Other Duties As Assigned

There are many days when my job is busy and even hectic and at other times I'm at my computer all day in my office. Then there are days when we get to have other duties that make our jobs interesting. Just last month I made a series of costumes and props for a Star Wars themed break from final exam week. Today I fixed the new sofas that came not quite to our specifications.

It started when our old leather sofas could no longer be repaired and were getting pretty shabby looking. The search for new furniture was long and arduous but we finally ordered two long sofas, a few chairs, and several cubed ottomans. The big day came for delivery and when the sofas appeared there was a bit of head shaking. Was this the color we wanted? Somehow it looked "off" so the samples were brought out and, much to our dismay, they were the wrong shade of brown, more of an olive brown. At first we were just happy to have the new furniture in place but then the consensus was it needed to be the color we originally picked out. After many phone calls and much finagling, we were able to order the right color sofas and kept the olive tone models and were charged a much smaller price for their mistake.

For the most part we are happy but then we noticed only the bottom cushions were tethered to the frame and the back cushions are just loose. But we ordered them to all be tethered! After a round of sighs I suggested we might be able to do this ourselves so I got to work. Vinyl in a similar color was found and small D-Rings were bought so I brought my Singer 201-2 into work for the day. Here's one of the vinyl straps with a D-ring attached getting sewn into the end of the cushion, right above the zipper pull:

As only a 201-2 can do, it sailed right through the many layers of vinyl and the nylon zipper teeth. Here's how it looked on the inside of the cushion:

and then on the outside:

The D-ring gets snapped into another clip that is tethered via an elastic strap. Although the bottom cushions are tethered on both sides, it was only going to happen on one side of the back cushions due to their construction. Here's the ring with the elastic strap:

We only rigged this up to the sofas that are not inside the library itself, where they are at the entrance and actually outside in the hallway. I know that sounds strange but our buildings are connected and the library is on the third and fourth floor of one of the centrally located buildings. That hallway and lounge area gets a lot of use and we just didn't want those back cushions to wander away. Here's the whole thing done and in place:

That's right, you can't even tell. It's supposed to be that way, just like underwear: you need to have it but we don't want to see it. I could do this because I knew I had a sewing machine that would sew all those layers of vinyl, my trusty Singer 201-2. Have I mentioned I love that sewing machine? Indeed I do.