Curtain Call! Act 2: Success!

As of last night, both sets of the window curtains are done! I'm not completely off the hook with curtains yet, as I still need to make a pair to function as the doors for my closet (and probably a much better backdrop for my finished projects than what I've had!)

This is what the inside of the curtains look like--I was flipping through a book about sewing curtains at Joann's one day while waiting in the cutting line, out of boredom. And there was this one set of curtains where they made them as tab curtains, but with the tabs on the inside instead of coming out of the top. I really liked that idea--figured it would be a much nicer finish, and it would be more likely to block the light at the top of the curtain rods. (Plus the added bonus of it not being quite as crucial if the tabs weren't totally evenly spaced. Which they're not-- I couldn't quite make it work in the middle, since I had to go with an even number of tabs.)

And the finished product, with a bonus: I finished sewing the binding on my quilt tonight (needed to keep my hands busy during the chat for the Pattern Review class, since it wasn't constant typing), which means that the quilt is also finally done!!

I think the interior tabs make the top of the curtain pleat very nicely, actually. And while it's not a total light-blocking effect like the curtains in my old room were (sort of...didn't help that my bed was adjacent to the window and therefore I got hit full-force with the light at the edges), it is so much better than just having the shade there! (Especially since the shades are just a liiiiiiiiitle bit too short.) Actually, I think they also brighten up the room a good bit, since they're overall lighter than the shades. And the stripey pattern is so clean and fresh--it makes me think of the sort of thing you'd see at a beach cottage.

Also liking the quilt with the curtains--it's harder to tell in this lighting, but there's just enough blue in the quilt (especially around the borders) to pick up on the blue in the curtains.

I guess technically, the curtains aren't entirely done, since I think I am going to have to make tiebacks. But I'm going to let that sit for a few days to see.

And a bonus shot--closeup of the block with some of the quilting. It's hard to tell in spots with the variegated threads, but it's kind of a freehanded swirly design.

I desperately needed a break from interior design, so since I had a good chunk of free time today, I cut out and mostly sewed together a shirt! It needs sleeves still, which I just might be able to add tomorrow before my teaching run. But this is my easy get-back-to-clothes project, since it's a pattern I've made before. And in a fabric that's been sitting in my stash for at least two years, so I'm feeling quite happy to finally have a chance to use it up!

Yeah, so you know that bedroom redo I've been doing since, oh, October?

I actually made some progress on it over the last few days. Imagine that!

First of all, I finally finished the ottoman recover that I started back in October. It involved a lot of unwieldy fabric-pushing and a resulting number of self-inflicted stab wounds from pins, but hey, it's done. Admittedly, not my best sewing job ever. But that's why it gets a corner spot, next to my bookshelf....because then no one can see the bad spots.

I've also made some progress on my quilt binding, though I didn't take a picture of that. I'm maybe a foot or less from finishing the third side, since I spent a good bit of time working on that last night after finishing the ottoman up.

And then today, I worked on cutting out my curtains. (If slicing fabric into 2-yard increments counts as "cutting out".) I did get the fabric and lining pieces all cut out...I wasn't going to add a lining, but after holding it up to the window this morning, I decided it probably would help. I'm hoping these won't take long, because one of the windows faces east, and I'd really prefer to not be woken up any earlier than I have to by the light that leaks in at the bottom of the shades! I do still have to cut out the tabs and tiebacks for this, but I need to do the math first. (Yuck.)

And because I can....gratuitous kitty cuteness! I stuck the fabric on my bed after checking it against the window, and she decided it would make a good tent. Fortunately, she got tired of it before I was ready to cut it out, because she's really not as sweet and innocent as she probably looks here!

The Personal Style Project, phase 1 cont.: Who are you?

Oooh ooh, ooh ooh! (Great, now I'm going to have that song by The Who stuck in my head.) Anyway...

Moving on to part 3 of the Retro Chick guide to defining you personal style--now that I've more or less established the basics of what I like in fashion (note: that post is slightly edited because I pretty much entirely forgot my lower half in the original post), moving on to who I am.

