sewing rooms & storage

I re-adopted this sewing hobby only recently and still have a relatively manageable amount of supplies and scraps, but I'm getting impatient to move to a place with a spare room for all things sewy. Okay, well to ask for a "spare room" would be to ask for how much more in monthly rent? 


As it is, I'm stationed in my living room, which already serves dual function as my dining area, so when my dining table is covered in a sewing machine, tabletop ironing board and an explosion of pattern tissue, I'm subjected to cutting fabric on the floor and eating dinner on the couch and entertaining guests in... the bedroom? Um.

Then:

Right now:

This could be (and has been) worse, actually; last night everything in that garbage bag above (pillow stuffing, blue scallop scraps, piles of thread) was strewn across various surfaces as well.

I'm gonna distract myself from this awful mess by collecting photos of lovely sewing areas that belong to other people who clearly never touch a thing within them:

Hideable yet also displayable. Primary source: Better Homes and Gardens

Everything seems so tiny here. Secondary source: Truelock Equals Truelove

These people stand up to sew, and sit down to use their enormous 1990s computer monitor. Source: Super Ziper

You can't call yourself a true sewist until you have one of those headless ladies hanging around. Source: Saídos da Concha

Sewing shed. Lovely and rustic and only slightly claustrophobic. Source: Content in a Cottage 

Teach me how to use that sewing machine. Source: Home Klondike

They call this a minimalist sewing room, which seems like an oxymoron. Source:  Genuine Style

Yes, you can create a sewing room without using the color pink. Source: Country Living

Moral of the story: all fabric scraps should be lightweight cotton prints with equal size, yardage and color palette so they can be stacked like perfect little rainbows in your China cabinets. Seriously? I tried the neat little sweater-stacks on my closet shelves before and that failed by the second hour. This would be no different, and maybe worse.


This is more up my alley:

Maybe I should stick with my current style of throwing all my simultaneous sewing projects on the couch, because it seems neat & organized spaces annoy me. Sew on!

scallop tote bag sew along

Sweet simple scallops, so splendid and stylish. 

(photo source)

So, (sew), last week, Kate from See Kate Sew posted the pattern and tutorial for her self-designed "sweet scallops tote." She then invited her readers to participate in a sew-along and make one for ourselves. I've never been a part of a sew-along before, but it's a good opportunity to show and tell (sew and tell), and take a gander at what other people made right along with me. Plus I haven't made a bag in awhile, so I thought it'd be a nice change of pace from the skirts upon skirts upon skirts I keep making and not wearing. None of my close friends sew, nor do they really care to watch me sew or have me explain it to them, so I thought this could be a way to join a community of people who enjoy the craft like I do. 


Here's mine:

A'ight, I expected the bag to be pretty cute but THIS cute? C'mon!

I knew from the start that I wanted an "ombre" effect, and went with blues because blue is just so bleu-tiful.  Kate's original intention for this project was to use up some of her scrap fabric, but my scraps are limited, mismatching in a bad way, and mostly apparel knits. So I ventured to the fabric store for quilting cotton solids, and felt bad for hauling six bolts of slightly different shades of blue to the counter to be cut into quarter-yards. The employee said, "Feeling indecisive?" 


I did recycle some items for the tote bag base and lining. I sliced off the back of two beige linen Walmart pillows I never used, and cut the lining from a blue-striped sheet I bought at a thrift store this weekend. I have many more projects for these sheets, just you wait.

 


Kate's free printable pattern:

Times six. I think she used seven and layered hers more closely.

 Stitched,  turned right side out and pressed:

Fast forward a few steps of attaching lining and stitching sides, and here we are:

I didn't have enough of the beige linen to make the straps as long as the pattern instructed, but the bag itself is pretty small (12.5" x 14" before sewing) so I was okay with shorter straps. I attached some leftover blue to the back of the beige, stitched together, turned right-side-out and top-stitched:

 Attached them to the bag on the outside and top-stitched little squares. Done:

Thanks, Kate!

Click here to join the sew-along.

let it snow?

I sewed this skirt today. It's my own (very basic) pattern. Invisible zipper in the side seam with tiny button & loop closure. Slightly gathered in front and back, with a top-stitched waistband.

This was "global"-themed designer fabric I bought at Joann's, something that says "Jester Red Diamond M..." on my receipt. I guess when they label something "global" they just mean... non-Western. They didn't specify what part of the globe inspired this design. I kept leaving and coming back to it and decided it could make a pretty sundress or skirt. Red and white is a palette I'm always attracted to. (Go Cards).

When I took the bolt to be cut, the chatty scissors-wielding employee said, "Oh cute! Snowflakes! Are you making a Christmas dress?" Oh no... I didn't realize global could mean North Pole.

After she cut, she told me the price per yard and the total I was going to have to pay. I guess I had misread the sign, or just assumed everything is always on some sort of sale at Joann's. Nope, apparently not the global fabric. It traveled a long way to get here, maybe via Rudolph's sleigh, and that costs a pretty penny.

