Sunday, June 13, 2010

A little weekend mending job

Although he no longer gets out much, my Dad is still a bit fond of his camping gear. He was about to pass on his much-travelled camper-trailer to a mate when my sister's wolfhound-staffy-heaven-only-knows-what chewing machine dog discovered it.

An entire corner of the tent bit was shredded... including the door, window, two zips and the base. Dad was a bit (actually a lot) upset, so I offered to put the jigsaw back together....

We fired up the old Singer and replaced huge sections of canvas...

Parked in the shed, with a wonky picnic table and a collapsible chair, we worked around the trailer (to which it was all still attached). My camera tripod doubled as a thread stand for the cone of nylon thread (handy trick to know). The poor little Singer strained.... but we got the body of the tent back together with teamwork and a can-do attitiude.
The new mesh window and the zippers are yet to go in, but I might have to bring in the big guns for that one (wishing my industrial machine was a bit more portable!!) - probably next weekend. Stay tuned.

My Dad and I laughed that if the whole things comes back together, it will be a remarkable triumph of optimism over reality. Either way, it was good to work on a project together and have a chat.
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I also discovered that my dad and this crafty gal's dad were mates when they were young. (The things you find out when you fix a tent!!) It's a very small world, indeed.

9 comments:

Liesl said...

Gosh, that's a serious bit of mending there - nice work!

I'd heard rumours that my Nan had used her 1938 Singer (which I now proudly own) to sew all sorts of canvas creations. What work-horses those Singers are!

Buy Design said...

Oh My Word... 20 years ago my first Staffy had a play date with two Irish Wolfhounds...
Now, nothing untoward happened so I know our little treasure had nothing to do with the production of your sisters dog but thats a fine piece of tooth work..

trash said...

Could the hound not be trained in the way of eyelet placing? Jaws that powerful would surely make your working life speedier.

Unknown said...

Your little Singer must be exhausted after all that! What a good little machine she is :)

Fer said...

Ah, they don't make Singers like they used to! You both did a great job, reminds me of when I had to mend the canopy on our Mini Moke, luckily it didn't have to stay on the car while sewing!

Tanya said...

That project looks so very unappealing! Lucky there was some nice dad time involved and obviously two people who will rise to a challenge in order to prove that optimism will triumph! Hey, amazing who parents knock around with- and funny to find it out too. That's cool.

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

What a great daughter!! I've lugged my industrial machine to Sydney to mend jobs for my parents, it's heart breaking indeed when much loved things - especially hobby/ relaxation related - get damaged. I bet he didn't ask either!! Love Posie

CurlyPops said...

Such a small world!
Yogi says to say hi to your dad - I even got the run down of where your parents live now (including which corner to turn off at). My dad has one of those brains that takes in every single bit of info and stores it for later on)!

Anonymous said...

Well reading this makes me think I should be able to fix the couple of small holes in our 'new' camper trailer......or else I know where to come if I can't!