, do you want 30 metres of curtain material, when you're supposed to be buying fabric for a fracking chair???  Many years ago, when Mr Golightly and I first moved into this house, my lovely Ma and I went to a [much missed] shop called Hart St Fabric House, and bought metres of beautiful camel coloured cotton damask, in a very subtle print, which she made into curtains to hang in the guest bedroom.  They look fabulous, classic, subtle, expensive (but they werent'!).  So, I could barely believe my eyes when I spotted the very same pattern, but in a blue!  


Gentle Readers, the back of our house faces north, which is, of course, ideal in the Southern Hemisphere.  We get lots of lovely warm sun in the winter, and good shade in the summer because of the angle of the trees in the back yard.  But at night, when the sun is gone (oh dear, did I just say that?), it gets cold.  All that glass, you see.  So, we have curtains.  Lined curtains at that, which I made, this time.  


I confess that I bought the original living room curtain material in Spotlight, after spending more quality fabric porn time with Miss Cathy at KA International.  I had found my dream fabric there for the living room curtains, but it was $178/metre.  Ouch.  Given that we need about 24 metres, it was going to be mega-expensive.  So I bought this other stuff instead, cheap, from that store whose name starts with S and ends in ...light, and I have always regretted it.  It's the colour of cocoa, with a tiny little woven blue square in it.  Even with the lining, all you see is the lines of the blue weaving, so it looks like a horizontal stripe.  Icky.  Also, I didn't buy enough, and the curtains are not wide enough.  Curtains need to be at least three times the width of the window to look any good.  Having two drops just doesn't cut it.   

Note:  not my house!


Anyway, I squealed like a girl when I saw this powder blue Damask, and the nice lady gave it to me for $10/metre.  There's enough to make the curtains, nicely full, and have some over for cushions or whatever.  Which is just as well, because I think I'm going to have to sell off some of the more expensive soft furnishings in the house to cover it.

Anyway, it's 10.37pm now, I've been up since 4.15am (the coughing thing again, don't ask), and I'm pooped.  Off to bed, hopefully to sleep through until 5.30am, when I get up and do it all again.  I've got pics, tomorrow, of the progress on the chair, too, so stay tuned.  Same bat time, same bat channel.  (How old does that make me????)


Ciao!

Oh yes, where was I?

Before I was so rudely interrupted by the need to schlep off to Upholstery School, and, I might add, even with getting up at 0415 I was still three minutes late out the door for Miss Natalie...,I was explaining why we went to Pearls on the Beach on Saturday?  Because my lovely Bro, my DSB* is turning 50 in June, and this was the only day we all had free to celebrate.  


A few words about the Bro.  I don't have a brother.  If I had had a brother, he'd be what I want.  He's the middle child, so of course he's incredibly well adjusted.  He's funny, he's smart and he's got about the biggest hands I've ever seen.  Plus, he's a redhead and he's married to one of the tallest women I know, so that means he's even more incredibly well adjusted.  I just made that up, there's no scientific basis at all to that assertion.  But it must be true, because I said so.


Here's a pic of him showing proper reverence for the fabulous wine we bought him for his birthday (and those huge hands!):

Happy Birthday Bro!


In news of the Upholstery School kind, I finally finished the arm exercises on Monday - I have to say that inserting decorative tacks into vinyl in a straight line, perfectly aligned, is an incredible pain in the arm, and if I never have to do another one, I'll be happy, but then I'll never create a fantastic piece like this:

Oh well.  The head teacher is currently joking about what we will actually be doing in our shops when we've finished, and we've eliminated stripes, velvet, checks, pleats, skirts, vinyl and possibly leather.  So far we're offering cushions and buttons, and church pews.  Lots of upholstery on these...

And here's a picture of Miss Natalie starting work on her slipper chair.  This is a chair which sits on a box, then the box becomes a secret compartment (you can't see the box for the skirt when it's finished)... 