My Job: I'm lucky...my actual career is being a musician. Most of my actual income from that comes in the form of teaching flute lessons. While I try to look somewhat professional for that (mainly so the parents will take me seriously, because the kids probably don't care), I do feel like I can allow my wardrobe to be a more funky, casual professional. No suits for me! I do teach band one day a week, and since it's a private school, I do have to make sure to respect the teacher's dress code--nothing too short, too tight, or showing cleavage. (Though, honestly, since the majority of my band is middle school boys, I'd prefer to do that anyway. And hurrah for camisoles.) I do occasionally get to perform, either as part of local groups or as a background musician for weddings and such, but generally all I need for that is something black. (I have a habit of grabbing anything slightly funky and black that I can find at the thrift stores as a result.) I also have a seasonal part-time job as a cashier at a garden center (this being the season that I'm off, obviously.) I do have a uniform of sorts for that, in the form of the T-shirt or hoodie that has the company logo on it, keeping my hair in a ponytail, and wearing some kind of sneaker and jeans (or longer shorts/capris in the summer) that it's ok to get dirt on. But I'm not going to consider that last part for this project, for obvious reasons. ;-)

What's my body shape? I'm actually pretty much an hourglass, which I think is why I tend to favor the stuff that's more fitted at the waist and the V-necks--those are my better features. (Though with the deeper V-necks, I do prefer to layer with camisoles and such. Don't really like the feeling that everyone's staring at my chest otherwise.) I'm definitely way more self-conscious about my lower half (especially my thighs), which is why I don't like really tight pants. Or if I have the more fitted thighs, I feel like I need the flare at the bottom to balance it out. (This is why I really need to have a more successful run at making my own jeans--so I can get the perfect amount of snug-but-not-tight at the top, without the gaposis at my waistband problem!)

[rant] Believe it or not, one of my biggest fitting challenges is actually my feet. Depending on the shoe, I've been ranging between a 9.5-10...and my feet are double-wide. Though I can often get away with just a regular wide, especially if I go for a size 10. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find affordable, stylish shoes in that size? Especially boots...apparently there's this assumption going on that double-wide feet also equal double-sized calves, which is not the case with me. I was the girl who had to wear boy's sneakers the whole time I was growing up, because they were the only ones that fit me, and this is why I got into wearing stuff like Converses and Birkenstocks--they're unisex and therefore they fit me. This is also why shoes are my fashion nemesis. [/rant]

What's my coloring?
I guess this one requires a picture, so here's one from when I was goofing off the other day trying to take an outfit picture. (Definitely not living up to the fashion blogs here on the background!) As you can see, I'm pretty pale, and I think I have a slightly warmer undertone to that--it's hard to tell sometimes since I also have rosacea and tend to sunburn easily. My eyes are actually dark brown, though they probably look black in this pic. And I like to pretend I'm a natural redhead...my hair actually was rather reddish (with gold highlights) for much of my 20s, but now that I'm getting close to the end of that, my hair is going mousy brown again. (My mom's did the same thing.) So now I help it remember that it's supposed to be auburn with the help of some henna. ;-) I think I look best in greens, blues and browns, especially the brighter and/or warmer shades of those. Though I do think that black also makes my hair look redder, and therefore I like it. Purple works too. I like yellow and orange, but I have to be careful with those because they can make me look kind of jaundiced. I can wear red as long as it's more of a burgundy-toned one--bright red looks awful on me. And I refuse to wear pink. Even if it needs help, I'm enough of a redhead that I can claim that it clashes with my hair! (Of course, I wouldn't wear it anyway...it's my least favorite color.) I don't like pastels on me in general, and I'm undecided about white--I do think that the more ivory tones work better on me, but I wear white anyway too. Sometimes white just goes with the outfit better.

What are my hobbies?
I actually think that my hobbies tend to influence my style--especially since, obviously, one of my biggest hobbies is making stuff! So let's set sewing, jewelry design, and all other things crafty aside for the moment.

I've always loved to read. I most often go for things in the fantasy/sci-fi, historical fiction, and classics genres. I have been known to do fashion based on books-- for example, this dress was kind of a mash-up of the 60s (via the tie-dye) and a somewhat modernized corset-over-bodice silhouette--it always made me think of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This shirt was a direct inspiration from, of all things, the description of the cloak that Faramir gave Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings. And the main reason I bought this top at the thrift store was because the silhouette and especially the sleeves made me think of a modernized Jane Austen look.

On a related note, I also enjoy movies and my particular tv series, usually of the same genres. And again, I've been known to make things for everyday wear based on those. A few examples: This shirt was a direct inspiration from this dress in the Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice. I pretty much blatantly copied Inara's shirt from Firefly (though in a different color...and I'm still tempted to copy that skirt!), and later stole some more inspiration (though not as obvious) from Kaylee in the same show. And more recently, there was turning one of Eowyn's signature dresses from the LotR movies into a more everyday shirt. (There's still a big temptation to attempt to do the same to this dress of Arwen's at some point.) Sometimes I can find jewelry inspiration from oddball sci-fi sources too, like this necklace--the idea came from an episode of Stargate SG-1. (Hard to see, but it's really the pattern of the necklace that inspired me, since I couldn't make it work with chunkier beads like I first tried. I need to fix that one...currently broken. Either that or remake it into a bracelet, since it never quite lay right anyway.) I'm also currently getting into Avatar: The Last Airbender, and am seriously considering a jewelry series inspired by that...

