Well, THEY FIT! 🤣

Here's a few pictures. I think they came out really well for someone just learning how to sew. The captain's seat is the only one left to do, so I took a few measurements, and I'll be damned if everything except the height of the seat back is the same. The upholstry pattern is slightly different, but the shape is the same, so I can use the patterns I already have,

I finally finished the 4 standard seatcovers today!

Sorry I haven't updated all of you in a while, but between my sewing and writing, and everything else, I haven't had time. The boat seat cover for the captain's chair is the only one left, and it's a little taller. Hopefully the seat and arms will be the same, but I'm a pessimist, so I'm expecting the worst. 😕

Interestingly, all the arm sewing coincided with Reza's sleeve lessons. As you might recall, I had a total of 8 arms to make, and none of them are identical. 😆Similar? Yes, but I learned something new each time I made one. The biggest thing, assembly wise was just as Reza described regarding the importance of matching the ovals precisely.

In simplest terms, each arm consists of two elongated ovals with a 3" wide band of fabric joining them around the perimeter. Unlike a shoulder, I had some flexibility as far as the distribution of fabric goes. I wanted to hide the zipper pull under a flap of fabric at the back of the arm, so if I started sewing at the zipper, but the time I got back to where I started, any excess fabric would be incorporated in the flap. I didn't figure that one out until I'd already sewn 6 of the 8. 🙄

The other thing I learned with the arms is that if I changed the peremiter of one oval, I couldn't just line up the edges and sew a 5/8" seam as intended. This was another one I only recently realized. You can't tell from the pictures, but the inside oval (facing the seat) required a lot of pieces, fusing, and sewing. Since the denim and the lining frayed like crazy, I serged the edges. That made the inside oval smaller than the outside oval, and every time I sewed an arm together (by lining up the edge of the fabric) it NEVER came out as expected.

All that said, when Reza says not to simply rotate the arm in the arm hole to correct the angle, I know exactly what he's talking about. I repeated that mistake multiple times.

I'm hoping the weather will be nice enough to put the seat covers on the boat tomorrow. I'll send a picture if I do. As I said, I still need to make the cover for the captain's chair, and I'd like to get that done soon.

This is a picture of the zipper flap. Ignore the creases; I decided to make it more simplistic.

This picture shows the difference in seam allowance once I serged the edge of the inside oval. This time I marked where the seam was supposed to be on both the serged oval and the 3" band that attaches to it. Wish I had thought of this sooner.

Here's the four seat covers ready to carry down to the boat.

Believe it or not, the old helper-monkey actually fixed the serger. I won't bore you with the details, but I worked on it a little bit every day, trying to get the lower looper to pick up the needle thread, the upper looper to pick up the lower looper thread and make it up to the needles in time for them to catch the upper looper thread. It was as frustrating as solving a rubix cube!

Turned out one of the cams on the camshaft was a quarter turn out of place. Once I reset it, I positioned the lower looper in relation to the needle and the upper looper in relation to the lower looper, and the serger started tying knots.

Reza talks about learning from mistakes and the opportunities created by accidents. I don't have a temper and don't get mad, but I do get frustrated. Problems are opportunities, and opportunities present themselves daily.🤣

So, I finally get everything done, except the arms, life taps me on the shoulder and gives me a swift kick in the crotch...again! 🤩😫🙈

I'm still having trouble sewing the two elongated ovals that make up the inside and outside of each arm to the narrow strip of fabric that makes up the top and bottom. I chase the seam around, and when I get back to the beginning, I have an extra inch of fabric I didn't have when I started. Then... flip the fabric around to sew the second seam, THINKING I'd end up with an extra inch on that seam as well, and I do, it's just folding over the opposite way. Sorry, just babbling 😕

On top of my obvious sewing ignorance, I fed a little too much fabric through my serger, it jammed, and won't sew a stitch. Yes, it's still fun to watch all the moving parts flip and flop around, but it needs to be fixed. As you might have gathered from my other comments, I prefer to solve my own problems, so that's what I've been doing, researching and removing parts.