Here's a kind of similar finished version:

Mine's going to be covered with this:

which should be a very interesting exercise in pattern placement - the pattern is huge, and the inside back of the chair (the bit of the back that faces you when you look at the chair) is actually three pieces - lots of fun & games, careful cutting and some bad language, methinks.  I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, my hands are cold, I haven't had breakfast, and I need to go & do my cutting out plan for this chair.  Ah, back to the heavenly salt mines.  

Ciao!

*Defacto Step Brother - my mother's partner's son.  Got it?

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!

Questions, questions

So, Gentle Readers, the very lovely and erudite AJ, aka Peppermint Penguin, has raised the thorny question about what I'm going to do when I finish this course, and, for that matter, when the course actually finishes.  It's a bit complicated, so if your eyes glaze over when people start talking about the multi-verse theory, or the parallel universe theory, it's time to go & get a cup of tea.

The Upholstery course I'm doing has the same content as a first year Apprenticeship course.  I'm not actually an Apprentice.  You have to sign away your life, a kidney, your first born and several year's wages to be one of those, (I believe the Guvnmnt has just offered up a $5500 bonus for those hard working souls who actually finish one, finally recognising that unless we train more plumbers and electricians, our toilets are going to go fizzpop and our lights will back up [or something])... and I don't have that much time.  So, this course goes for six months, or one academic semester, three days a week, and at the end of it, I will have learnt the same as an Apprentice who has turned up one day a week for a year.  And perhaps even more, but that's a whole 'nother topic.





Then, (and this is where it gets complicated...) I can either sign up to do Third Year next year [that's 2012), one day a week for the whole year, and then, in 2013, I can do Second Year, which is one day a week for six months (got that?), or, next semester, I can do second year (ditto), and then, in 2012, I can do the previously mentioned Third Year.    My preferred option would be to do Second Year next semester, and then Third Year in 2012, but of course, many things depend on this actually happening.


What are these things, I hear you say?  Well, seeing as you asked so nicely... Firstly, I have to find a job of some kind for four days a week so I can ease Mr Golightly's mind about the impending-ness of Debtor's Prison [probability?  zero]... but also I want to work using the skills I have so painfully just acquired - why wouldn't I?    So, the options are:


A) Work four days a week in Upholstery
B) Work four days a week in IT, doing some contract work until the end of 2012...
C) Work four days at week at the August Institution,
D) Start my own business 
E) Win the Lottery.


Obviously Option E) is really my first choice, but it's at the bottom because I don't want you to think I've completely lost touch with reality, Gentle Readers.


So, of course I either need to find somebody to take me on, preferably for four days a week, or two somebodies to take me on, two days or a week, or some combination that makes four... and because I have to notify the August Institution of my intentions by the end of May, that means I have to extract the digit PDQ.  Ouch.  Reality bites.


The other option, Starting my Own Business, sits there largely ignored. All those lovely souls who've offered up their old & lumpy furniture for me to work on have the absolutely right intent, but I think the outlay for the basic equipment to start myself off in business would be about 10,000 shekels.  I could probably sell the other kidney to raise it, but you did note, I trust, that this was not high on the list of options.


There is another option, which has been bandied around by the Three Musketeers at School (Nat, Caro and myself), which is to go into business together... any thoughts on that?  I have never worked for myself.  Mr Golightly has many, many sad and bitter thoughts to share on this topic (some other time, honest), and I'm wondering if (l'orrore) I might be [shudder] a bit too old to venture into self-employment?  I can't believe I just said that.


Anyway, that's where it's at.  And now, I'm off to have dinner and some quality televsion (joke).  Ciao!

Where was I?

Oh yes, back to reality.  The very funny Antonia, from "Yetanotherbloomingblogspot", or 'Whoopee', has joined Facebook.  She swears, so if you suffer from delicate ears, be warned.  I have actually snorted coffee through my nose reading posts on her blog, and am extremely jealous that I am not as funny, erudite, rude or clever as she is.  But I know how to hammer in tacks, and she doesn't, so there.


