I'd love to sew but...

I'd really love to be sewing right now but, my sewing space has been overtaken by paint and uni stuff.

This used to be my sewing table...oh the humanity!

It's a relief to be free of "Stuff"

If you will recall from a previous post, or my tweets over the past few days, I have just spent 5 days sorting through all the "stuff" that accumulated in my sewing room. I had felt like I was trapped by it, it was all closing in on me. It was oppressive. I threw some out, sent some away, gave some to charity, organised and categorised, found a place for it all, but it was hard. I felt so often over the past 5 days an emotional connection to the "stuff"- so much of the fabric and patterns came from my Mum. But, I was able to force myself to get rid of much of the "stuff" that I really will never use, not in a million years. It is with some huge relief, (like a weight lifted off) that I can now take photos of my sewing room to share, the way that it is today without embarrassment.

Clear benchtop! Organised shelves with everything in a place of it's own...who's room is this..surely not mine.

My scissors and things I use often, still in reach but out of sight tucked neatly , on top of the filing cabinet underneath the table and contained within one sewing box on the table.

It's a bad photo, but my iPad is on the closed horn cabinet, in a heavy wrought iron plate holder from spotlight so I can watch/listen to the podcasts when I need to, without it getting lost under fabric on my bench. Older sewing machine is neatly away inside it's horn sewing cabinet, which is actually closed for a change! Mailing boxes stacked in the corner.

Futon, cleared and can actually be sat upon! Enormous recycled white picture frame is for a project I've been working on for ages. Now it's to be hung even while it's empty, to get it off the floor, as soon as husband gets time, or I do it myself, whichever comes first;) And hopefully the item to go in it will be finished soon too.

Terribly dark photo, but in centre of window I have hung my mums doily press. Her brother made it for her in the 3rd grade. I think it is too pretty to put away in the cupboard. It's made using a hot wire to burn a pattern into the timber, then stained in different colours on the flower petals. It was made in 1931.

Here is a closer photo of it, so you can better see the detail. It's a little bowed from being pressed around so many doilies over the years, and it's ties are odd. I vaguely remember when I was a small child, some dark leather strapping being in it instead of the ribbon and apron tie thats in it now!

See look at all that space on the bench to cut things out!

All my fabric is organised into categories and folded neatly to fit properly into each draw. I cut a piece of stiff plastic from and old folder divider into the exact size to fit the fabric into the draw height and width. Then I folded each piece of fabric to fit the plastic. It made it heaps easier than guessing the size for each fold. On top I have small and large scraps of fabric separated into 2 clear buckets ($2 each from sams warehouse) And baskets that might one day be useful again.

My unfinished objects and works in progress are all in individual bags in one box.

The mending and some pants that need shortening are in this flexible bucket from Bunnings. There's a lot to do in there.

I never thought I would get one of these, but I did. I bought a Dymo labeller from Officeworks. I went crazy with the labelling, but it helps SO much when organising, especially the drawers and containers.

On the weekend mid-cleanup, I left this Lil dude in a covering his eyes, sad, don't look pose...

My husband snuck in there and changed him to a...doing a jig pose! 

hehehe thanks for the giggle!

The sewing room I will always be a work in progress. I will always have to fight the urge to leave things out, or sort it later. I will always have to fight the tendency to start a new project before finishing the many that came before it. But at least, for today anyway, I can feel what it feels like to have a win.

So, I've come to confess and repent

So this morning I went into my sewing room, I tried to sew, but instead, I just looked at it.

I had a thousand excuses about keeping what i was using close by because I keep needing it. But really in all honesty, it's really quite difficult to work around such mess, not to mention, where the heck is that...comes out of my mouth quite often.

It is also counter-productive because it MAKES you feel like you don't really want to be in there, even when you really do want to be sewing.

and if it's really bad, like when heaps of things come from someone else's house, into yours, then your husband can't come in to sit and keep you company while you sew. (theres a futon under there)

And things start becoming unfinished objects, in multiple boxes, and tubs, and buckets, and shelves. I don't even know/remember whats really in there.

So, today is the day week. I'm not going to stop until it's all cleaned up and everything has a place, that's my goal.

What you don't do to your thumb if you want to sew and/or keep your thumb

Wow, look what happens when you step back for just a moment, a month goes by with only one blog post that whole time!
There has been a crazy amount of actual working going on. But, now I have 2 weeks of holidays to recover! (and clean my house) I've been lucky enough to pick up a part-time contract for the whole of next term, which is lovely. I'll be teaching food tech to three year 7 classes and filling up the rest of each day with casual classes when and if they are available.

About a week ago now, I bashed/crushed/twisted my thumb unceremoniously between the big bolt that holds the sewing needle in the machine and the sewing machine bed. Theres no way to explain how I did this...all I can do is show & tell why you should not do this if you want to continue to own a thumb.