Long story short, one repair shop said they'd fix it for $170, and that's how much I paid for the machine in the first place (used like new). I tracked down the actual service manual that gave all the timing distances and suggested I use a specific Singer gauge to set the timing BUT, it's only available to Singer certified repair people, and they're not about to give one up or help me get one; they're in the repair business 🤪 That's okay, I don't mind sounding like an idiot. 😁 Gotta go wit your strengths, as they say. 🤣

So now I have my serger stripped down to just the metal parts, and it looks like something off an old WWII battleship. I keep trying to get it set, but it's always just a bit off. It's better than it was. At one point, I could hand-crank it in REVERSE, and it worked, but a serger doesn't sew in reverse, so that was a surprise. 🤯 I found a video online that should help, BUT...

My father just had hip surgery, so I'm pretty busy with all the helper-monkey duties. When I get back to sewing, I'll let you know if Reza's sleeve training helps.

Every part of this project has been a challenge for me, but I thought I'd share my latest puzzle. I'm trying to figure out how to sew a convergence of four seams that meet at different angles. Three of the seams are top stitched and one is inverted and heads off a different way. Sound crazy? Well, three of my four brain cells are doing all they can to solve this one.

The first picture shows the area of the seat giving me fits. If you think of a car seat, it might make more sense. There's an L-shaped steel bracket on both sides of the seat where the back is attached. The back and the seat are upholstered separately, so when you sit down, the fabric under your butt isn't tugging down on the back. Since I want my bespoke seat suit to be one piece AND fit the seat and body in it perfectly, I have to take into account BOTH of these areas. I'm speaking of the crevasse at the back of the seat you can jamb your fingers in when your wife loses an ear ring in the car.

First off, I need enough fabric where the front part of the back meets the top of the seat, so the weight of a person doesn't pull on the seam. In other words, the seam can't simply go straight across the back. I designed the front part and the seat top part so there is an extra four inches of fabric that extends into the gap between the two seat parts...easy enough.

Second, I need to attach the seat panels to the back panels while taking the side brackets into account. Fine, I simply cut a curve along each side of the fabric that extends into the gap.

Third, to achieve a professional fit, I need to have some way to keep the fabric of the seat panel and back panel taut. I did some research and discovered upholsterers use something called a fabric pull to stretch fabric. I accomplished the same effect by adding a spandex pouch along the back of the four inch extension and stuck a length of soft pipe insulation inside. Works great.

Long story short (I know; I never keep it short 😩) I solved all three problems, BUT that created a new one.

The seat suit is made to be tough. I used bull denim. I chose a flat felled seam to keep the seam bulk down and applied a double top stitch for additional strength and ascetics. So, I've ended up with three visible top stitched seams, where the L bracket joins the back to the seat, and a fourth seam that is simply straight stitched and serged with right sides together; this is the four inch extension that gets crammed into the gap at the back of the seat.

I'm going to work on it today, so don't feel obligated to answer or lose any sleep over it, I just wanted to share. Haven't finished all the topstitching, but I'm sure you can see the problem.

Bill, the results are excellent. Love these frequent updates and progress reviews.

Thank you.

Reza

International School of Tailoring

I've been applying what I've learned from Reza's course, and the results are terrific. Yes, it's a denim suit for a boat seat, but to Reza's point, it's finding a way to wrap a three-dimensional object with a two dimensional surface.

In one of the conversations, a tailor spoke about cutting and pattern making. Specifically, she talked about how best to insure the makers understood what to do with each piece and how to sew them together. As I'm doing everything, whatever I miss in one step, has an impact later on.

Notches 😂

She said, and I'm paraphrasing here, the less experienced the maker, the more notes and notches are required. I've been assembling the top of the seat part to the skirt of the seat and discovered notches would have made it much easier. I stopped pinning, used the two matching vertical seams as markers, and cut notches on each piece at quarter lengths by folding, clipping, and folding again. I pinned and snipped relief cuts so the relative lengths would match, and sure enough, the long seam that runs from the top of the seat part (left hip) round the front to the back (right hip) ended where it was supposed to.

Long seams used to make me nervous, as I always ended the seam with extra fabric on one side. A walking foot would help, but I'd rather learn the proper technique. The notches and pinning really control the potential compounded stretch of fabric that accumulates as a growing wave of fabric along long seams.