Speaking of tacks, the very lovely Kate from Rapt! Upholstery, is in the the third year of the course I'm doing, and has her own blog, which is well worth a look - she's done some amazing things with furniture that was on its last legs.  We only see each other once a week, on a Monday, when the third years venture in with these huge bits of furniture they're all working on - enormous chaise lounges, wing chairs, whole Parker sofas - incredible, really.  Hopefully when my turn comes around next year I'll be able to find something equally fab to work on.


My Monday at Upholstery School was spent wrestling with red vinyl, and I managed to stab myself under the fingernail with a staple.  I swore like a navvy, it bled like a stuck pig, and of course the only comment that's made, by anybody, is "Don't get blood on the work".  Good thing I'm not the sensitive wilting flower some of us are, isn't it?


Anyway, here's some pictures of what I was trying to achieve, which was:


All the pleats in one direction;
All the pleats point towards the centre point;
All the pleats are the same size;
The start point for each pleat must be on the front, not on the top, of the arm.


Not sure if I succeeded:

Much soreness of fingers, after this lot.  Vinyl is a real pain to work with... nice for stool tops, but thank the Upholstery Gods that nobody wants their lounges covered in it!


Last night I made a doorstop for a nice man who bought it through my Etsy shop - I used the beautiful Echino linen, and it went just fine, but the problems I had filling it have resulted in sand all over the sewing room floor, and the bathroom floor.  Why the bathroom floor, I hear you ask?  I had a brainwave about drying out the sand using the hairdryer.  Aha, I hear you say.  Yes, Gentle Readers, Miss Incredibly-stupid Isabella got the hairdryer a bit too close to the sand and it flew everywhere.  Sadly, the finished result didn't even make a bit of difference to the bulk of the sand & it's still damp.  Next time I send the boys off to the hardware store for a bag of sand, remind me to specify I want the dry stuff.

And that, Gentle Readers, could be it for me today.  I have done the first slices into the Birthday quilt top, so I need to sew some sashing strips together so I can stitch the quilt top back up... I may emulate yesterday's effort by having a mid-afternoon nap, but my final set of Lumiere de Noel layer cake blocks arrived from Texas this morning, so I may be spending nap time thinking about how to make a double sided quilt...  Inspirational ideas welcome, of course!


Ciao!

Too much of nothing happening...

And yet, not.  I feel very guilty that I haven't written anything for your delectation since the 26th April... I haven't really been doing anything much except a spot of socialising, a smidgen of sewing, a crumb or two of craft, a something of upholstery... nothing to keep me from writing another thrilling post about it all... but, as I get started, I realise I could have written three posts - one about the Royal Wedding Party my lovely neighbour Lyn went to, one about Upholstery School, and one about the rest of this rubbish...


So, let's see.


I finished Kaz's dressing gown & she sent me a picture - I think she was happy with it, apparently she wore it to a Royal Wedding party:

There was nothing particularly hard about it, the sleeves were a bit tedious because I was trying to do a piped cuff, but my brain would not go where I wanted it to, so I ended up just sewing the bands straight on.  I think it looks OK.  I also cheated a bit & used fabric glue to stick the mitred corners of the hem down, next time I'm up in the Hunter I'll stitch them in place, but I wanted to make sure it got to Kaz by Friday, and if I stitched them, it wouldn't have.  I did do a fabulous blind hem, so I'm sure the transgression of fabric glue will be forgiven.  Don't want anything to hold up my beatification...


I made a cushion for Kaz on Sunday to go with Archie's chair - I found some sew-in piping I've had for a few years, tucked in a drawer - I dragged the drawer out when my lovely neighbour Lyn came by seeking aid for her Royal Wedding Party outfit (but more on that in the second post for today!) - and thought to myself, as you do, you know, "Oh!  Cushion!"... anyway, Kaz wanted brown birds on one side & green spots on the other, so here 'tis:

I think the brown piping just finishes it nicely.  And I worked out how to put the zip in at the top, with the piping.  Quite easy, really [quick tute:  sew the piping all the way round one side first.  Then put the zip in as normal, using the sandwich method, then, before you sew up the side seams, make the flap - about 1/2 centimetre (5 ml/.1968"), pin it into place & top stitch it down.  Then sew up the side & bottom seams.  Easy!  Drop me a line if you get stuck, isabellagolightly[at]gmail.com]...

