Day 114 – New Old Things

Welcome to day 114!

The first thing to do today was visit the physio.  The physio was happy with my progress on the recovery from my broken ankle and added a couple of extra exercises to my list.  Main exercises of clock lunges plus standing on one slightly bent knee.  Believe it or not, these are tough exercises.

All the anxiety manufactured by me making assumptions about cats had disappeared, we even shared some moments speaking about her adorable puppies.  The whole experience was incredibly pleasant and have another session booked in a fortnight.

At home, the sewing machine was brought out of the cupboard and dusted off.  For some reason, settling for whatever you can buy off-the-shelf doesn’t always work for me. Thankfully, I paid attention in sewing class – most of the time.  Right after I griped about not being able to do woodwork and/ or metalwork.  

You see, during my school years girls needed to learn to cook and sew; men had to learn woodwork and metalwork.  Years later, I would still bemoan not having been taught how to do woodwork, especially since a lack of skill was not an inhibitor to me giving projects requiring woodwork a go – oh, the number of projects that failed!  Sewing helped me more than my teenage self ever thought it would.

Anyway, there was a chair purchased from a Swedish furniture company it was reasonably priced, but it only came in black.  Where the chair was going to be located a big black blob would not work.  Some black, yes.  All black, no.  So, a plan for the journey home was to get fabric from the reupholstery place, stop by the sewing and crafts store, cut the fabric to shape, and drape.

Once at home, the thought of “why not staple the cover in place before the chair is assembled?”, occurred to me. Grabbled the staple gun, cut the fabric to shape and stapled away. Unfortunately, the backrest wasn’t that easy.  There was nothing to staple the fabric to.  Then the thought of making a pillowcase type cover to hang over the top seemed the simplest way to go.  Indeed, it would be the simplest way to go. 

Nah!  Simple pales in comparison to, “how cool would it be if you could replace the one that’s there now?”.  Famous last words, “how hard can it be to make a cover with a zip?” followed by the words “it shouldn’t take too long”.

Following some measuring work earlier in the week, the effort for the backrest began today in earnest.  Admittedly, I only really got half a day done today.  The result was pretty good, if you don’t look too closely 😀.  Can’t wait to find out what it looks like tomorrow.  It has zips and rounded corners, so more difficult than I remember.

The sad thing about today was the sewing and craft store seemed quiet. Sewing isn’t popular in Australia, anymore – at least not like it used to be.  It’s sad to see stores once teeming with customers and being great giants dwindle; reduced to selling all manner of supplementary products to subsidise their income. Glad they are, it’s a worthy service and useful skill.   

With the sewing machine out, it was the perfect opportunity to mend a couple of things due for recycling or rubbish.  A pair of jeans and a skirt both had rips – now fixed.  Old items made new!  A pair of slacks which had a cuff which used cause me to trip, had the cuff sewn shut and makes them wearable again.  Three items made new all because of sewing.  What a skill-gift sewing turned out to be!

Let’s see what the cards have to say!