an inside peek

I FINALLY finished those curtains! I had a nice chunk of free time yesterday afternoon, so I managed to drag my way through the rest of the lining sewing. They're just giant tab-topped rectangles, really nothing that exciting to write about. And it's really not my best sewing job, to be honest. I kind of put myself in a corner on these--the problem is that I'd bought the fabric ages ago, when we first decided what colors to paint the bedroom, but there weren't any curtain rods at the time. So when we finally bought them and Doug got them hung up, he had to put them higher than either one of us had expected. Which meant that I barely had enough yardage to do all four panels. These have the absolute smallest hem I could do on home dec-weight fabric, and I do think they'd hang better with a deeper hem, but it was either that or buy more fabric. Fortunately, no one will be looking too closely at these except for me. (I'd say and him, but he's a guy, you know?) I couldn't get a good shot of the whole room, but it looks the same on the other window.


And I'm not having to do this anymore, which is how I was attempting to block the light enough that I could sleep. (It didn't work as well as I'd hoped. But the room was still pretty dark when my alarm went off today. It was wonderful.)





The one slightly creative thing I did with these was to make the blackout lining detachable. This was mostly so I could wash them when the dogs inevitably shed all over them, and partially because blackout lining is expensive and this ups the chances that I can reuse it at some point. Of course, this effectively meant that I had to make eight curtain panels instead of four, which is not very exciting at all. I'm going to be quite glad to move on to a different project, even if I can't quite get back to selfish sewing yet!

So, curtains. Yeah. On a more interesting note, want to see my new sewing/craft room? Okay!

Disclaimer: The majority of the good organizing ideas in here are courtesy of my husband, who thinks that organizing is fun. Which makes me a never-ending challenge for him!


Here's a basic overview of the room, in all of its turquoise cheeriness! (I was working on the Hummingbird top when I took these pics, obviously.) I'm pretty excited about that cutting table under the window. It's actually a fold-down kitchen table from IKEA, with a couple of risers on the legs to make it the perfect height for me to cut on while standing. It has storage drawers on either side of the middle column, the one side is permanently set up for cutting, and the other side can be folded down to make the table bigger or smaller, whichever I need at the moment.  I measured it out, and it should be a good length when entirely opened for anything up to pants-length pieces. That window may get a curtain sometime--I was gifted some fabric to make sewing room accessories for Christmas by my mom, who knows my taste well. But I may not bother for this house, since we're hoping to move to something a little bigger before any kids come along, and use that fabric to make ironing accessories instead!


The opposite side of the room. That little table is for scrapbooking and the occasional jewelry-making. I've already done more stuff with the scrapbooking than I've done in a long time on it--it's great to be able to leave supplies out!  Again, IKEA table, but this was constructed from things in the as-is section and was therefore very cheap. The shelves above have mostly paper on the lower shelf, and the boxes on the upper shelf are where my patterns live. The bookcase has all of my craft books and magazines, including my Burdas and KnitScenes. Donna hangs out here, too, though she hasn't seen much use since I got into this room yet. I still need to get this area a little cleaned up and organized, but it's shaping up nicely.


Here's a better view of the fabric storage! I'm proud to say that this idea was actually mine--just a cube shelf from Target (because it was way cheaper and a better size cube than the IKEA ones.) The fabrics are folded around comic book boards and held with binder clips, with pieces of unwanted scrapbook cardstock between the clips and fabrics to help protect the latter. The blue boxes hold some of my yarn collection. (The basket in front is mostly flute music, and will not stay there, once I get the rest of that and a filing cabinet moved down here from my parents' house.) I have threads sitting on there too, though I need to work a bit on my serger threads, because the boxes I bought on sale specifically for that purpose at Joann's don't quite fit the cones. Grr. Anyway, these shelves are pretty jam-packed, so stashbusting is definitely in order!




I have real sewing furniture! Which was kindly gifted by my mom along with my trusty old Bernina, since this table specifically fits that machine. I've since added a mug that randomly cracked to hold my small, commonly used tools like my thread snips and seam ripper. The white board is magnetic (IKEA again) and I'm using it to hold pattern instructions. My serger sits on the smaller table. It also needs a better cover at some point. (My mom made the colorful one on my sewing machine.)


My colorful closet! The original plan was to put that little scrapbook table in here, and use it as a scrapbooking nook of sorts, which is why I wanted it painted nicely. That ended up not being the best use of the space, so it's basically a storage closet instead. The rest of my yarn is in one of those bags, the bins hold things like fabric scraps that are too big to throw out/clothes to fix or refashion/musliny things, and then some lesser-used craft supplies are in here too. I also need to do some scrapbusting--I'd really love to reduce the number of bins in here!









