Sunday, 11 July 2021
Reverse engineer a decaying office chair; why not? I thought. And the follow-up phrase uttered by many fools in the past, “how hard can it be?”. Now that’s a pitfall
Pitfall Context
Today, I had a brain fart, and it was to reverse engineer a rapidly deteriorating leather office chair I use regularly. Why not? I thought. And uttered by so many fools in the past, “how hard can it be?”. My recovering of the cheap chair worked a treat and only took a weekend!
Indeed, I am and have been the fool to utter the words, “how hard can it be?”, right up there with the likes of Jeremy Clarkson (The Grand Tour). Oh, what company to keep 🤔.
Don’t misunderstand me; I wasn’t working under the false assumption the more complex chair would finish in a day. The unpicking alone took forever, and I did pay close attention to the details to make it easier to put back together.
However, one of the pitfalls of not being the developer is the inspiration that drove the design in the first place isn’t there. Thus, making it more difficult to piece all the elements back together.
Despite my best attempts to remember how it stitched together when I get to piecing the fabric together, I’m scratching my head. Something as simple as the back cover, and whether the broader part of the material should be wider at the top or bottom, got forgotten between the unpicking and resewing.
At the end of the day, the chair’s back was unpicked. I also managed to identify the fabric pieces for each section of the chair. The replacement fabric wasn’t leather and needed interfacing to make it workable. Nothing could progress until next weekend.
Pitfall Observations
By the way, “brain fart” is a word used colloquially in Australia on occasion when a person thinks they’ve had a great idea but, in the end, is a stinker of an idea. At this stage, I don’t know if the idea is going to stink. What I do know is there is sewing equipment all over the dining room awaiting use.
It’s funny how even though the blog today was about a chair, it could apply as a metaphor for life. Sometimes, no matter how hard to try to make something old new or try to recreate a situation, there’s no getting it back. It’s one of the pitfalls described by many wise persons as a moment we cling to that neglects the now.
Today's Cards
Pitfall Analysis
Carryover Cards
No cards carried over from yesterday.
Cross
The cards are showing a little Adventure influenced by Traveling. The Goal is to be The Rebel in control of who we are and unconcerned with public opinion. In this case, public opinion was the wise words of my husband. Remember that’s the pitfall of a proper fool; it is also what gives you the Adventure.
The Creator is in the Recent Past moulding circumstances, probably when I thought it was a good idea to redo the chair instead of buying another one (it was an expensive chair!).
Totality is in the Distant Past is likely to be the moment I undid the stitching. The leather had deteriorated so much that little bits of sticky black leather flaked off during the undoing.
The little Adventure is the trip (Traveling) to the haberdashery store for the backing fabric to prevent the replacement fabric from fraying. Hot on the heels of Adventure is Letting Go, whether this means Letting Go of the making the chair altogether due to lack of skill or simple the like-for-like attempt.
My husband has already suggested just doing a sleeve instead of trying to recreate the original. I’ve only just started, and depending on how easy this is to progress will determine the route to the finished product. Sometimes, in life, you just have to step into the pit and fall – it can be the best way to learn
Base
My Feelings are of Rebirth, reawakening the excitement of the challenge. It’s strangely exciting to tackle something of this size and complexity for which I have minimal skills and a lot of over-enthusiastic gusto! 😁
Others’ Views of me is that I’m The Miser. True, I am trying to save money, but the chair is old and falling apart, and a replacement one is expensive. There is also the fun of giving the replacement a go. If it doesn’t work, I’ve lost $20 in fabric and a couple of challenging weekends where the dining room is a mess.
Hopes & Fears are me hoping for a Breakthrough in discovering there’s an easy way to recover a chair. On the flip side, I fear it will be more complex than initially anticipated, and it will beat me.
Finally, it’s the card of Ordinariness in the Outcome position. Let’s face it, recovering a chair is exciting for the doer – en Moi – but is pretty ordinary.
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