If I was making another one, I'd also top-stitch the green side, just to make sure it didn't flop open, but as it's going to have the bejezus stretched out of it by a cushion insert, I don't think it'll matter.


What else?  I made pencil cases for my colleagues at Upholstery School, did I mention those previously?  Yes, I think I did.  Actually, I've just checked and I didn't.  Here's some pics:

Brown for me, green for Caro, white for Nat.  


What else?  I started on the quilt for somebody I can't mention, and I'm doing the same pattern as the one I did for Nelly, the Cathedral Window one:

The fabrics are really nice, gender neutral, (I think), but I've had a bit of a headache putting them together in pleasing combinations - unlike the blocks above, there are only five colours for 36 blocks (cream, white, blue, coffee & brown), so it's been very tricky to make a 6 X 6 pattern which doesn't duplicate any of the pattern/colour combinations - and although I've stitched all the blocks together in 1 X 6 strips, I'm not sure I've got it right:

That's my task for today, to get the quilt top made.  Dinner is sorted (last night's lamb curry, good thing Mr Golightly loves leftovers), the washing will get done in dribs & drabs, my upholstery school assignments are up to date (but more on that in the third & final post for today), so, in theory, nothing will stop me.  

So, Gentle Readers, I must go away now & put a load of washing on, then I can come back with a semi-clear conscience to tell you all about Isabella Golightly's Adventures at the Royal Wedding.  Betcha can't wait!!


Ciao!

Calico has no stretch

And so, Gentle Readers, the balls of my thumbs actually ache from the effort of trying to pull calico down over a layer of conglomerate foam:

Can you believe this image was found under 'conglomorate upholstery foam' in Google Images?  Which part of this foot and particularly unattractive shoe is foam, hmmm?


And a layer of linters, which is a cotton by-product used to provide the softness in your seat:

Yes, Google Images is excelling itself today...

and a layer of 20mm/.78" green foam:

That's so nicely green and foamy, isn't it?  All on the top of zig-zag springs...

Damn.  They found one!

Anyway, it's hard work and my thumbs are a bit sore from all the straining, holding, stapling, and digging out the staples when it wasn't quite smooth enough to keep the Upholstery Munchkin who teaches us on Mondays, happy.  

He's a lovely man, beautiful green eyes and a great store of knowledge and skill, but he loves a chat.  He gets started on something, and Bam!  he's off on a tangent and we're stuck 375 years ago when he did his apprenticeship, fondling coconut fibre and visiting Rapunzel in her beautifully upholstered tower...

In other news, Madam Late is so far behind the rest of us now she's almost still in the other room, and we can't decide if the root cause is 

a) self-medication (as in "she's zonked")

b) alcohol (as in "she's permanently bombed/pissed"), 

c) deafness, or 

d) she's just plain dumb.  

She knows how far behind she is, so she can't be that dumb, because she wanders round the room like Lady MacBeth sleepwalking through the castle, rubbing her hands saying "Oh, I'm so far behind", which means that her projects have become a bit like King Duncan, where she was keen to take them on, but a teeeeny bit regretful after the deed was done... "Out, damn'd chair, out I say".  She hasn't finished her second child's chair, her footstool, her two vinyl stool tops, or her drop-in seat, which is what we did yesterday.  Although, we have two days until the end of term, so if she can alter time, speed up the harvest and get teleported off this rock, she may be OK.  Use the Force, young Late.

My, aren't we a cultured Golightly this morning?  

In other news, Mr Golightly is at home today, slightly unwell, and all my damn' fine plans to go into town for a visit with the bank and lunch with Ms Creek are up the ... creek.  That's fine.  He's a bit 'in-his-cave' when he's unwell, a fact I may have alluded to in previous posts, so my plan is to ignore him completely, except for throwing food into the cave opening at regular intervals, and spend the day in my sewing room, coming out only to feed the animals, and put more washing in the machines.  It is raining, so it's quite justified to use the dryer for some things... honest.