In my post-college days, I have gotten into more outdoorsy activities, like hiking and backpacking and canoeing and such. I do have somewhat of a specialized capsule wardrobe for those trips, so again, that doesn't really factor too much into this project. But I can see the influence on that in my fashion choices--I think a lot more about the ecology of fashion than I used to, have gotten into recycling clothes and jewelry via refashioning, and I do have way more of a tendency to go for nature-inspired colors and natural materials than I used to.

Music is a huge part of my life, aside from my flute-related activities. I actually spend way more time listening to non-classical music, and I have a rather large and ever-growing music collection-- since August, I've been doing a side project where I've been listening and blogging through my entire iPod (on a different site, since the RL friends I have who are most interested in this are there. Currently, I'm on albums that begin with R, so I have a ways to go yet!) Most of the time, it's either stuff from the 60s and 70s (especially The Beatles, which are pretty much my all-time favorite band...yes, I actually have 3 Beatles band tees, and no, I'm not getting rid of any of them!) , the 90s alternative I grew up with (which I still like for the most part), or the more modern stuff. I have to admit that I don't like the majority of mainstream music (read: pretty much anything that got nominated for the Grammys. I'm probably the only person in America who doesn't have a clue what Lady GaGa sings at this point!) and tend to listen to a lot more indie stuff, like The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Arcade Fire, Death Cab For Cutie, Vampire Weekend, etc. (Kudos to you if you know anything by any of those groups.) And I love going to concerts-- I went to several last year, and have another one coming up in a couple of weeks (going to see Muse in Philadelphia!)

By this point in the project, I think I can actually summarize my style--it seems to be "Boho-fantasy hipster." Given my taste in books, movies and especially music, this actually makes perfect sense.

I have been working already on part 4 of her series, which is looking at what I have already. Though at the moment, I'm focusing more on my spring and summer wardrobe, since that's really what I'll be needing to sew for soonest. And I am already seeing things in it that either need some reworking or that just aren't appealing to me...at the same time, though, I'm reluctant to just get rid of them because, you know, I made that. Does anyone else have that problem?

Oh, and lest you think I'm spending all of my snow days obsessing over fashion, I'll have you know that as of today, my room has curtain rods, so that will help with measuring and getting those done. And I actually made a pretty good dent in quilting my leaf-covered bedspread today. I still have to quilt within the blocks (15 large-sized blocks in all), but all of the blocks are outlined and all of the borders are stitched around.) So I finally feel like I'm making some progress in here! If only I could make better progress in straightening up and organizing this place...really, all I want is to be able to wave a wand and have everything magically sort itself out!

It was snowing. I did sewing!

(And there was much rejoicing!)

So, as I'm sure all of you who live in the United States know, the East Coast got slammed with a blizzard over the weekend. Which resulted in 17" of snow where I live, which easily ranks it as one of the biggest snowfalls in my lifetime. (Big snows are kind of unusual here--usually the big ones we get are the kind that happen from freak March snowstorms that melt away quickly. Needless to say, my state's been kind of shut down over the last 3 days.)

This was the view from my new bedroom's window this morning, after a day to melt away. What I did yesterday was to stay indoors in my pjs all day, I drank lots of tea, watched Julie & Julia with my mom, and SEW!!
This was the result--I got a large portion of the top of my bedspread quilt sewn together--basically spent the whole day cutting and sewing in those light tan strips, with my mom kindly talking me through the best way to do it. I still have quite a bit of work to do on it--I need to sew the tan strips down the side, and then add borders to make it bigger. (Actually, I need to add 2 borders, because after laying it out on my bed last night to test the size, I realized I'm going to have to add another 5" all around to get it to cover all the way to the floor like I'd wanted. But I talked to my mom about it, and she thinks I can squeeze a second border out of the fabric I have if I add a strip of the "sashing" fabric in between the two borders. Hopefully that'll leave me enough to do the binding.) And then I need to put the batting and backing with it, and then quilt it, and then sew the binding on! But I think this is going to be a good project to get my sewing mojo back, since it involves lots of straight lines and no fitting (and by the time I'm finished it, I'm sure I'll be itching to sew something I can wear again!)