I bought it anyway -- smh -- and spent a few weeks just kind of eyeing it in my fabric stash, occasionally wrapping the yardage around my body to see how much it actually looked like snowflakes and whether I could force non-Christmas apparel out of it. I finally made the skirt today, still unsure, and now keep staring at these pictures to determine if I look like Mrs. Claus' kitchen assistant. I like the weight and drape of the fabric but this snowflakes thing is killing me. HELP ME.


I hate making things that I'm not confident to wear. I'd probably never question it if that woman hadn't said anything about snowflakes, but now I'm just in a blizzard of confusion. Pun intended (forced)-- you're welcome.

summer to fall: dress alteration

I bought a linen Mossimo dress from Goodwill for $5 this summer. It is (was) a halter top, which I don't like, but it fits well and is an A-line shape and a lovely shade of green, all of which I do like. Bonus: the skirt is lined so I don't need to wear a slip, AND it has in-seam pockets.




The halter style signifies summer to me, and since this dress is solid color and fairly long, it should be able to be worn in colder months as well. I typically prefer base pieces that can be worn year-round with some smart layering, and halter tops don't really let you do that. Plus they're just kinda juvenile.

To make this dress more friendly for autumn and an office environment, I simply readjusted the straps so they laid over my shoulders and attached to the bodice at the back. I marked the new length they needed to be (with bobby pins--not as secure as pins but easier to use with one hand when you're your own dress form):
I snipped a little below this and folded the raw edges down into the strap...

Pinned them where they needed to go...

Then sewed them on, retracing the existing stitches along the back of the bodice.


I cut the scrap ends of the halter straps to make three belt loops.

Pressed them in so long edges met in the middle.

Placed them around the waist of the dress, folded down the short raw edges and top-stitched. (I act like this step was easy, but I in fact messed up so many times and actually threw my seam ripper in rage after my fourth time of accidentally catching a strap or something on the underside of my stitches).

Simple changes and yet so much better. Throw on a cardi and welcome to fall.

paperbag skirt

I could have bought a paperbag-waist skirt on ModCloth for $50...

But why, when I can make a similar one myself for $10?

Also, it's no longer sold on ModCloth. All I had to buy was 1 1/2 yards of a linen-look navy cotton, $4.79/yd, plus a 7-9" inch invisible zipper for $2.49.

I followed the paper bag skirt tutorial by Suzannah at Adventures in Dressmaking. I just made mine slightly longer than hers. I've probably only made something with an invisible zipper once, and that was in my "Fashion Design 101" joke of a class in high school. So this was my first time attempting it by myself -- and without an invisible zipper foot. I read this post on Sew Serendipity on how to do it and found it really wasn't difficult at all.


The hardest part of this skirt was aligning the pleats so that they were even with each other and still fitted to my waist size. I tried taking it in a bit but it still is kinda too puffy at certain angles, but I really don't want to redo the pleats. If I make another, I'll just start off with less fabric. The tutorial did call for 2x the waist size and it probably could be less.


Sassy blurry wrinkled back view:

By the way, making a paperbag skirt will inevitably make you sing "Paperback Writer" by The Beatles for at least three days straight.

turn my swag on

i knew i needed a pendant lamp over my fireplace mantel to cure my dark living room woes. and to shine a light on my rad horse print.


i found this one at goodwill. i liked that it had a chain i could "swag" (like this) and that i wouldn't have to buy a lamp kit. it was brown originally, but in my genius mind i thought that a good old coat of spray paint would be all the makeover it needed.



ick. couldn't stop there. i was hoping that i could just rip the red stuff off and have the basic gold plate, chain and wire to use with a different shade. but of course the frame was made of metal, not wood, and i couldn't remove just the top part without, well, something that cuts metal.




i think i tried forty different things to make a new frame shade that fit my style. a $9 lamp at goodwill is pretty steep, after all, so i couldn't just waste it, right? i tried using the basket from this unused hanging planter:



but it was too shallow and looked pretty goofy:


since i hadn't removed the glue and staples from the base yet, i thought i'd hide it with the twine from the hanging basket:


wait, TWINE? i hate decorating with basket weave. this isn't my style at all, are you kidding me?
so i went a whole new route. the placements i bought for my dining table when i first moved in are not functional at all, but i still like the look of them.

 crumbs would easily fall through, and they attracted dust since they're made of felt or something. so i cut up two of them into six triangles. painted the metal frame of that lamp with leftover white paint. attached the triangles to the frame with needle and thread. and now i have this:










i don't own a ladder, so hanging this from my 10-foot-ceiling with a chair, a suitcase filled with books, tiptoes and a lot of cursing was a dangerous ordeal in itself. also explains why i got lazy and only swagged the chain up to where it was easier to reach on the wall.


a similar look can also be achieved with doilies, as i found on apartment therapy:

source: calinas (in swedish) via apartment therapy 


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