Sunday January 25: The Tale of Material for Guppy

When we were in Cleveland in December, one of our goals was to find upholstery material to recover the cushions in Guppy.

Keeping in mind that this boat is going on 28 years old (but given that it's a northern freshwater boat means it's really been used maybe 4 months a year), it's not surprising that the cushion covers inside were ready to be redone.

Off we went to our favorite upholstery store. Surely we'll find something reasonably priced. We LOVE this place - foam stacked everywhere, rolls of material that you would swear have been in the store since it opened 40 years ago - often hidden behind 5 more rolls of material stacked in layers along the narrow aisleways.

Julie and Jim were game to come with us - just for the entertainment value :-) They were not disappointed! Steve was being buried alive in the foam and material that fell as he made his way to a back corner of the store. "I found the perfect stuff" was what I heard.

Really? And it actually WAS perfect ... great color .... 100% cotton velvet (not even made anymore) and $15 a yard (we needed 9 yards). Except - it was faded from sitting so long. A whole roll of it. Like 100 yards of it. No problem says Steve as he proceeded to unroll the material thinking that it would only be the outside few yards that were faded.

Boy was he wrong! Before long, he had the whole 100 yards sitting on the floor. The fading was on way more that a few yards but in the center there was actually some really usable fabric.

The owner made the offer: pay me for 2 yards (so $30) and take the whole roll! Done deal. Good for us, good for him.

Now to get it back to Julie and Jim's place.

First drag it out the side door and attempt to roll it up a bit. Steve rolling, Julie helping.

Next - attempt to stuff it in their car trunk. I don't know how but they managed to get all of it in and the trunk closed. Amazing!!

Once we returned to the farm with the material we were able to lay the fabric out to cut out the ruined part and keep the good stuff. Turned out that we ended up with about 30+ yards of good usable material! All for a cost of $30 - don't think we could have beat that anywhere :-)

To get it to Yesterday's Dream, it was packed into a suitcase (thanks Julie and Jim!!) and traveled with us to Newport and then finally back to Hollywood, FL.

It was now finally time to get this project going! First open the suitcase with it's 28 yards of material (duct taped for additional security on the plane).

Spread some of the material out to find the end, cut off 5 yards or so - enough to get started on cutting out the covers.

Next stuff the leftover back into the suitcase - adding weight as needed to get the suitcase to close again :-)

The suitcase lives in the front v-berth for now. Eventually we'll be able to get rid of it when the materials is used up. Of course Steve thought that since we had LOTS of extra material that perhaps it could be used to redo the upholstery on THIS boat! Sure - why not, right? It just takes time ..... We'll see how that goes ......

So I've spent a couple of days tearing apart the old covers from Guppy (sent from NY to Jacksonville in August) and then moved on using the old covers as a pattern to make the new ones.

The table is just about the right size and height at which to work. Four cut out yesterday - five to go.

Best thing ever? The electric scissors I ordered the other day from Amazon!!!!

Really makes fast work cutting and doesn't require any hand strength at all :-)

Steve is working on finishing up the stove rebuild - just one last trim piece to glue in place. Plus reattaching the handle and it will be a job done.

Pictures of the finished stove next time .....