It's also high time I actually posted my other two somewhat recent sewing-ish projects.

#1, remember this computer chair that I got at Goodwill for $10? (Second picture down.) One reupholstery job, a fresh coat of paint, and -4 wheels later (with the wheels, the chair wouldn't fit under the desk, unfortunately), this is what it looks like.

I think it's an improvement! And so does my backside, since the new foam is 1" thicker and much more dense than the original cushion. (I do have to keep a pillow on there to lean my back against, which completely clashes, but it's out of Yellow Submarine fabric which is way too cool to cover up, so I've decided I don't care if it doesn't match in this case!)

#2, which may be one of the geekiest things I've ever stuck up here. A couple of months ago, some friends of mine invited me to do a D&D-style game with them, based off of Star Wars. Which meant that I needed to get myself a set of those funky multiple-sided gaming dice, and something to keep it in. And of course I'm not going to buy a dice bag when I could easily sew one within 2 hours!
Which I did. It would have taken less, except I decided to get all fancy and make it fully self-lined with no exposed seams. But at least I finally found something to do with this nice fat quarter of Celtic knot-printed fabric! Part of it, anyway. (Incidentally, we were supposed to play our third round on Saturday, but decided to postpone it due to the bad weather. Yes, go ahead and say it... I'm a geek. I'm ok with that.)

And the painting continues...

Seriously, it feels like all I've done for the last two weeks is paint. I've made some pretty good progress on the furniture-- here's a preview of the hutch with its fresh new coat of paint. It's not completely done, since I still need to put all of the hardware back on, and my dad is strongly suggesting that we add a support piece in the middle of these shelves since they're a little warped. Besides this, I've got the nightstand all painted (other than the cover for the top that isn't built yet), and as of yesterday the computer desk is reassembled and has one coat of paint on it. That one's going to take at least two, possibly three. And I still have to paint the dresser that's in my room (including all of the sanding prepwork). And then there's this...

I remembered last week that I was still missing one piece of furniture-- a chair for my computer desk. So I stopped at Goodwill and found this chair for $10. It's a good height and someone had conveniently added wheels to it. I think that same someone did the paint job too, which is a little messy, and since it's offwhite it would have to be repainted anyway. Plus it's a little wobbly, so I need to fix that. I'm also going to reupholster it, since I have to take it apart anyway--it's kind of a shame to in a way, because the upholstery is in excellent condition and even sort of matches my color scheme. But the padding on the bottom of the chair needs a boost--there's no way it'll be comfortable to sit on for any length of time. It kind of feels like it's lightly stuffed with craft stuffing. So I braved the crowds at Joann's this morning for the Black Friday sale and got some new fabric that I'm really excited about, as well as some 3" high-density foam. The only thing I've ever reupholstered in my life was a folding metal chair, and I've never worked with this foam, so we'll see how it goes...

Other than that, I did finish the recoverings on the insulated window shades this past Sunday, with a good bit of help from my mom on sewing the rings on and a lot of help from my dad on hanging them. (They're both being really great about helping me out, since the reason that I'm on such a tight deadline is that we have family staying with us for Christmas.) And we've given the carpet a good cleaning. And I've put quite a bit of stuff in my closet, and am feeling quite nerdily thrilled at how organized it looks. (I've NEVER had an organized closet for any length of time. Mainly because of the extremely tight space, and that I can be kind of a slob. I'm working on that.)

Somewhere along the line, I've also finished appliqueing the leaves on my quilt. But I haven't gotten any farther than that, since the furniture really has to get done before any more fabric work. (The only thing that really had to get done prior to Christmas was the shades, since I need them to darken the room enough that I can sleep. I miss my sewing machine. Though I did sneak in one tiny quick sewing project that has nothing to do with the room that I just remembered I haven't posted about yet. That'll come.)

So, even though all of this painting is taking about twice as long as I'd hoped it would, I guess I made some good progress in my time off. Good thing too, since my part-time job is starting up again today. Pretty much as soon as I get changed and go. I should do that.

Dungeon no more!

Not much to show in the sewing department yet, though I have been making progress on two things in that. But I can show what I spent a good chunk of last week doing... remember that dungeon grey that the room was when I started?

