I have spent the day making cushion covers, an occupation for which I have got no talent whatsoever.
My lack of capacity to perform three-dimensional thinking has been much remarked-upon by my amused and unsympathetic family, and indeed it has come to the fore today.
The covers are for the big foam cushions that make up the camper van seats, and now they are spotted with my blood, left all over the newly-finished seams whenever I had another instance of incompetence with pins.
One cushion has gone remarkably wrong around the zip. I have unpicked and cut and resewn it several times, but to no avail, there is still an inexplicable crush of extra fabric in the corner. Mark said yesterday that it was because I had put the cushion in upside down.
On inspection this morning it turned out that indeed I had, but that this was not the only problem, merely a contributory factor: and after the third hopelessly unsuccessful attempt to make it look smooth and neatly finished I gave up. I have contented myself with the knowledge that the zip will be underneath at the back, and that nobody will ever know that a clumsy muddle is tacked together just out of sight.
I was terribly, terribly careful with the next attempt, drawing it out and pinning it with anguished caution, and it is a bit better, but if I am honest, not by very much. I am not quite sure what I am doing wrong, and more to the point, suspect I am not sufficiently interested in invisible zips to care very much.
My difficulty is that Mark will inevitably notice and although he is far too kind to say anything, all of his productions are so thoughtfully constructed and impeccably finished that I am bound to feel guiltily inadequate by comparison.
The cushion covers are not entirely terrifically rubbish. I have managed to get everything the right way up and right side out, which doesn’t sound difficult, but believe me, it is, I had my tongue sticking out and everything: and no matter what their deficiencies, they do actually cover the cushions.
I had to unpick one bit because I accidentally sewed it to the wrong bit, but that was when I was listening to the radio at lunchtime and messed everything up whilst I thrilled with delighted horror to hear the World At One actually reading out Boris Johnson’s limerick about the Turkish president on the air.
I think they should not have done that. It really shouldn’t have won the competition anyway, because it scans very badly, and every time I hear it I find myself rehearsing alternative and better structured versions in my head. Also I wonder how he knows about the goat.
When Mark came back from the farm we met up on the taxi rank and he showed me the photographs he had taken of his day’s work, which was building the cupboard and runners into which the DVD screen will glide easily backwards and then sideways, to click into its foam-lined resting place next to the door. It is an ingenious arrangement which has taken him a very great deal of planning and fiddling about, and of which he is rightly proud.
I am considering whether or not it is all right to be proud of my rubbish cushion covers. I can’t decide whether it counts as a good job if nobody ever sees the wrong bit.
After all, they are only to go under people’s bottoms.
They look fine when the failed zip is underneath…
