I'm following Tom Yost's lead and building a foldable aluminum tubing SOF with poly/PVC skin. Everything seemed easy and fast until I got to the skin. I thought the 61" fabric perfect to fit in one piece, starting from the cockpit, working fore and aft, tightening to remove wrinkles as I went and cutting in darts when necessary. Not that easy, especially for my first upholstery job! Too many wrinkles in too many places.

A friend's daughter is a seamstress and does upholstery and suggested that I was going about it backwards. She said it should be much easier to make my cockpit and top seam from the two straight, uncut sides of the fabric, tight only at the cockpit, then turn craft upside down, pull it tight and should only need two darts - both at the keel.

Seems sound to me, and doubling along the dart, plus adding an extra layer inside and out, should give me added strength along that vulnerable line. Unfortunately, I already cut a lot of 'extra' out from the top, so will have to improvise. Anyone else tried this technique already (seems like it should work for coated as well as precoated fabric).

Tomorrow should tell!