Week 3: Repair a sailboat sail or two (April 25-May 1)

I was told that all I needed to do was be able to sew a straight line, HA!! A few weeks ago a friend (T) was mentioning that he needed a sewing machine to fix a sail and I said I had one. Well, earlier this week I got an email asking if I could help him do some repairs. I made it VERY clear that I had never and was not expereinced in the repair of sails and couldn't guarantee my work. The first sail was pretty thick and T had already patched it, I just needed to sew around the edges and make sure it was all secured down. Definitely a workout for my sewing machine, I may need to reward it with a few simple layers of fabric this weekend!! I was very UNIMPRESSED with my work on the first sail, it was probably some of the ugliest sewing I have ever done!! T said that it would work just fine and used a flame to seal some of the lose edges. The second sail went MUCH better; the fabric was a little thinner and other than having to rethread every few minutes because of the nature of the thick waxed thread, it was almost enjoyable. It looked much better, in fact someone who had stopped by (and is an avid sailor) said that he had to do a double take to figure out where the patch was becuase it match the rest of the sail so well. My big fear is that it will rip while T is out on a sail. I hope that my repairs hold up and put off the need to drop $3000+ on a new set of sails for a while. I wouldn't want to make sail repair and career, but it wasn't too bad, in fact I would even be willing to do it again sometime in the future.

Would I have done this out of the kindness of my heard, MOST DEFINITELY, but it was great that T was willing to trade some services. While I worked on his sail he worked on my bike. He put on a new chain and cut 6 inches off the fender where it was rubbing. My bike is SO happy now!! It is Saturday and I am definitely glad that in about 7 hours the weekend will finally be here!! BEACH here I come!