My Sewing Room

I finished the last wallhanging and a few small baskets late last night.  And not a moment too soon, the pictures shown here are some of the same ones that I sent off to the realtor listing our house.  I love the space, and I've learned a lot about how to best arrange my workspace.  I can't thank Steph enough for helping me decide on the fabric to use, paint color, how to arrange the room, etc.  So THANKS!! :)

The view from the door:

My sewing area:

My cutting area.  Usually the table is flipped all of the way up:

An IKEA bookcase with some storage boxes:

Some of my favorite details about the room.  My wall art:

 

The hand embroidered Haitian doll is a pattern from AllSorts.  After hand embroidering, I added a border and wrapped the finished piece around a canvas.  The Love and Peace wallhangings were ideas that I found on the Amy Butler website here.  I changed the dimensions, used different fonts, and added borders.  These were quilted.

Small fabric baskets that I made at the last minute.  Pattern here.

And my chair!

If we were staying in this house, we would build some new organizational pieces for all of my fabric and supplies.  There's a reason I didn't include pictures of my closet. ;)

Up next, the living room!

A Good Folks tie

Matt is on his way to a job interview.  A few days ago when he set up the interview, I decided that I wanted to make him a tie.  Whether or not he will actually wear it, is yet to be decided.

I really like the pattern that I used, which is a little bit surprising since it's nearly all hand-stitched.  But it seems like a good movie project.  I think that if the fabric was cut and interfaced already, the hand stitching would take about 1 movie to complete-with a brief pause as one point to press a few seams.
The only hiccup I experienced with the pattern was that the pieces didn't fit together quite right. What worked for me was to keep the straight edge that is placed on the fabric's fold straight as I pieced the pattern.  This was only critical for the tie front, back and middle.  The interfacing shape is very forgiving.

The fabric I chose is from Anna Maria Hoerner's Good Folks line.  I've been saving this fabric for something special, something that would stay in my life. I first picked this fabric because I had it on hand, and I'm so happy with how it turned out!  The print is fun, and remarkably masculine for a fabric with pink and floral!

 

I hope this turns into a lucky tie, and brings Matt home with some good news on the job front!

Argyle, it's not just for sweaters any more!

The dining room is complete!  We had the argyle wall about 75% complete when we really came to grips with the fact that we will be moving soon.  And I thought about repainting it to match the other 3 walls.  But we (Matt) worked so hard, I just couldn't paint over it.  It's one of those things that homebuyers will either love or hate.  And if they *really* hate it, I'll repaint it for them!

Before (walls were a sage green color):

After:

 

I think this is actually my favorite part of the room:

 

We are really happy with how it turned out.  And we already have plans for what we can do with argyle in the next house!

In case anyone is interested, this is the tutorial that we used for the argyle wall.  It provided great details for how to get started, which was the hardest part.  The biggest change we made was with the thin yellow stripe that runs through the diamonds.  For those, I marked the centers of all sides of the diamonds and taped off the lines.  I just eyeballed the thickness of the line, and I like the variety that it resulted in.

I'm just about done with my sewing room.  I have 2 wallhangings left to create, and then I'll share pictures of that project!

Lots of free crafting stuff!

We just finished painting my sewing room in preparation for potentially selling our house (although it now looks so cool, I don't want to leave it!).  What I've found in the decorating process is that it's hard to hide lots of junk!  I've already packed up 7 or 8 boxes of stuff that I haven't used in months, and in the process I've also found a ton of stuff that I just don't need anymore.  The list is below.  If you want something, comment or email me and I'll hold it for you.  Locals can pick up any time.  If you're not local but you really want something, I will ship but you'll have to paypal me the shipping cost before I send it.


IKEA curtains that I've been cutting up to use as muslin.  Cream in color.  I think there's over 3 yards of usable fabric.

