I have been meeting quite a few upholsterers with their own shops. I have been told over and over....You do not need that school. It is a waste of your time. I have taught myself how to sew well enough to undertake any job I am likely to get into. I think it is time to get set up and take the leap. I am going to go out in a semi again until spring. I am going to buy a pickup. Camper on top. Car hauler trailer set up as portable upholstery shop. I have a plan.

So. I have been out exploring the area around Hickory.

This is a place back up in the mountains that was interesting. That is all coffee cups.

This little lake. Lake Lure(near Ashville was used in a few movies.

Pretty small puddle. If you can read the sign. Used in Dirty Dancing and Last of the Mohicans.

That is a short update. I have been busy. I am going to be moved out of Hickory, NC. Before Oct. 1st. Going to drive up to Maine in the van for a few days. Then head out in a semi for the winter. Should be interesting. I have plans for Mary Lee this winter. She may very well end up on a trailer headed to Seattle and Puget sound. I want to cruise the Alaskan inlets for a summer. More on that later

Just a quick post.

   I have to take a day off upholstering. My back flared up. All good. I finished the second bucket seat yesterday. Seams are straight. No weird bulges. Everything lined up like it should be. I was going to pull the drivers seat out this morning. I need the van for class tomorrow. Guess I will start on passenger seat and save driver seat for next Friday.

   Here is the newest photo.

I like it. I will also be doing headliner and carpet when seats are done. Not sure if I mentioned that.

    We have not started doing any upholstery or sewing in school yet. But being in a town with several furniture manufacturers, There is remnants of fabrics left over from factories in all the second hand stores at $3.00 a yard. I decided to start reupholstering the van seats for practice. I may have $80 into everything needed to do four seats.

I have this neat sewing machine that I cannot keep my hands off of.
   The first obvious step was to get a seat out and take it all apart.

    Then start cutting the seams apart to make a pattern.

    seemed easy enough.   Pretty soon I had a mess going.

    So...It was time to cut out the new pieces. The new pieces needed to be cemented to the foam backing.

    Not horribly hard to do. First piece sewed together quite easily. Taking my time to get it right. The speed will come.


Next was the backrest. Many new things to consider here. Remember, I am teaching myself. I can be meticulous about making sure things look right as they go together...but I am just learning.

Got the pieces all taken apart. Seemed important to lay them out so the way they go together can be easily sorted out.

Sewing them together was interesting. I actually find the sewing easy.  Backrest went together fairly easy. Lots of extra things the seat never had, but okay.
    I ended up with this.

   I used some special bonding paint for changing the color of plastic.

   Ended up with this
Forgot to take pictures of headrest going together....It is a special little challenge of its own. Finally done. The following pictures are of the finished one. The next one in line to be done sitting next to it. Sort of a before and after. Then first one back in the van. Keep in mind that there were no rips or major stains in seats. I just wanted to get started doing upholstery.

   

   I will finish the seats and also replace carpet and headliner. It will be my rolling billboard.

I have a few more sets of seats to do for friends. I told them if they bought material, I would do it for the practice. Then I will start charging to do seats.  I am pleased with the visual this will create. The seat looks every bit as good in person as it does in the pictures. my seams are straight. I really like my new sewing machine.

   Upholstery school is off to a good start. It is sponsored by the local furniture manufacturers, so there is 2 months of classwork that has nothing to do with actually doing upholstery. I get it. They want us to take classes on teamwork, math, communication, etc.

   I keep thinking about the doctors that told me I would never work again. Maybe not in a grueling job at a plant, or driving truck for long hours every day. But I am beating the odds. I am tenacious. I will get there. Just barely getting started and the jobs are already lining up. Before I am out of school I will be going full bore. I won't get into specifics at this point, but....I have a hookup in auto upholstery. Tied to what I already knew before getting here, I am going to do very well.

I picked up my sewing machine today. It will be my main machine. I now have two machines.  My portable sailrite machine and this Consew 206. It was a bit more than I had originally wanted to pay, but it will last the rest of my life. I am getting ready to do some serious sewing with it. It sews beautifully.

Did I mention the little daysailer last post?

Let's not forget that.

I ran into a difficulty registering the trailer, but that is now just about solved. It is a Galilee 15. If you search Galilee 15 on youtube. you get a short clip of a guy sailing one.  The top photo is from the original owner. I am the second owner. The boat is a 1985 model. I will be putting it in the water very soon. Lake Hickory is just 8 miles away. Lake Norman(much bigger) is 38 miles away.

