Golf Cart Collab

Yesterday was a quintessential March day in Montana—40F with a hard rain. I said to the husband that I thought it was a good day to make a new cover for the golf cart seat, so after a breakfast of bacon and eggs, we got started.

The old seat was in bad shape:

Both the headliner and the plywood had rotted. We took everything apart. I worked on making the new cover and he cut a new plywood base.

I took apart the old cover to use as a pattern. That was the most time-consuming part of the whole project. It was so filthy that I didn’t want to take it upstairs to my cutting table, so I worked on the living room floor.

The vinyl is from Sailrite and easy to work with. I have always been very impressed with their products.

I started with the backrest covers, because they were small. I seamed the pieces, then topstitched.

I was working on my Juki 1541, affectionately known as The Beast. I have the servo motor set to the slowest speed of 200 stitches per minute, which is still a respectable speed for someone like me who only sews on this machine occasionally. After I finished the backrest covers, I made the seat cover and topstitched it.

I took the finger guard off the machine as soon as I got it because I switched out the standard foot for my preferred narrow foot and the guard doesn’t fit with that foot installed. I am very careful not to position my fingers in front of the foot. I always have them on either side of what I am sewing in case the machine takes off before I am ready.

By about 4:00 pm, we were ready to reassemble the seat and backrests. We used the old cushion because it was in reasonably good shape and I didn’t want to have to source more foam.

The seat looks much better now. Total cost: About $60 for vinyl and plywood. (Cost of The Beast is being amortized over projects, LOL.) I said to the husband that this was the kind of project his mother would have loved, because she did a lot of upholstery.

And now we’re ready to drive around the property in our souped-up golf cart!

I have a few more projects to complete on The Beast, hopefully this week. I made a generator cover for the Miller generator that we used to use when the power went out. That generator was replaced by a diesel one, so the husband put the Miller on one of the work trucks. He said he needs a way to tie down the cover at the base so it doesn’t flap around when he’s driving down the road. I’ll pull the leftover Cordura from the stash and make some kind of casing for a bungee cord.

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While we were working on this project, DD#2’s boyfriend proposed to her, complete with brunch, a photo session, and an evening engagement party with their friends. 💍 We are very excited for them and happy to welcome future SIL to the family. Wedding date TBD.