It is time to call it quits!

I bet that little title caught your eye! I suppose I could have called this post "The best laid plans of mice and men" or even "OH POOP!" I thought that I would share the amount of work that has gone into creating or I should say hopefully was going to create a lounge to be used in a sculpture for a levitating lady illusion.

Originally I was going to show this wonderful little lounge but things didn't work out that way. This seldom happens to me so sit back and vicariously follow me down the rabbit hole of wonder only to be vomited out again.

As I was working on this settee I kept thinking that it was taking to long and should be aborted; obsessive compulsive, anal retentive, never say die, who knows what to call it but one or all may apply to me.

I like detail.

"#@*^!+%$," is about how I feel about detail at the moment.

This antique brass lamp base was the starting point for a sculpture of the levitating lady illusion. I started with an image in my mind of a tufted Victorian lounge with no head rest, more like a large settee.

This sofa is an example of the tufting that I had in mind. I pulled the image from the internet and I'm sorry but I don't have the source. If you know the source let me know and I will add it in or delete it if it is yours and you do not wish me to post it in this blog.

I cut a piece of very heavy card and inserted it into the inside of the frame.

The bottom shows the wire on the brass arms to hold the card in place and also the wire around the tabs  near the foot. This wire will follow the curve of the foot and then be attached to the stage floor securing it in place.

 I have been figuring out the tufting in my mind for a week or more, did I want it square or in diamonds. Either design had to fit into the shape of the frame.

I very seldom draw the item that I am making, most of the time I figure it out in my mind and then make it. This is more precise so I used graph paper to plot it all out, a good 3 or 4 hours of figuring the size, the shape, and the direction of the square or diamond tufting.

I taped it onto the heavy card top and used my Dremel drill to make all of those #@*^!+%$ holes that took me about 4 hours to figure where they were supposed to go so that I would have this wonderful small prop for this amazing sculpture of the levitating lady illusion!!!!!

I am breathing more steadily now...

I cut the side pieces and glued them in place. Oh by the way, all of the drawing on the top of the card was pre-graph paper designs. There were 4 or more attempts and each one erased so that I wouldn't get mixed up with lines from an old design.

Here is the finished card shape nestled in the brass frame that will support the padded fabric tufting.

I also spent time figuring out how thick the padding should be. I settled on a layer of cotton batting, a layer of polyester batting as it wouldn't become compacted, and another layer of cotton batting. The padding needed to be thick but yielding so that it would have a nice finished fullness. Once finished it would be about half the height of the cushion that you see.

You can see the wire twisted and tucked out the way that holds card onto the base.

I first glued a layer of cotton batting to the top of the heavy card. I next placed about 1/2" of polyester batting on top of the cotton batting and then finally another layer of cotton batting. This last layer was glued around the edges to hold it in place. The fabric was then taped in place so that it wouldn't move while I was stitching through the holes of the card.

I stitched one set of holes to make a square shape on the top of the settee. It looked terrible! I realized that the amount of time doing the tufting alone was ridiculous. 

I have salvaged the cotton batting, the polyester batting, and realized that the card support was a total write off, such is life.

As I said in the beginning, this never happens to me. Life keeps you humble doesn't it!