Friday 04/30/2021
Took a slightly truncated walk for the morning, then had coffee-and in the dining room. Following that I had an entirely open day until 4pm, and I had resolved to clean up the projects that were hanging around, and was very pleased with the progress I made.
First up was the Golf GTI upholstery. Since Day 2.133 I had been trying to reproduce the tartan seat pattern from a restored GTI. A decal didn’t seem to work, because the bright orange parts went all gray and blah when the wet decal was put on black plastic (see Day 2.138).
A few days later it dawned on me (well, I’m slow) that the problem was not the decal but the black background. If the decal had a white background…
And indeed on that background the orange stripes of the decal looked not bad. Here are the front and back seats with their upholstery, ready to install.
Yeah ok they look like shit, except the one front seat. Decals are really hard to place correctly. I am counting on these being completely enclosed by the body of the car, viewed only by peeking through the windows. They should pass then.
Next was to finish the spray box by making a fabric cover which will engage with velcro around four sides to close the front of the box, with slits for my hands to come through. I couldn’t get anybody around with actual sewing experience to do it, but I had managed to borrow a sewing machine.
I didn’t mention yesterday, that before going to FOPAL, I had detoured to Joan’s Fabrics and Crafts in Redwood CIty, and after much thinking, selected a piece of fabric that looked like it would be lint-free and I could work with it. It has a camouflage pattern, which is nice.
I figured out the dimensions including a hem; cut it out; hemmed the edges; installed velcro loop material; made slits and hemmed them. I had to replace a bobbin and had to thread the sewing machine twice. Got all that done in a couple of hours.
I used Marian’s sewing scissors and lots of pins from her pincushion, making me glad I’d kept a minimum of sewing supplies (see Day 131, April 2019.) Discovered another drawback of taking Plavix blood thinner: if you prick yourself with a pin, you have to stop and put on a band-aid, or you will bleed all over your work.
During Rhonda’s 4pm open meeting, I was called on to describe the new dining room host volunteer program. I gave it the best sell I could but so far the sign-ups have been underwhelming.
Codgerville 