Typical of most men of my retiree uncle’s generation, I guess, once retired from their career, they descend into an abyss of nothingness.
Then, he came visiting me at my factory which beats, I guess, again, walking aimlessly around the house or even the estate.
Yet, facing him at my place is more nothingness, with nothing for him to do, exacerbated by the fact that I am actually really busy with a whole lot of orders to fulfill right in front of him. He has no part in it.
And so he sat in front of the TV I had installed but doesn’t watch the show I had on. And he was just scrolling his phone.
Then it occurred to me that I have in stock some of Hocks – Alcis’ pre punched diy cardholder kit and promptly took one set out for my uncle.
What would normally take me a little over an hour took him an entire afternoon and he wasn’t done yet.
That’s a really beautiful head of snow white hair : D
I need not guess and know I’ll be half bald by the time I reach my late 40’s keke but I digressed.
My uncle had difficulty pushing the needle, especially the little lump of needle eye together with the knot fastening the thread to it, through the stitch holes.
Furthermore, he had a weak left arm, poor eyesight and a general inability to focus due to age.
In spite of the difficulties for him, and I really mean difficulties, that which would be simple for a younger person like myself, my uncle and I had a good afternoon of fun and of problem solving.
My problem was mainly to unravel the left hand thread from the right hand thread for my uncle everytime he punctures any one of them.
It occurs when a needle is pushed through a thread when pushing the needle through the stitch hole on the leather panel. It is also fairly common for beginners as the thread used are flat wax threads. Being flat and broad, there is a sizeable surface area for the needle prick to be pushed through.
A really big mess
My uncle had wanted to go it independently, hurray for independence!(?), and not rely on me to unravel the punctured threads by himself.
So he started using the prick end of the needle to pick at the punctured area, leaving that area of the thread hairy due to the torn fibres.
I totally forgot to take photos of that hairy clump but you can see it at where the blue arrow is pointing.
I had to unravel the puncture as well as the stitches backwards to where the red arrow is pointed in order to straighten out the mess of fibres.
Finally, I stitched for my uncle a good part of his cardholder to demonstrate for him a level of proficiency that he can achieve (I suppose).
You can see his irregular stitching on the left side of the cardholder and my neat zigzag stitches on the right.
At the end of the day, he really was still puncturing threads and unravelling them and wasn’t completed. But still it was a really memorable day I spent with my uncle.
Keching 