I have an order for three doorstops made from this (and don't think I'm relying on Google images here, nosireebob):

and I made these for the lovely and glamorous lady who sold me (amongst other things) some new face cream:

Do you like the button accessory touch?  I know people tie things onto them like sea-shells and such, but I don't have a ready supply of those.  I think the accessorising button is quite a nice idea.  Hopefully BJ will too - she's going to collect them tomorrow... so I will report back.

And now, it's 9.00am, the office is open for business, and I must away to the shower, the laundry, and then, so exciting, the sewing room!  

Ciao!

Knife, Box, Inverted...

Any ideas?  Pleats, Gentle Readers, pleats.  This week at Upholstery School we learnt how to make a skirt for a piece of furniture (any piece, really, based on a little algebra [see, Mrs Imberger, you were right, I will use maths one day] - length of furniture (l), size of pleats (your choice, really), type of pleat [box pleats are calculated as size of front of pleat X 3] (s), divide l by s, bob's your uncle.  Got all that?  Good.


Actually, the technique is made easier if you make a template out of a piece of skinny cardboard which is usually used for backtacking (see previous post for description of backtacking, really, I don't want to actually bore you)... mark out the pattern for your pleat - for box pleats, the pattern is 'return, pleat, return', hence the calculation which forms (s).  Then you get your material, sit down with a suitable marking pen & the cardboard, and draw it up on the material.  Carefully.  A fine-point pen is ideal, because these lines have to be joined up with a pin when you come to sew it.


You also have to calculate how much material you'll actually need, and you can't do that until you start to mark it out, because the joins are not allowed to show in the front, they have to be hidden in a return.

This is a good example of box pleats, and you can see that they've gone to the trouble of making sure there isn't a pleat over the corner, which is not the case here:

So, you need to make sure your joins are all hidden, which sometimes means cutting the last bit of the fabric off before you might otherwise have, then sewing on your next piece before going on with the marking up.  It's a bit time-consuming.  Did I mention that?


Anyway, then when you've got it all marked up, you have to sew on the calico lining at the bottom, press it nice & flat, making sure all raw edges are even, then stitch it again at the top.  Then you get to pin it.  And pin it.  And pin it.  And pin it... then, when you're confident you've got it pinned right, you can try it on the piece of furniture to make sure it fits... then you go back & repin it until it does.


Then, finally, you sit down at the sewing machine, refill the bobbin which the last inconsiderate soul left almost empty (see, upholstery school differs not at all from the office, where the person who printed the 495 page document leaves you five pages in the  photocopier & you have to fill it up, not them), and very, very, very carefully, stitch it up.  Of course, if it's velvet, you won't get it right the first time.  Or the second...


Then, you try it on the piece of furniture again & see if it fits... and so on, ad nauseum.  I thought I'd get my second one (yes, we had to make two, one with instruction & one by ourselves) finished by lunchtime, but it actually took me until 3.00pm.  Phew.  Glad it's over.  


Next week we're going to do drop-in seats, which look like this:

You can bet your bottom dollar we won't be having nice Georgian chairs to work on, that's for sure... next week is our last week of term, and then we're apparently half way through.  Bloody hell.

In other news of paramount importance, I bought a new phone.  Don't tell Mr Golightly.  I got so tired of having my old one 'force close', which is mobile-phone speak for 'crash' that I splashed out on one independent of my provider, and spent a very frustrating few days learning how to get around the technical glitch which appears to have infected these phones worldwide... anyway, I did, it's working beautifully and I'm feeling very geeky again...

  I'm sure you get the hint.

Now it's the weekend, and I'm off to make doorstops for the lovely Belinda, but first... breakfast, possibly a shower :-) and maybe even out of my pyjamas.  Oh, the glamour.

Ciao!