   Life is such an adventure.  While working on Mary Lee's upholstery, I had so many people ask me about doing upholstery for them, I decided that it may be the answer for making me gainfully employed again. I need something I enjoy. I also need a flexible schedule. I still hurt a lot, I need to be able to take a day or two to rest when I am hurting too much.

   So....after spending much time poking at different ideas. Throwing them out to friends for feedback. I came up with upholstery. As luck would have it, I was less than 300 miles from a top notch school. The Furniture Factory. Catawba Valley Community College.

   By the time I realized I could make it happen, It was a rush to get enrolled and find housing. I actually missed the first day. With all the driving I had to do(back and forth) I was finally here and had a bed put together at 10:00 pm. on the first day. I made the second day. I knew the decision to go to school was the right one after the first couple hours. I will leave here with the skill needed to start my own business.

A few pictures of the kind of furniture we will be upholstering. The local furniture factories sponsor this. They send the frames over for us to upholster. Workers from the factories(with many years experience) teach us.

     I just ordered my own machine to sew with at home. Not a requirement, but I intend to be using it to do projects of my own while I am in school. I will buy the machines I need while in school and be proficient with them by the time I am done with school.  I ordered a new Consew 206. As I learn which machines I need, I will buy them and start using them. I will be in school for 18 months to learn what I need. It is quite likely I will be practicing on car seats and panels.

   Something I like about this school. They will teach you everything. Emphasis on high-end furniture, because that is what the sponsors make, but we will learn all techniques. I am quite pleased to have this opportunity.

   Mary Lee is going to get all new upholstery when I am done. I will be much better at doing upholstery. Of course my boat will get the best I can do!

The sun is making Mary Lee into something that resembles a slow cooker. Air conditioning is not nearly enough. This week was all about getting some shade covers sewn up.

I looked around at what other people had on their boats. I liked the synthetic fabric on one boat in particular. Very light and breathable. They got their fabric at a Home Depot. I went on Amazon and searched for shade fabric. What I found claims to block 95% of UV rays. It came in 6 foot width and about as long as you wanted in 5 foot increments. I ordered two at 25 foot length.

It finally arrived. I took a piece to the boat and did a basic layout. It seemed pretty simple. I would know when it was done

I rolled it out on the ping pong table I have been using to cut out material, etc.

Next was a little sewing.

I do seem to be getting the hang of it. Grommets came next. I opted for the big plastic ones the other boater had used. Their covers have lasted over 3 years, seems good enough for me. I did have a little trouble getting some of them to snap together all the way. I finally used a large c-clamp. It snapped them together nice and tight with no effort

Then trying out my first cover.

It seems good enough. I left it a little shorter up front to facilitate going forward. Perhaps next time I will not.
  I still needed a bit more shade further back.  I had debated on making each side into one continuous piece. But...the booms swing a bit differently, and are a different height. It seemed that separate pieces may work better.

Good enough. Besides, I can always change things next time. Needs a little adjusting. Also hard to believe they are the same width. The shade makes a huge difference. The bottoms are attached with bungy cord and S-hooks. Everything for this project came up to just a few dollars over the $100 mark.

In other news. I start upholstery school July 18th(about 2 weeks).
  I will be in school a year. It is 4 days a week. About 300 miles from Mary Lee. So...once again, life will keep me too busy to spend a lot of time on Mary Lee.

The process of getting me recovered, to a point where it is finally beyond just struggling to get through each day, has been an all consuming chore(to say the least). I bought Mary Lee as a way to force the fight, so to speak. It had to be something "out of the box" that I really wanted to do.

As I finally began to see a real improvement in my recovery, I realized, that I needed to find something that I would enjoy doing. Something that could be boating related. Flexible enough in hours that it could work with boating. I also have those days when I hurt too much to do anything.

I had an interest in upholstery long before I got hurt. Liking it will make a big difference. Being able to see projects finished nicely suits me to a "T".

I think I could use sewing to fund a circumnavigation (if I so choose).

  The work continues, a step at a time. My vision was to make Mary Lee lighter and brighter. It felt like a dark cave at times. Don't get me wrong. I do like wood, but it was just too much of a good thing.

Remember this from much earlier in the blog?

This is what it has evolved into so far.

Much better.
Now for the knobs. Solid brass.

They helped.
  I have shade fabric coming in any day now. I am also just about done with the A/C box for mounting A/C to blow down hatch. Portable A/C is not cutting it.

I have a stretch of driving truck in front of me before starting upholstery school.