What a beautiful weekend

How was yours ? We were busy out in the garden. For most of the time, H and A were on top of the shed, extending and reinforcing the roof so that we can install some solar panels on top. H nailed all the roofing felt into place.

I had intended to do the cybercrop on UKS but it was too sunny to stay indoors for long. I did manage to finish a LO that has been lying on my desk though. I love these photos of J & A at Disney. They got delayed at the start because there was a group of less abled bodied drivers ahead of them. H and I managed to start without a hitch and finished the course (ahead) comfortably. We were sitting at the end, wondering whatever happened to them when they rolled up. But I was ready with my camera, hence the smile and laughter. I've called it "Sunday driving" because I found a strip of patterned paper with the word Sunday on it.

I decided to go light with the patterned paper which means I get to drag out more embellishments. But whatever am I going to do with all my patterned papers ?

My dining chairs

I promised some pictures of my first upholstery project so here they are. Our upholstery classes finished for the year at the end of March. Our teacher is having an operation on her shoulder this summer so she will be out of action for a good few weeks. You do need a lot of muscle power to pull and tighten when upholstering...I am pleased to hear her injury it is not upholstery related.

I started with this. These chairs ( and dining table and welsh dresser ) came from A's mum & dad and we've had it for nearly 20 years. They bought the chairs at auction. They enquired about having them re-upholstered but decided against spending £200 on just 2 chairs. I hate to think how much an upholsterer would charge nowadays but I have to say, I wouldn't begrudge them their fees...it does take a long time to do them properly. We have 4 chairs like this, 1 matching carver and 2 smallers chairs to make the numbers.


The chair is now strippped down. This chair didn't have a traditionally built seat to begin with. It was basically a few layers of wadding on top of the wood, a layer of calico followed by hide. I was adamant I didn't want leather to replace the top cover.

After stripping, I started putting the layers back on. I started by building up the seat ( called first seating ). There is about 2lb of fibre under there that I stitched and cajoled into shape. Originally you would have used horsehair but animal hair is very expensive so I resorted to coconut fibre.

Here is the finished chair. In between all the stuffing and stitching, A also put in a lot of work to remove the dark varnish. He finished the oak off with clear wax. I have covered the chairs with some left over from the curtains that I made for the dining room. A little bit too matching for my taste but at least I didn't have to go out and look for some new fabric.

Here is a layout I made about my new found hobby.

My journalling says, "Upholstery isn't quite as they make out on Changing Room, armed with a staple gun, you could do anything. You could, but it would take you longer than a weekend. These 5 (+2) chairs took me two terms."
My sofa is now with a man who is replacing some woodworm infested tack rails and french polishing the whole thing...it should look amazing.

Visitors at Easter

How was your Easter ? We've had 2 lots of visitors. First was Shera & Co from Oman. Shera joined TKC into form 1 when I was in form 4. She reminded me that she was my messenger to my pet sisters. I won't explain here, PS is too difficult a concept to comprehend if you weren't there LOL. So I haven't seen Shera since 1985 but you know what ? She looks just the same and I wouldn't have problems recognising here anywhere.

We went into the city on Good Friday but unfortunately, the colleges were closed. The BBC was at Kings recording the Easter concert.

Here we are on a bridge over the Cam, taken by Shera's DD2.

On Saturday, Nina visited with her crew. She is going back to Malaysia in August. Nina and I shippped over the UK on the same flight back in 1985 and now she is finally leaving. We visited a few colleges with her.

Here's Nina, having a little conversation with Darwin in the gardens of Christ's College.

And just to prove that the sun does shine in the UK.

And a little easter threat, the shop window of Ted Baker is featuring a large animated chicken, hunting for worms that pop up and down. The kids were impressed.