These two are a pretty common fixture in here, too, whenever I'm in here. The lighter one in particular likes to sit basically on top of my feet. So if I ever come back here to talk about a needle going through my finger, you know why...

As for things like the ironing board, that lives in the small linen closet across the hall when it's not in use, so it doesn't take up space or block everything in my closet.

So there you have it! I'm excited to see what comes out of this space!

A few small things

• No finished project post yet. I still have been unable to take a picture, but I will as soon as I can.
• Do you ever have dreams about sewing? I do, sometimes. Last night's was that I made a Tiramisu dress. Except that for some reason, subconscious me decided to pair just the skirt from it (in a navy blue jersey) with a sheer, woven coral thrifted button-down with a peplum. Which a) I do not own such a garment, and b) dream-me had it as one giant v down to the waist. Which I would never, ever do in the real world. At least subconscious me did ok with the color pairing. (Incidentally, I do have a mental plan to make a test tiramisu in navy blue jersey, since I have some jersey bedsheets to play with.)
• Today is my birthday. I'm 32 now. That sounds so weird.
• The Swap Your Stash was fairly successful for me! I didn't get rid of everything, but I did have requests for about a third of what I'd posted. And most of those were things that I had either already made things out of and was therefore stuck, or things I couldn't use at all (like accidentally pink silk!) I've sent out 4 pieces to 3 people, am waiting on addresses for 2 more, and so far I've received one package, from Anne in the UK. I'm not sure how this will end up as far as yardage in vs. out goes, but I tried to be very thoughtful in the things I swapped for, so hopefully I will end up with things that are much more useful for me!
• My future sewing room is coming together very nicely. Doug and I spent last Friday night moving my sewing machine table to his place--I haven't been using it lately, because I get way too cold in the basement this time of year and have therefore been doing all of my sewing upstairs, like I tend to do every winter. We also did some organizing in there. Most of my scrapbook/jewelry related things are there now, as well as a little fabric and probably about half of my yarn. We've also been discussing fabric storage options, and stumbled across a good option on sale at Target. So we're probably going to spend this Friday evening moving the bulk of my remaining fabric stash and organizing that. Assuming I get done the dress in enough time to actually sew something else before the wedding, I figure I can just stop by his place and grab the fabric that I want.
• Speaking of the dress, I'm now working on the hemming stage! I also spent some time over the weekend cutting out lace appliques for the skirt. 

I think that's everything for now...back to work.

Stash confessions of a fabriholic

As you know, I've been taking part in the Swap Your Stash, hosted by Kat and Anne, this month. As of now, I have four pieces of my stash that will be making their way to their new homes, where hopefully they'll find some better use than sitting around in mine! They've also been doing a series of interviews to show our stashes, and with Kat's permission, I'm borrowing the questions to do a little reveal of my own. (Plus a very first sneak peek of my future sewing room! Which is absolutely nowhere close to set up.)

How long have you been sewing and stashing? How big is your stash?
I started learning to sew when I was about 7 years old. Thankfully, I have no stash that dates back to that time, but given that I'm in my early 30s now *cough*, I've been stashing for awhile. As for the size, it's still hovering somewhere at 200+ yards of fabric!

Where do you keep your stash? How do you store it?
My stash is so big that it's in two different towns, haha! Just kidding--the real story is that even though I'm not moving in with my fiance until after the wedding, I am in the process of moving what I can down to his place now. So getting my future sewing/craft room set up was a logical place to start, since I do have this somewhat all-consuming dress project going on right now. So I'm in the process of moving things from the wall of shame (which refuses to post vertically for some reason--I guess it's appropriate, since it's rather precarious of a setup to begin with), where they are folded into plastic bins, or unceremoniously stuffed in wherever they will fit....


....to the new space. I haven't gotten a lot of fabric moved down there yet, it's been more scrapbooking/jewelry stuff/yarn so far, but I did at least get this one bin down. The plan for the new space is to fold the pieces around these letter-paper-sized comic book boards, so they're all nice and neat like this, and put them on shelving, kind of like this. 




(Second shelf down.) Except not in the closet, because the mostly wire shelves that Doug so kindly put up for me wouldn't hold it all. I'm thinking of getting something more along the lines of an Ikea Expedit. 
 
