Wildcat Sailorgirl: Sabrina's Sail Loft

Today's blog posting is brought to you by the letter M and the number 4. M is for my wonder mother. While is she not what you might call a big fan of sewing herself, she did encourage me, teach me to sew on the first of many Brownie and Girl Scout badges along with some other basics of sewing, drive me to tons of 4-H meetings and wipe my tears with great empathy when a 4-H sewing project wasn't going well. Thanks so much Mom! 4 is of course for 4-H where I really learned to sew. Mrs Smith and her daughter Dawn were wonderful teachers.

Our nice interior fabric

We have really nice upholstery on our interior cushions. I would like to keep it that way. Sitting in the cockpit or going for a dinghy ride means we can drag in unseen amounts of salt and moisture that will quickly start to break down our lovely fabric. Plus we are messy people. Coffee, tea, spill that's me! So I decided cushion seat covers would be a good idea.

Starting the project

I decided and started the project last year. I took many measurements. I made patterns and even drug home a difficult corner cushion in hopes that I could make this project easier. Not so much. No boat canvas project is easy.

Tough corner piece - tough for me at least

I found a really kewl blue vinyl for the nav station seat. It sort of looks like stingray or shiny disco pants fabric. Unfortunately there wasn't enough for all the cushions (thus no disco mirror ball). After much searching (Internet and hitting all the fabric stores) Sailing Sistsa Joan turned me onto a discount place and I found the perfect fabric for $8.99 a yard! Woo Hoo!

It really is kelw vinyl fabric

The roll of fabric was delivered to the boat on our May run. It's been sitting waiting for me. It stares at me each morning and night from the shower when I brush my teeth...."Hello. Today? No, then when?" I started the project Monday around 4pm.

The AC was blasted so that was a bonus - it was almost too cool

I hauled all my sewing gear up to the laundry/TV lounge and set up Sabrina's Sail Loft. For the record -my Sailrite zig-zag weighs something like 62 lbs. It's one heavy sucker. Tom got it off the boat for me. I had to pull it up the dock ramp vs pushing it in the dock cart because of course it was getting close to low tide - nice timing don't you think! D-oh!

I thought vinyl at the nav station was a good idea

First up was the nav station seat with the blue vinyl material. Sort of a test run. It went ok. Next was a couple of side projects.

Two more complete

The next morning I hauled all my tools up there again and hit it hard. The process was to take one cushion from the boat at a time and work on that cover. I would set the machine on the floor, roll out the fabric on the octagon shaped glass table, measure and cut the fabric. Then I would lift the machine back onto the table and sew it up, making adjustments and tweaks. Then I would walk that cushion back to the boat and get another and start the process all over again. Did I mention that the Sailrite weighs 62 lbs!!!

Getting close on the corner piece

I got all the remaining cushion covers sewed up yesterday with the exception of the difficult corner piece. I tackled that one today. I mis-calculated and had to cut another piece but luckily I had enough fabric. I always buy more than I will need because I have met me and I know my sewing abilities and more importantly that my calculating/measuring abilities can be suspect!

His and hers work stations at the top of the dock - Tom was working a project too

I wasn't sure how I would close up the cushion covers. Zippers seemed like overkill and plus I am not too zippy with them. Get it? Ha! I decided yesterday to use Velcro. For this stage I moved the sail loft to the top of our dock so I would have a shorter walk to get each cushion cover. I got all but three done before rain moved in.