My Inglorious Sewing Room

Carolyn over at Diary of a Sewing Fanatic has an interesting conversation going this morning about sewing rooms, so I thought I'd show you some pictures of mine. It doesn't usually look like this. These were taken shortly after the beginning of the installation of my new furnace earlier this week. My sewing room had to be hastily dismantled in order to get to the old furnace and make way for the new. What a mess!!

My fabric hoard (on the left) would just about fit in the box
 the furnace came in. That's a smaller than average
hoard, don't you think?

The new furnace next to my main worktable, along with
my regular machine and serger. Drawers under this table
contain notions and such.

Not so subtle product placement for Haberman Fabrics,
next to sheet metal pliers and whatever that other thing is.

Sawzall and sewing machine foot controller peacefully coexisting

One of two file cabinet that house my patterns
along with parts of the bookcases.

I've had to channel my energy elsewhere this week. My husband and I are going to spend the day today (or the whole weekend) putting the room back together. Looking on the bright side, I'm grateful it wasn't a flood at least. And it will give me an opportunity to thin things out a bit. Less clutter equals a quieter mind!

The Big Skirt Project, Part 7: The Most Expensive Fabric I Own

The pillar makes me look taller, right?

The wrap skirt I just made from a sheet was in preparation for using this fabric. It is the iconic Merrimekko Unikko printed cotton. This design is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary; you can get some yourself for only 53 dollars a yard, plus shipping. I did not pay quite that much. I got it from the clearance section at Haberman Fabrics. I was actually one of the pieces that used to hang in their front window.

I drafted the pattern so I could do the least cutting-up of the print; there are no side seams and the facings is cut on as one piece well. I left the printed selvage on the inside in case an archaeologist finds this skirt some day.

I apologize for the wrinkles. It was really hot day & I was in the car with  "leather" seats all day. Thanks to my daughter for standing in for my broken tripod!

A darling cape for the darling Miss J.

In my last post I talked about this startling piece of  fabric I bought. Well this is what I made with it:

I made this for a challenge from the Designer III group I belong to. The challenge was to use either a plaid or striped fabric and match the pattern. To see what the other ladies made, go on over to the Designer III blog.

I'm really not much of a gut grinder, but I was really at a loss for what to make at first. I didn't have a plan, a pattern or any suitable  fabric. I was almost ready to use my usual fallback position, which  is: make a skirt. 

So I went shopping for fabric at the nice fabric store in my area (Haberman's) and got this fabric. I really wasn't crazy about it. So I over dyed it with regular old Rit dye. I liked it better, but I still didn't know what to make with it. Then *Ding* I thought: a cape! The stripes would do that cool chevron thing like a skirt, it would be almost as easy as a skirt, but it wouldn't be as lazy as me making another skirt.

I used New Look 6227 for the pattern and its pretty easy, as you can imagine. It's all bias. The only change I made to the was to let the lining hang free instead of bagging it, due to a recent bad experience I had. Originally, I had planned to make the button tabs and epaulletes in leather, but it just didn't look right to me so I used the arrow motifs from the fabric. I did buy a walking foot just for this project and it really was a huge help matching the stripes. 

Although I started making this for myself, it really suits Miss J much better and its her's now. I have to get her to model it.