What is the oldest piece in your stash? What was your original plan for this piece and why hasn’t it happened?
Chronologically, the oldest things I have are a brown twill-type fabric and a tan stretchy also possibly twill-type fabric. Both of these were given to me for free by my mother, who in turn was given these for free by someone connected to someone at my church who was destashing. (She randomly gets given fabric sometimes by people who don't understand that not all fabrics are good for quilts, and I often get to paw through those leftovers.) I have no idea how old they actually are, and I obviously had no original plan for them but I'm thinking they will get turned into wearable muslins for the Thurlow and Clover pants patterns, respectively.  Also, I didn't take pictures of them because they're just solid colors and therefore not very interesting to look at.

The oldest things I bought myself are these two printed polyesters, both of which date back to my college years. I honestly can't remember if I even had a plan for the floral, I think I just liked it. I was thinking more of a 60s-style tunic top for the paisley, but I didn't have a ton of time to sew when I was still in school, and somewhere along the line, I realized that boxy 60s tunic tops are really not flattering on me at all. So neither of them have gotten used yet. I did have a thought of making the floral into a Burda pattern, but I'm thinking now that I might be better off using this one for some kind of summer PJs, since this really doesn't go with anything else I own.   

What’s your favourite piece in your stash? Where did you get it, what do you love about it, what do you think you might do with it?
 I have this lightweight floral knit print that my mom gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I love the colors and the kind of old-world European look of it. And I keep going back and forth as to what to do with it--sometimes I think it wants to be a knit dress, sometimes I think I should make it into a top because I do wear separates more, but then I'll probably have a bunch left over, and therefore it hasn't gotten cut into yet.

Does the fabric you buy go straight into hiding or do you wash it first?

 I definitely wash it first. Ironing is another story.

How do you add to your stash? Do you buy with a purpose in mind, or is it fabric lust?
I've gotten better over the last several years about buying purposefully, and the majority of the fabric I've bought over the last year in particular were for specific projects that I had nothing on hand that would work otherwise--fabrics for curtains, waterproof fabric for a raincoat, and of course, the 20+ yards I had to buy for all the various layers of the wedding dress I'm currently sewing! Sometimes I'm given things, particularly by my mom, who likes to give me fabric for Christmas. (We have similar taste in prints, so this is not a problem.) Aside from that, it's generally fabric lust, because I am most definitely a printoholic, and have to force myself to buy solids that actually work with those fabrics.   
 
Do you have something in your stash that you cannot bear to cut into? Why?
 I have this suedecloth, which is from the same Christmas gift stash as the knit I mentioned earlier. I think this print is so fun, even though the colors are way more neutral than I usually go for--and I have absolutely no idea what it wants to be yet. So I don't want to waste it, you know?

Do you just stash fabric, or does the problem include patterns and notions?
I'm actually not much of a notions buyer--most of my excess buttons and such have come from intended planned projects that never happened for one reason or another, or were salvaged from old clothes that I was getting rid of. And I've seriously cut back on pattern buying. Most of the patterns I buy now are from independent designers, and those are way more expensive than the $.99 sales at Joanns, so that curbs my acquisition a lot!  (Plus I did a pretty major pattern clean-out a year or so ago.) What I do tend to also stash is non-sewing things, like yarn--it's hard for me to resist colorful yarns that are wool-free, since that's all I can use--or patterned scrapbook paper. Yes, I'm still a printoholic there too. 

I also have a large bin of clothes that need mending or refashioning, since I just haven't had time to get to it. I am guilty of thrifting clothes solely because I like the fabric and want to make something else with it, though I've managed to keep myself from doing that for the last several Goodwill runs. 

Have you decided to do a “stash-busting” resolution this year? If so, what have you decided to do?       
As regular readers of this blog know, I've been trying to do stash-busting resolutions for at least the last 3 years! I've even been tracking the yardage numbers, mostly--I do have a few pieces that I think I forgot to add. (I was doing pretty well with seeing the numbers go down, at least until I got engaged and decided to be insane and make my own wedding dress and a bunch of curtains!) As far as this year goes, I am taking part in the Stashbusting Challenge from Cation Designs, though I'm unable to be an active participant in the challenges right now. And I did already have to break my no-buying-fabric pledge, but those were extenuating circumstances.


So there's my stash! And a look in the new craft room closet, at least. Yes, the inside of the closet is painted--the room itself is turquoise. I hope you enjoyed taking a look--and I am definitely open to suggestions for how to use those fabrics that I showed!

a crafty Christmas haul

Like I said in yesterday's post, I was totally spoiled this year. So here's the latest additions to my various supplies and stashes! Besides, this is just a thinly-veiled excuse to play with the new camera.