2 PVC hand quilting hoops (13"x19", 11" square)

Foam scraps (the 5" green foam and some 2" white foam).  1 large (16"x11") and 1 small (2.5"x13")  green scrap.  White scrap is 11"x15" square

bag of quilting cotton scraps.  These scraps are pretty small, less than 5" square

bag of fleece scraps.  Some are up to 2 yards long, maybe about 10" wide

2 bags of scraps that aren't 100% cotton.  These range in size, print, weight, etc.  Some home dec, garment fabric, drapery lining, JoAnn's version of minky scraps, etc.

NIB baby photo album

roll of contact paper

cross stitch projects.  1 baby boy project that I started, 1 new baby girl project, 1 other project that I started.

Sewing machine bobbins.  I have no idea what type of machine they are for.  Probably either a Singer or New Home.

scrapbooking metal edge tags

book light

itty bitty clothes pins

tiny red and white rosette thingies



That's it for now.  I may have more to add later!

I see...

Amy Butler.  In the form of a camera strap of my sister.

Hope Valley.  Lots and lots of Hope Valley.  I'm working on our bed quilt and a bed quilt for my sister.  Hopefully they will both be ready for quilting when my machine gets out of the shop at the end of April.

The less exciting part of my day...the dreadmill.  That's right, this is my view for 5 long miles.  I really need to start running outside again.

The curtains.

They are done.  (Well, except for the sewing room and play room.  But I don't even have that fabric yet.)  Thanks in large part to the fact that I have *the* most amazing mom.  Ever.

If only Matt could paint faster. ;)

And the hand sewing projects.  I have a quilt to bind for the dining room.  What, you're dining room doesn't have a quilt?  And yes, those are chandeliers on the backing fabric.  Duh.  It *is* for the dining room.

And a hand embroidery project that is based on the color scheme for my sewing room.

The notebook is a fabric-covered moleskin.  I've been taking notes for Matt's upcoming dr. appointment at U of C while I'm sewing.  We are heading to Chicago for his Monday am appointment, where I will undoubtably be working on some of my hand sewing projects as well as making more notes in the notebook.  I'm also drafting a not-so-nice letter to the dr. that he saw in Peoria.  For now, the letter is just in my head.  After the appointment on Monday we'll see how much makes it down on paper.

And one last image....my Amy Butler pillow.  Very similar to the pillow that I made Tracy, this one resides in our living room.  Love it.

Our dining room is almost put together.  We have a tiny bit more work to do on the argyle wall, which is the biggest project for the room.  Hopefully it will be complete soon!

I've also picked out the family photos to have reprinted for our living room.  We probably won't have all of our wall art pulled together for awhile, but it's all coming together slowly.

The Mobius Cowl

I've been busily sewing several different projects lately.  But finishing a sewing project doesn't leave me with quite the same satisfaction at finishing a knitting project (probably because I knit so slowly!).  And the bonus is that I LOVED this knitting project when it was finished!

I used a funky mobius cast on, found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTx-lljdM8A
and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TplMEuwMHt4

It seems scary.  But I taught myself by simply watching the video a few times on my phone while sitting in my sister's cubicle at her work!

I cast on 80 stitches, which actually ends up resulting in 160 stitches.

Here's the finished project:

This is why I'm never blogging!

I promise, I get lots more done than I blog about.  Quite honestly, if I have a few free moments I'm probably in my sewing room or at the very least knitting while I watch tv.  It's usually when I'm up until the wee hours of the morning finishing up a project when I think about blogging.  And by that time, I really just need to go to bed!  So here are a few of the things that I've been working on lately (they *do* all involve fabric, at least!). If I'm brave, I'll make a list of what projects are soon to be started.  It's a long list, though.  Very long.

These are pieces of particle board that I covered in fabric.  They are the final pieces for my bathroom.  I had Matt cut them to the size that I wanted, cut the fabric several inches larger than the boards, and stapled the fabric down on the back side.  Matt still needs to add hangers (is that what they're called?) to the backs.  And then I can call my bathroom complete!