I think this is a big improvement.
My dad and I painted the ceiling and closet (which is also tan) and installed the new ceiling fan earlier last week, and then on Saturday two of my friends came over to help me paint the walls and trim (they volunteered without my asking, which makes them both extra cool!) Not showing the floor in this pic yet, because it was a mess, but the carpet is getting cleaned tonight!

I spent most of today priming the hutch (which was 3 drawers, 2 doors front and back, the top shelving unit and the dresser-like piece, including some very intricate legwork) and the nightstand (which was much easier since it was just the two sides, the front and inside of 3 drawers, and a little trimwork--I'm not painting the inside of where the drawers go again, or the sides of the drawers, since I probably shouldn't have painted those in the first place!) There's really no point in showing pictures of that in-progress, since it'll look a lot nicer once the paint is actually done (and the primer and paint are both white anyway).

I did run into a little bit of a hiccup with the hardware-- I'd expected I'd have to paint it, since the iron-grey wouldn't work on white furniture, but I wasn't expecting to take it off and find that it was pretty significantly rusted!

So I just had to be extra-careful with the spray-paint coating. I also got some new drawer pulls for the dresser I'm keeping from my current room and painted them to match....but I just realized I forgot all about the hinges on this dresser and will have to paint them later! Doh!
I like the new finish though. I chose a hammered silver spray-paint in hopes that it would make the finish look less sprayed-on and fake. I basically spent from 9 to 4 working on all of this, so I'd say I definitely took full advantage of not having any work today!

So I think my reward tonight for making so much progress will be some quality time with my sewing machine for quilt appliqueing. Once I scrape all of the paint off of myself, that is!

You see what I have to work with?!

In other words, what little crafty time I've had lately has been dedicated to trying to get this bedroom makeover going. I need to try to get as moved as possible into this room by Christmas Eve, since we have family coming to stay and need one of the rooms for them to sleep in. These admittedly aren't the best "before" pics, since my brother still had a bunch of stuff in here at the time and my dad went ahead and patched up some of the holes in the walls before I could get to the picture. But this should give you an idea of what I'm working with in terms of color... I call this "dungeon grey".
And let's not forget the black window shades (that never get opened), and the dark blue ceiling...

Oh yeah, and the completely busted closet doors, which are now gone, and not coming back. I'm going to put curtains there instead. (Oh, and the cat...she thinks it's HER room now!)

Spent Monday night priming the entire room, with some much-needed help from my dad. I'm very much lacking in skills on paint-rolling ceilings. As you can see, the primer is a drastic improvement in color! (And it's amazing how much brighter the room seems already!)

So here's my plan: I'm going to paint the ceiling and closet on Sunday--those are going to be tan. Next Saturday, two of my friends are coming over to help me paint the walls. (I didn't ask, they volunteered. I have wonderful friends.) Those will be green, somewhere between this slightly too-light green and this too-dark green. The blue carpet will stay. The idea was that I was trying to match this fabric. (And, at least on my computer, the greens look a lot less olive and the blue carpet isnt' quite as dark, so hopefully it'll work!) I will have to paint the trim on the windows and closet and all, because the one window had to be repaired and the baseboards had light blue paint on them from the original paint job from when my brother was a kid. So those are going to be a chocolatey brown to try and look like the actual wood color. On the plus side, that saves me a LOT of time on taping this stuff up!

I have to admit, this project has been stressing me out, since trying to work 3 jobs and find time to do major room redecorating has been rather difficult! But I found out today that hours are being cut at my garden center job for November, due to low customer traffic and needing to save some money. So what this means is that for the next couple of weeks, I'm temporarily laid off--no need of a cashier being there all day if there's hardly any customers. But I'm actually ok with it, because that will give me some much-needed time to put all of this together. Especially since I have 4 pieces of furniture to paint too, of which I still need to sand 1 1/2 of those and prime 3, and that's the type of work that I need larger blocks of time to do well. And then on days where I've still got a good block of flute teaching time, I can focus more on the sewing end of things. So this dramatically increases my odds of getting enough done in time. And the other fortunate thing is that I don't really have much left to buy for this. I need to get two more pieces of fabric: one for curtains for the closet, since I discovered that my original idea of recycling some bedsheets isn't going to work--one of them is fitted and would end up having to be significantly smaller to get rid of those darts--and one to cover the two insulated light-blocking shades so I can recycle those. And I need to get a new ceiling fan, since in looking at the original one, it's a lot easier to replace it than to paint the blades and try and find a way to get the lights less glaring. So I'm going to see if I can find a fairly inexpensive one with a covered light, preferably one that's still Energy Star-rated. And then I think that should be it.

