Colours and Chair rebirth

So in my previous post i updated everyone on the sewing machine mostly. That is my main focus at this point due to it being the work horse behind this whole adventure, besides me of course but i am not a horse!

Anyway on the side i have been doing little things including looking into rip line rope which has caused a few heated discussions with my friend Mark Mitchell in Australia which is also building his first home built. I have been looking into a variety of options and have found the rope that is the right colour, high break strength (1900kg) and feels good in the hand. 

Another of these little projects was converting a $10 sewing seat into a home for my bottom. The huge upside of this little project was it cost me nothing! I have used various spare bits laying around the house e.g some Cordura fabric i bought about a year ago. I stripped the old cover off and handed it off the my lovely girlfriend which took charge of the cutting. I sewed it back together thanks to mums sewing machine, some knowledge i gained from the compulsory sewing class at middle school became very handy.

After some added padding and a polish she is good to go! It doesn't look to bad considering i added the extra padding and cut the pattern based on the old padding not to add my lack of sewing ability! oh well thanks to the holding power of staples its scrubbed up nicely.

The next small job which has turned out to be a huge nightmare is the colour selection. One of the huge benefits to getting fabric manufactured for you is the ability to pick your own colours which depending on how you ask it can be very troublesome. The supplier we get our fabric from allows us to pick any Pantone colour which caused issues with my colours because sadly my key colour didn't match any Pantone colours  however the fabric manufacturer  is allowing me to send a sample of the colour i required. Due to the colour being only present on my monitor it was inaccurate and a physical sample would be needed.

So after a stoke of luck we found all the colours close enough to what i wanted at the paint shop. So with that problem coming to a close i have no issues regarding the actual order of fabric except my old friend $$.
So in conclusion it is back to work for me and a 2 minute noodle diet for a month or so until i can raise the other half of the money.

Sewing Machine 90%

After a end of term rush with class i am now on holidays living up the working life with my plate lacking more and more space by the day. I have had a few bits on the side lately to do with class, computer fixes and work however the machine has made leaps and bounds. Sadly the only thing limiting the projects progression at this stage is my lack of time but if you were to ask my girlfriend she would say i spend a lot of that down time in the garage with my other girlfriend.

So much has happened since my last update and i cannot believe the time frame between each post. The frame has been painted and put back together with a fresh pair of bolts and screws. Now it sits in the garage with the trimmings all attached read to go. The only steps to be made at this point are replacing a piece of particle board that mounted the what i call "thigh foot release" basically it unlatches the foot from the raised position which no doubt will come in handy.

One of the biggest challenges so far is finding a 12mm double lap seam folder that doesn't kill my bank account and until recently my bank account was preparing for the hit. Finding a double lap seam folder is simple enough except for A) 12mm finish size and B) At a student price. Seeing as the item i am after is specialized i had a lot of trouble getting it under $200NZD. I managed to obtain details of a great guy called Murray which deals in custom attachments which i wound up with paying $75.90 for a secondhand one.

I guess one of the unique issues of building in New Zealand is the lack of competitive market when it comes to certain items therefore items can be priced freely which creates a interesting platform when buying items off blindly however it no different to internet purchases. You win some, you lose some which is very much the case with the first thread tree i bought which turned out to be a lot larger than expected.

Anyway back to the developments at hand. I have added a power board to the sewing table along with a draw for the unpickers (may they never be used), needles and bobbins. I also managed to pull up a booklet for the machine on Google docs which had almost all the pages available in preview mode which i copied for myself (see picture below).

So with Katie on my case i have been trying not to sink money into the other areas of the project however i do get a bit of a reprieve when i mention the investment of the sewing machine and various items will be required at some point. So with my last purchases of a lamp and folder i am back on track, saving again which will keep Katie happy!