I got some knithing things-- two skeins of recycled denim yarn, these two books (one from my mom and one from my fiance), and two bamboo circular knitting needles that I found in my stocking.





I got some fabric, of course-- though mostly not for clothes this time. The fat quarters are the exception, since those are for things like waistband facings and pockets for all of those pants and jeans  that I need to make. The big mostly-blue and green floral print on the right is for curtains in my future sewing room, the sunflowery thing is one of those panel apron kits, the cheery print on the left is so I can make myself a tailor's ham/sleeve roll/ironing mat cover/other pressing aids.
Which, of course, brings me to more pressing aids! My mom said she specifically wanted to find some things to stock my future craft room that other people might not think to get for me. So she got me this ironing mat for when I don't want to haul out an entire ironing board, this lovely-smelling starch alternative spray, and the iron off of my registry. She got this one awhile back and it works very nicely--and I'm glad that she went ahead and got it, because she's one of the only people I know who would understand that me asking for a pricier iron is because I actually do need one that will hold up while getting more-than-average household use!

Other sewing goodies: A long clear quilter's ruler and brand-new scissors, both of which I've already opened to use in cutting out The One Dress, a tube turner set similar to one that I've been constantly borrowing from her since I was a teenager, a buttonhole cutter, sewing machine needles (one pack of which is the extra-sharp fine needles and so I will most certainly be using those soon), and a little frame/bag thing to sit around a serger and catch the messy stringy bits. And Gertie's book!
And finally, my very own glue gun, and another book from my Amazon wishlist. You know, just in case I do ever decide to try the Etsy thing or anything like that ever again. If nothing else, it looks like it has some good information on photos and blogging. They're not pictured here, but I also got some glue sticks for that gun, and a Joann's gift card from my future in-laws, which I'll probably just hang onto for awhile until I have a better idea of things I might need for my craft room, or home dec-type stuff.

What about you? Anything fun and crafty under your tree this year?

I'm dreaming of a blue craft room...

Production on the dress has come to a pause. It's partially because my schedule has suddenly exploded with things like having to work multiple Saturdays in a row again (boo), things I'm playing my flute for (yay!) and various social engagements, all of which conspire to keep me out of the house for multiple evenings. It's also partially because the only table in the house that's big enough to cut this thing out on is completely covered in gift-wrapping stuff, most of which is not mine and therefore I have no control over getting it cleaned off. So I don't think I'll actually get it cut out before Christmas, but before the end of the year seems like a pretty reasonable goal. I hope. The good news is that the muslin is dissected, though I do need to press it. Between that and some Craftsy/reading research on the underlining, since it's been awhile since I've done that, hopefully that will be enough to keep me feeling productive while I wait.



In the meantime, I'm now about 6 months away from getting.... *drumroll*.... my own sewing/craft room! I've been collecting inspiration on Pinterest for a few months, and the room is already painted. (I thought I had a picture of it, but I don't yet--it's a very cheery aqua color with a creamy yellow on the doors and inside the closet. It's such a happy-looking room, and I think it will be wonderful to create in!) My beads and most of my jewelry-making supplies are also already down there, and now super-organized thanks to my fiance. I also have this table from Ikea, which folds out to make a cutting table large enough to cut the legs of pants out, and therefore should serve most of my purposes.

The biggest question at the moment that still needs to be answered is how the heck to store my hundreds of yards of fabric, I figured I'd show a couple of the things that are inspiring me right now.

Marie over at A Stitching Odyssey  recently did a sewing room makeover, and I absolutely love the look of her fabric cubicles. It's a pretty nice way of keeping all of the different types of fabric together! Gertie did something similar, but with a whole bunch of canvas boxes.  Which is a nice way to keep the dust out, but I do kind of miss seeing the fabric!

I saw this closet craft room thing on Pinterest awhile back. Doug suggested that we make the closet into a little nook for my non-sewing crafts, like my scrapbooking and jewelry-making. So we've got a little table in there, and some shelves. I'm really looking forward to having a place where I can just leave layouts sitting out and work on them as I'm able-- I think it will do wonders for me actually getting pages done, since the biggest deterrent for a long time is that I have to drag stuff out every time I want to scrapbook, and my sewing machine is always out. I'm thinking that if I get an office chair where I can adjust the height, I can use it for both that and my sewing table.

There's a bunch of little things that need to get figured out still--where to put my pattern boxes and various craft books, what to do with my fabric and yarn, where to keep all of those various notions like threads and scissors and the like, etc. But I am rather looking forward to getting it figured out and seeing how it comes together!

What about you? How do you like to keep your fabrics and the like organized?