I did have one exciting thing happen today for this room--one of my must-haves was a bookcase. Because I have a LOT of books, and am completely tired of the brackets-in-the-wall system that I've had my entire life because my dad favors them. Let me say, bookcases are ridiculously expensive. I mean, come on, it's a box with shelves, do you really need to charge a hundred bucks or more for one that's shorter than me? I was seriously considering building one, since even the cheapo IKEA ones are a lot of dough. But this week I found one on Craigslist that seemed to fit the bill perfectly--pretty much the exact dimensions I needed (including height--it's a 7-foot tall one!), and a light enough color that I can get away with not painting it. It was picked up today, and as long as I can get it through the door of the room, I think it'll work brilliantly. (Once I clean the spider egg cases off of the base, anyway... ick.) The best part: it only cost me $26!

Slowly moving along....

I know I've been quiet lately. I really haven't been that productive, honestly...it's been difficult for me to find time to craft this fall! But I do have a little progress to show, so here goes...

1. The skirt fitting class. The lessons are all up, the chats are done, and I spent most of it feeling behind because of how long it took me to fit the muslin. But I know I wasn't the only one in that class having trouble with it--and mine was relatively easy compared to some. I did finally get the muslin fitted pretty well, I think, and so since I had some unexpected time off yesterday, I made my master pattern.
To give you an idea: I made my muslin from McCall's 3830, a basic straight skirt, in a size 14. The black lines are the the original waist and darts. The red and orange ones are what I had to do to make it work-- 1" seams on the side or more, tiny little darts, the waistband lines up with the red line, and I had to make a contoured waistband to use as my default because a straight one was way too gappy. (I did have a larger view of the muslin with the two lines, but I seem to have accidentally deleted it from my camera. Oops.)
This is my master sloper pattern that I made yesterday. At my mom's brilliant suggestion, I put it on heavy non-fusible interfacing, because that would be more durable than paper, easier to store than posterboard, I can see pattern lines through it, and I can iron it! So, theoretically, if I make a skirt from this pattern it should fit quite well.

Given all that I have going on, my original plan (which I formulated about halfway through the class) was to get my sloper made, and then put this aside and try fitting another pattern with it later. I don't think that's going to be happening, though-- some of the ladies in the class had the idea during the last chat to do a sewalong to work on our second skirt muslins, and the teacher said she'd try to stop in and check on our progress every so often. So I kind of feel like I should do that while I can still get the help.

Item #2: I was house/dogsitting this weekend, and my plan was to use the time to get a good chunk of my bedspread quilt for my new bedroom done. I actually did make some rather good progress, considering that the plan evolved into also hanging out with another friend who came down to keep me company while I was alone in the house/helping her a bit with her Halloween costume/taking a couple of hours to go to a flute recital. (My first flute student from back when I was in college is now a college senior majoring in music ed, and she had her recital on Saturday!) My quilt top consists of 15 blocks, which will have strips between them, and then borders and stuff. But I got all 15 blocks sewn together with little drama, other than thinking I'd lost half of the pieces to block #4. But I kept moving through them, and my suspicions that they'd gotten stuck with another piece proved true. (#14 to be exact. That's what I get for trying to sort them and watch FlashForward at the same time!) I also got all of the leaves fused onto the blocks, and started appliqueing a few of the stems. But I didn't get very far on that, because the lighting in her living room wasn't the greatest and my machine hasn't had a working light for years, and I was getting rather tired by this point of Saturday night anyway so I gave up and watched the last of my Star Wars trilogy run without sewing. This is a sample of two of the blocks, just to get an idea of how they work together. I think I'm really going to like the way it turns out!

Not dead yet.

I've just been super-busy at work. But here's a little of what's been going on in my crafty world lately...

1. The Pattern Review class. I've been kind of feeling a bit behind, mostly due to needing to get the feedback from the instructor on the fit and that usually takes several days (I post one day, she posts the next, I fix and post again, etc.) So far, it's been helpful, though, and I think I'm getting close to the point where I might actually have a muslin I can make a real sloper out of. Here's where I'm at:
I think the front is actually fitting pretty well. Still having a little trouble with the back, but hopefully the instructor will be able to let me know what to do and I can get the actual sloper made soon.

2. I've actually started to make some progress on things for the bedroom makeover. Nothing actually in the room yet, as my brother hasn't finished moving his things out. I might have to just box them up and stick them in the middle of the room and work around it. But I did start priming pieces for the computer desk as of Monday. And since I've felt the need for a sewing project that I can work on in between bouts of muslin-tweaking, but nothing really demanding of my brain, I've been working on this instead.

