On TV tonight.

When Meg Ryan's hair was long and Tom Hanks had a baby face.
Rita Wilson has a small part in it. I wonder if that's where they met...

I reckon this movie is one of the true classics of our time.
Yes, it is also the ultimate chick flick.

Is there anything wrong with that?

At least it's one of the good ones...

Springs.

So things have been pretty hectic right now, and I haven't blogged about much else than my upholstery classes, which in some cases have been the highlight of some weeks...

But here we are now into the thick of it. The springs.
After sewing the springs onto the webbing and tightening everything all up, I had to attach the springs together, using a special super tough twine and special knots. The thing is, it's really hard, because you have to make the knots on the side of the spring (you do one row at a time) while you push it down and on it's side, so that when you tighten the other side with it, it becomes straight again. You get nice red fingers doing this...

So you do that to every spring, every row, and then on the rows across while making extra knots on the twine as you cross it. So at the end, each spring has 5 knots on it.

Looks like this once finished.


Then you cut some heshen and tack it in, stretching it over the springs. Then cut it close around to make a border, fold it over and tack it in again. At this point, the chair is really starting to take shape.


But it's far from over!

Now the springs have to be attached to the heshen. So again, we use little special knots and a bag needle to put 4 knots on each spring.


And that's how I left the class yesterday.


I felt like I had done a lot.
I am thinking it would have been nice to have another chair just like it at home so I could practice what I have learned and see if I can do it without the teacher ready to jump in if I am doing it wrong...

Hopefully I have documented everything thoroughly enough so that I remember exactly how to do everything.

The bottom half

The bottom half of the chair will probably take me about a month to do.
So I started.


First, webbing. I row of five nails and a row of four above it, on each end of the jute webbing. Five of those on each side, criss crossing into each other.




It takes a while, but after stretching and pulling and hammering, it looks pretty solid.



I have been waiting to start on the springs for a long time. It's super complicated, so I am doing them in baby steps, taking notes and pictures so I can do it again without the teacher. First, you take springs and fill the seat with them. The original chair had five, and my teacher said I should put more in to make the seat really nice. He gave me four more. So I have nine springs, which means that my chair will undoubtedly be better than it was when it was made in the late 30's.

Once the springs are positioned, you trace them in so you can sew them on one by one, on the webbing, with a special big bag needle.




That's where I am at now.
Next week, the really complicated stuff begins.

My god.

So I am watching David Letterman again and Paris Hilton is on.

My God it must be so exhausting to always be posing like that.
She was not saying anything interesting or intelligent for that matter so I started counting how many times she propped her chin up and pouted to the camera. After about 30, I got bored of counting and changed the channel.

New Blog!!

J'ai commencé un nouveau blog avec Vanou la semaine dernière.

Il s'appelle One of 52.
Toutes les semaines, pour un an, nous nous donnons un thème et nous postons une photo.
C'est une façon de se dire bonjour. Et de voir les différences des photos prises par Vanou à Québec, et moi, à Adélaide.

www.oneof52.blogspot.com

Anatomy of a chair, part 2.

Last week, the upholstery classes started again.
I fetched the chair I started months ago out of the shed, and happily continued on making it pretty again.

So here we are.

I needed to finish the top of the chair, so I did my first chair corner. Not easy to make it all nice and flush; the calico is a tough but thin fabric, so there are always creases no matter what you do. The point it trying not to have too many on the side, and none on the top. When the thicker upholstery fabric goes on top of it, it is much easier to handle.


Then, I had to finish the top part of the chair. The filling, called flock, needs to be worked so that the top edge of the back of the chair is straight. So you pull the tacks out a few at a time, fill in the gaps or divide the flock around with a screw driver when there's a bump, and you pull the fabric back real tight and retack it.


This process is done lots and lots and lots of times, until the top is all equal, nice and round, and super tight. Takes quite a while. Look at all the holes.


Once that's all done, you can hammer the tacks in and trim the rest of the calico.


And you're done!


That only took 2 and a half hours....

Broken Hill

Enfin, enfin.

Ça fait longtemps que j'attends de le voir, celui-là. Un film sur lequel j'ai travaillé l'an dernier, juste avant Last Ride. Mon premier film américain, avec mon premier récipiendaire d'un Oscar. Le film produit par le même gars qui a produit Napoleon Dynamite. Enfin, j'ai reçu mon invitation à la première mondiale. Le seul hic, c'est que c'est à Melbourne... on verra si je pourrai m'y rendre...

Mais en attendant, j'ai pu voir le preview.
C'est un film plus léger, plus familial.

Voici le lien, si ça vous dit.


http://vimeo.com/5722131