Closet Challenge Update, week 3

I have 3 outfit pictures this time, all from last week.

Admittedly, this first one (from last Monday) was a bit of a fashion experiment, and I'm not sure how successful it was. It was one of those days where I really wanted to wear this particular skirt, but nothing seemed to really go right with it. I finally settled on the "Spiced Chai" cami and the thrifted sweater, mostly because I was running out of time before I had to go teach. Also, for the record, my "North Country Regeneration" skirt does not have that big pleat-looking thing in the front. It's just your standard A-line. It's just because the top is longer than what I usually wear with it, and it's making it gather funny.












Outfit #2 (from last Wednesday) was a bit more obvious--the Corset-Laced Pants with my lonely only (for now) Renfrew top. But I was comfortable and quite happy with this one, even though wearing this top in particular always makes me feel like I need to sew 5 more Renfrews NOW, and right now I can't. (Someday...)

Incidentally, I'm still not totally satisfied with the ties on this. The color of the leather is better than the original ties, but they just don't lay right. I think I'm going to have to resort to braiding embroidery floss together some night. I'll have to see if I have any that are a close enough color match. 






The third one, from Saturday, is a top that I've featured before in the Me-Made months, but predated the blog. I guess this is one of my "elf" tops-- I made it during my college years, which was also when the Lord of the Rings movies were being released in theaters, and I was constantly being drawn to patterns with funky sleeves and those earthy colors as a result. (The reconstructed Renaissance-y shirt that I did last April was from the same era. Come to think of it, I still find myself drawn to those funky sleeve patterns. But hey, The Hobbit is coming out soon, so....) Anyway, there's things I wish I'd done differently with this top, like had a serger because the fabric is very prone to fraying. (At least I had the foresight to double-stitch the seams, which has greatly added to its longevity.) But I still love this crinkly mossy fabric, and those sleeves. And I always wish I wore it more than I do. So I paired it with jeans for a day of drinking tea with my sis-in-law and a mutual friend, and then running errands with Doug. (And testing out my future awesome reading chair, which is waiting for me at his townhouse.)

So let's see....aside from that, I've gotten some work done on the secret baby gift (so close to finishing!), got the stitching lines marked on the bodice pattern pieces for The Dress (but have not cut out the muslin yet), and started refolding my fabric for a possible storage solution in my future sewing room. (I also got paint for it!)

midweek musings

• I'm trying something new with my sewing this week, in the name of just getting something done, darnit!! So I'm just trying to do one sewing-related task a day. Yesterday, I got my real jeans all cut out! Well, the wearable test, anyway. But they're denim. (Monday, all I got done was laying the denim out on the table. But it's one less thing I had to do yesterday, so it still counts!) I actually have enough left that I just might be able to squeeze out a pair of shorts, after The Dress. Which is good, because I have been seriously hurting for a lack of shorts that fit this summer, denim or otherwise.
• I really need to get my remnants and scraps better organized, so I can find cooler pocket fabric next time. All I could find in the 5 minutes before Craft Wars started, that I was certain I had enough of to cut all of the pocket pieces, was a solid. Oh well....this is still basically only a test.
• The wedding is 10 months from today! Which brings me to...
• I have a plan now for all of my wedding dress fabrics! Except for the green bit. But at least I know where to order from now. Bonus-- I discovered that the Dharma Trading Co. fabrics, while not a good color for the outside, don't change the color a bit as underlinings and linings. So I can save myself some money there!
• Since I've got that part figured out, other than purchasing, my mental energy during the slow times at work has been far more occupied with sewing rooms. That's right--I'm getting my own sewing room! My fiance is rather generous, isn't he? I'm thinking of going with a turquoise & coral color scheme--something really bright and happy, so I'll feel energized and creative! So I've been pondering various solutions for how I'm going to fit all of my fabric, my sewing machines, a cutting table, all of the other various tools, my yarn, my scrapbook stuff, and my beads into one room. It's a good thing Doug likes organization challenges, because I am a walking one...

 And so this isn't an entirely picture-less post, look what came in today! This prettiness is going to be my future kitchen curtain! He already had the bright green on the main wall in there, and really likes it. And I've always wanted a sunflower-themed kitchen. So this was the perfect compromise fabric. I wouldn't be stockpiling home dec fabrics so soon, except I was kind of afraid this one would get sold out before next year. But one accent curtain shouldn't take me too terribly long to finish up. After The Dress, of course.

Ok, off to grab some dinner and catch up on some blogs, since it looks like all of the rest of you have been way more productive than me this summer!