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!

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!

the art of procrastination

So as of today, there are only nine days left until my brother's wedding. And I've been on limited crafting time this week, between work and social stuff that's popped up (my best friend from high school is in town with her husband and two kids, so I went over to her parents' house last night to catch up with her, and then my best friend now stopped by tonight). No, I don't have a picture of the dress yet. So really, other than a little bit of time spent on it tonight, the only day I had this week that I could have worked on finishing the wrap was Monday, since it took me a good bit of time on Sunday to get the buttonhole figured out (for one half. I still have one half to go as of tonight. Including basting the interfacing onto the velvet.)

So do you think I sewed on the wrap on Monday? Nooo... I did this.
This pile of wood is my computer desk, completely disassembled. I hope I can get it back together all right... I don't have a picture of what it looked like all together originally, but I did take pictures of the different pieces and components before disassembling them the rest of the way/removing the hardware that was left. (My dad had already taken it apart a bit.) So it took me several hours, but I got the whole thing sanded. And pretty much by myself--I did have to get my dad to help me with one particualarly difficult screw (which was not my fault, whoever originally put it together did a crappy job that resulted in chunks being taken out of the particle board, which is the main reason I absolutely have to paint it. Because we had to fill those in with some kind of construction goop.)

So now I can say the room is officially started, even though my brother won't be moving the rest of his stuff out until after his honeymoon. I even bought my paint yesterday, and made a date with two of my friends who volunteered to come over and help me paint. (Without my even asking them to. I have good friends.)

Also, though I'm procrastinating on getting a picture of the dress (due to bad lighting and a horribly messy current bedroom), I did finally get a picture of my hutch thingy. (The top is a little messed up-- the finish was chipped pretty badly, so that got some preliminary sanding.)
And then this is a closeup of the doors. I know it's a little bit country looking, but I do like the hinges and hardware a lot on this! It's kind of earthy, which fits in my rather nature-inspired room very well. (I just have to figure out what color I'm going to have to repaint them... I don't think they're going to work with it as is after I paint it white. I'd debated leaving it the natural color, but since the main flat surface was messed up anyway...)

On a somewhat related note, I found this quiz courtesy of Salinda. According to it, my decor style is "global casual".

Your home is warm and inviting, and expresses your curiosity and zest for life. You have wide-ranging interests, and an appreciation for many different cultures and ways of life. You bring a sense of the far-flung world into your home through its décor through unique or artisan-made treasures. Objects in your home tend to reflect your personality, your passions, your values, and your eclectic interests. This gives your home a sense of intrigue and comfort.

You value creativity. You are stylish and fun loving, and can be an inspiration to others. You have a natural sense of drama, and you know you have to be willing to take risks—whether with colors, finishes, furniture choices, or ideas—for your home to stand out. Your home can be happy and lively and the place all of your friends want to be.

I thought it was pretty accurate, actually! And a nice way to not go with the cop-out of "eclectic".

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.)