This project is a great example of why I am so slow to complete things that I start.  I had every intention of cutting the fabric for my sister's bed quilt last night.  But I found this super cute scarf online, and decided that my sister and I *needed* them.  Needed them so badly that I wouldn't sleep at night if I didn't dig through my stash for some knit right that second.  And so a created two scarves.  One for me, and one for Stac.  It will be her Valentine's day gift from Addy.  (I'm nearly positive she doesn't read my blog.  And even if she did, she won't read it before she receives the scarf.  Last I checked, she had 700+ unread blogs on her reader!!)

I made this scarf from the instructions on this website.

I have an idea for another knit scarf, similar to this one, but not quite the same.  Last night after I finished these 2 scarves at 1:30am, I couldn't sleep.  And so when I can't sleep, I design projects in my head.  Hopefully I can get out to buy some more knit soon!

I had a *lot* of help with this project.  My sister and I took a class at PaperSource in Lincoln Park a few weeks ago and this was the end result!  We learned how to bind these albums, but really the skills we used can be transfered to many different types of books.  I bought the supplies to create a small journal and an address book.

And in case you're wondering, the book binding is a woven fabric.  So there, this project really does include fabric!

The photo on this one isn't great.  I'll post an action shot when it warms up, but right now it's just too cold for this shirt!  Last summer Heather Ross came out with her Far Far Away fabric.  It was printed on double gauze by Kokka.  I scored a few different prints, most of which are still uncut in my sewing room.  I did use one print to make a summer dress for myself (which I'll have to post when it warms up!).  From the first time I saw this white print, I've through that it would look cute as a collared shirt.  The only collared shirt pattern that I had was in the Sew U book.  The great thing about this book is that it gives great suggestions for altering a traditional pattern.  I ended up with the following changes:

shorten the sleeves to 3/4 length

remove the cuff and add a small pleat and a binding

remove the collar, but keep the collar stand

add a ruffle to either side of the shirt front

leave off the top 2 or 3 buttons

The last thing that I have left to do is to take in the sides a bit to make the shirt more fitted.  For now, this shirt is hanging out in my sewing room because it's too chilly to even try it on for a fitting!

This is the last project that I'm including, and probably the one that I'm most proud of.  A leather bag!  (Cough, cough, hobby junkie, cough, cough.)  I used a remnant of grey leather for the bag exterior.  The interior (not shown) is an Amy Butler print, as is the tie on the shoulder strap.  The bag measures 14" tall, 9" wide at the bottom, and 6" deep.  There's a topstitched seam that runs down the front and back, a gathered section 2.5" down from the bag top, and some very cute little pleats on the sides at the bottom (not shown).  The shoulder strap is about 3.25" at the widest part.  On the interior, there's a zippered pocket, 2 open pockets and a magnetic closure.

So far, I love this bag.  I learned a lot about working with leather, and still came away with a bag that I want to use!  I picked up with leather from a fabric warehouse when I took a day trip to Chicago with another fabric-loving friend.  I see another trip in our future, a girl can never have too many leather bags!!

Funny enough, all of these projects involve fabric but none are quilts or quilt-related!  I'm sort of a hobby junkie. I'm known for saying, "$120 for that?? I can make that!"  And thus a new hobby is born.  I've recently discovered this amazing blog.  I'd love to try building some furniture. But Matt needs a new hobby far more than I do, so I'm hoping that the several ideas that I forward to him from that blog each week will eventually entice him.  Until then, I must stay away from any more hobbies!


I'll spare you all the list of impending projects.  I'm a list maker, so when I feel anxious about the state of my under-decorated house I make lists of what needs to be done in each room.  Just the home stuff is enough to keep me busy for months*.  Now everyone needs to stop having birthdays, getting married, having babies, and any other events that veer me off of my regularly scheduled projects.

*I'd feel guilty if I didn't add that my super fabulous mom is coming down AGAIN this weekend to help me with some curtains.  She was just down 3 weeks ago when I made my kitchen valances and Addy's curtains, and she worked her butt off on my living room curtains.  This weekend we're going to tackle the dining room and master bedroom curtains.  Phew!