No before pictures, as I forgot to take one, so an in-progress one will have to do. Basically, I'm just taking my cream-colored (at least, it used to be cream....use and the occasional spilling of tea have taken their toll) IKEA storage ottoman--it's similar to this one but more square-shaped (the lid's a little off here, which is why it looks more like a Super Mario mushroom tower)--and recovering it with this blue moire. I'm hand-sewing it directly onto the old cover because I'm feeling too lazy to figure out a pattern for the cover of the top. Especially since it would involve about 3 zippers and hammering in some grommets in the exact placement it would need to screw in the little feet on it that helps it sit in place within the box. I am leaving the handles on, though planning on leaving them tucked inside the box. What I store in there are things like my high school and first half of college scrapbooks (which are this odd bigger-than-12x12 size with no page protectors and therefore a bit unwieldy for a bookshelf), old journals, etc., so it doesn't get the lid taken off too often. In my current room, the idea was to use it to sit in front of the computer, but it's really more of a dumping ground for my stuff since I generally just sit on the bed instead. In the new room, I'm planning on using this more as a window seat of sorts, to give me a nice place to sit and read.

3. I was planning on going backpacking this weekend with the outing club at my church. Since the forecast basically sucks and I don't want to spend two days straight outside when the temperature isn't going to crack 40 (and be raining and possibly snowing for much of it), I decided to wimp out and stay home and work on stuff for my bedroom and whatnot. (Besides, I got scheduled to play on the worship team even though I already told them I wasn't going to be there...and my brother is the one in charge of the scheduling and was standing right next to me when I blocked out the date and he still didn't realize I was supposed to be gone! Go fig. I guess I should cut him some slack since this was before the wedding and he's only been married for a week and a half.) Anyway, since I'm staying indoors, I'm on a quest for the perfect baked potato soup recipe. I'm feeling inspired by this awesome potato soup they used to have at Bennigan's, may it rest in peace, so here's my rules:

1. It must be more or less smooth instead of chunky.


2. It must be creamy and use bacon.


3. It must also be a healthier version (since the inspiration is decidedly not, and I want this to be something I can eat on a regular basis!)


4. It must be able to be made in a crockpot, since I basically just want to dump all the ingredients in something and then be able to prime furniture for a couple of hours.


5. It must taste good. (Obviously.)

So I'm arming myself with a recipe from this book, this magazine, this tv chef and this blog, and basically just taking all of my favorite parts from each to create my own recipe. We'll see how it turns out. And when I actually end up making it...there's a fairly good chance I won't have to go into the garden center tomorrow due to the crappy weather (I got sent home early today), and if that's the case, I might just make it for lunch tomorrow. Possibly even on the stovetop, just for kicks. (And warmth...we're getting a new heater installed and therefore we don't have heat right now!!)

And now for something completely different..

At least, different for me. You may be wondering what the outcome of that dress in the last post was. Well, I went to Goodwill on Monday and found a cute vintage-esque cardigan to wear over top of it. As for the wrap, I'm most likely going to recycle it into some pillows. At least then I'll be able to use SOME of the fabric I bought for this outfit!!

As for this....yes, I'm making a quilt. (My mother is so proud.) This is my inspiration. It's a quilt I saw years ago in a Coldwater Creek catalog, and for some reason it just jumped out and grabbed me. Something about the combination of greens and the leaf print. So I decided back then that if I ever got the urge to make a quilt, this just might be the one to do.

As it so happens, the idea also goes perfectly with the bedroom makeover I'm getting started on--it's very nature-inspired. So I've spent the last two nights getting the blocks cut out (with some help from my mom, who had to explain the most efficient way to do it.) This is the color scheme that I'm using for the quilt, mostly. There's going to be 15 patchwork blocks with tan strips in between, and the main border is going to be the fabric that inspired the color scheme of the room--it's kind of a hexagon print in green, blue, tan and white. And, of course, leaves appliqued on the blocks.

I won't be starting on the sewing right away. For one thing, I have to make the leaf template. For another thing, my Pattern Review sewing class starts on Monday. And I also have a weekend near the end of the month where I'm going to be house/dog-sitting for a friend, and so my plan for that time is to watch a lot of movies and sew as much of this together as I possibly can. (At least the patchwork blocks and the appliques. I should probably wait to cut the in-between strips until I see the finished size.)

Catching up, 3/4: Summer Wardobe 5 (the hippie top), and some redecoration stuff

It's about time I finished something else for this, since it's almost halfway through August! Anyway, this is my peasant-top-inspired shirt. (Please ignore how badly the duct-tape wrinkles on Donna the Dummy's chest shows through the gauze.)

Since I wanted the hippie look but a little more fitted, I went with one of my tried-and-true tops, Simplicity 5683.

I don't usually pay attention to the suggested trim details in patterns, but felt that this one needed a little something since it's just plain light blue cotton gauze. So I followed their lead and added this crocheted lace and ribbon trim. (I hope it doesn't make it look like something meant for a 5-year-old... I'm thinking the lines going down the front do help a lot there.)

I do wish the trim on the sleeves had gone better... I tried to follow the placement lines, even taking it up higher, but perhaps my trim was too wide because it was still a struggle to not let it hang past the edge of the elastic casing.

The really nice thing about this one, since I had it already cut out, is how fast it was to make, even with inside finishing. I sewed the trim onto the pattern pieces on Friday night. (I probably could have gone further, but Cassie was over at the time for one of our crafty tv-watching hangouts, and we got a little sidetracked by an urge to play Guitar Hero.) I sewed the rest of it together in its entirety on Saturday.

I haven't tried it with the skirt yet (and obviously not with my ill-fated jeans... I'm still trying to figure out if it's worth the effort to rip out and resew the back seam in an attempt to salvage them!) Looking at it now, I'm really not convinced that this top will go with the skirt either--I think the top is too light a blue and the skirt is too red a brown. I'll have to try it on to see for certain, of course, but I have to admit that I'm not feeling very hopeful about it. (And having a little trouble shaking the overall feeling that, even though I've finished most of the intended pieces, as far as mixing and matching goes this mini-wardrobe is kind of a bomb.)

On a non-related note, I stopped at a used-furniture place this afternoon, the type that does estate sales and such. After my brother gets married in October, I'm moving into his room (he got the larger one even though I'm older...mine used to be my mom's sewing room and so that was the first to go) and turning my current bedroom into a guest room/teaching studio for my flute lessons. (My parents are so cool about the musician income thing.) Since I still have the same furniture, sans bed, that I've had since I was oh, seven or so, one of the things I've really been hoping to do is replace some of the kid dressers. Really, hoping to go down from the three dressers I have in here (one long one, and two that used to sit under the loft bed I had when I was a kid, one of which is a really bad use of space) to two. But I've been having trouble figuring out how to get that to work without ditching half of my clothes, seeing as how my closet is also crammed full. (The hazards of sewing clothes/having costumes/having old recital dresses that need to be kept because in my line of work, I actually do use them sometimes!) So I've been hoping to get two dressers that are larger sizes than the ones I have now. Or maybe get one larger one and move one of my old ones over. Or something. I'm still sorting it out.

Anyway, the point of that ramble is that I did actually find something at the used furniture store today-- no pictures, because it's on my phone and I can't figure out how to get pictures off of it. :P But it's a little outside of the box, so part of me is excited about it and part of me is wondering if I made a $100 mistake!! I'll try to describe it-- they listed it as an arts-and-crafts hutch (though I don't know how old it actually is). So it's kind of this light oak-ish color, 3 drawers and two doors that open out. There's a shelf inside to split that into two parts, so it's not just a total waste of space like my armoire dresser. And then sitting on top of that, there's a little built-up part with 3 shelves. (I'll take pictures once I get it home-- I have to get my dad to help me pick it up, since he has access to vehicles that hold larger things than my Civic!) So I'm thinking the lower part can be used for clothes, though I'll have to play around with the shelved section to see if it would be better for smaller clothes, like underwear or rolled-up t-shirts (an excuse to make fabric storage boxes), or for a better way to store my jeans than rolled up and crammed into a too-shallow drawer in that waste-of-space armoire. (Can you tell I really don't like that dresser?) And then I can use the shelves for things like makeup/hair stuff/candleholders and such that I can't bear to get rid of. Or maybe my dvd collection, if the shelves are tall enough to accommodate them. I really hope this was a good move--in thinking ahead, this could be a piece of furniture that could work well in the long term, like if I can eventually afford my own place or if I actually can get married someday and therefore move out, because then I could just use it for another function. Like, say, craft/sewing room. ;) And I like the quirkiness of using a piece of furniture for a purpose other than its original intent. But I hope it works!! And then there's the question of refinishing it, since I do have to paint over my free computer desk... (Damaged section that had to get repaired= power-sanded down particle board. Not pretty.)