It started swelling straight away, but it seemed like such a minor cut. I took a photo to laugh t myself about look what happens when I try to sew tired...joke son me well and truly now!
By mid week it didn't look small or minor, it was gooey and sooooo painful even a small bump or touch made me cry, it was also burning hot and oozy, it started to pain, and spreading a raised lump a deep red colour under the skin from the cut all the way down to the knuckle joint. By Friday I could not stand to move my thumb, cover it with anything, (no bandage, tape, rubber gloves, nothing) and the pain and dark red burning was spreading into the palm of my hand. I can't show you, those photos would have been too gross and gooey and even if I had the thought of mind to take any, (I was too busy weeping at the time of dressing changes) they'd probably end up in some hall of goo or manky file on the internet -I've seen the toe files people!! LOL
Now that I am on the Antibiotics and let's just delicately say, my thumb has been slightly skinned and mostly de-gooed by the Dr. I can show you what it looks like today. It looks really good :)

See that darker patch of skin reaching toward my knuckle? Luckily it's receding fast, because thats the infection and it's hot and burning and damage causing! Today my thumb only hurts if I bump it or if I'm doing too  much with it. - Let me tell you, I had no idea how much I use my thumb until now! Typing is particularly bad, turning things like jars or taps even worse! The most sad is my scissors, I bought brand new Mundial shiny sharp "good" scissors right before this happened, the very night this happened, and I haven't been able to use them since!

For this months and last months FOSAL items I get a big fat FAIL stamp on. The little May cross-stitch still did not get finished, It was a purple stocking.

I didn't even get time to choose one to start for June, and here it is, July already. :(

I did complete my 12 sewing challenges in 12 months June item, (Something self designed or self drafted) and I even photographed it with days to spare, and then I promptly put the camera down and forgot to blog or flickr them. BAH! So I guess that's a Fail too! It did take me almost 3 weeks to sew. 15 minutes here, an hour there. Some time grabbed before dinner, after dinner, while I could still stay awake and before I made my thumb not so opposable.

I made...an apron. I had no pattern, I used my measuring tape to measure me, then estimated some extra room for gathering, around the uh, bust area. Then I drew it up onto some brown paper taped together. (It was like brown paper dress-ups!) I ended up stitching the gathers into the brown paper, then taking around half the gathering out of the bust region, re-fitted it and then, finally got to cut out some material! My rotary cutter and I went to town! I cut 2 strips for the waistband  (the 2 waistband pieces sandwich together trapping the top of the apron between one edge and the skirt of the apron between the bottom edge) and each tie is two really long pieces stitched together on 3 sides to form a tube when turned out.  The open end of one tie pokes inside the left and the other into the right edge of the waistband sandwich and is stitched in. I made wide binding for around the neck straps and edging on the top of the apron.
I stitched around the edges of the waistband, straps and ties with the dark blue thread to finish it off.

The top and bottom edge of the top part of the apron is gathered, or rather ruffled using my ruffler foot. It gives the "boobage" area a better fitting rounded shape rather than what a flat apron always does on me, which always seems to "tent" in the middle.

The floral fabric is vintage from my Mum's cupboard It's a very heavy, thick cotton. I've been in love with it for a very long time, she gave it to me a couple of years ago, I just didn't know what to sew from it. It's too floral for pants. Too heavy for shirts. I don't wear skirts. I just didn't know what to do besides look at it lovingly! The plain blue fabric is 100% cotton bought from Spotlight last year, it was bought for something else, but I can't remember what!
I may still take up the skirt because it's a tad long.
During the past few weeks I made a cake, from a packet..I know..Oh the horror! But it did taste good!

In other news, I have not been keeping up with my finish 2 projects before starting another. I plan to rectify that this week if my sewing room ever goes back to useable.
I'd been having back problems after sewing for even short bursts. I tried lot's of different chairs and stools but really I've found the Horn sewing table too low for me and a I keep hunching over to use my machine. So, I will be using my enormous table to sew from and cut out on. (It was destined for Dad's shed but never made it there) my horn sewing table is going to keep being used mainly for my overlocker and my old sewing machine and so, today this is what my poor sewing room looks like.

The poor Horn feels unloved. We tried to think of ways to lift the horn up a bit, but there just isn't any is there? It has a fold/pull out section to make it a T shape with draws etc so no matter what we thought of, we couldn't work out how to keep it functional.

So we decided instead to use my poor old table (which would have had to have it's legs repaired in order to be used anyway). The poor old wobbly thing! But now it has been re-legged completely to make it taller. Here it is in progress, with the table top upside down underneath it, because we have no space to move around it otherwise ;)

The legs may be stained sometime in the future, but for now they will stay as they are and we'll see how it goes.
Just before pulling apart the sewing room, I stitched up the free bag kit that came with a magazine called Homestyle sewing. I didn't make it fancy or make a flower or anything, I just made it and it fits magazines perfectly to take on holidays with us tomorrow to the beach.

Have a lovely rest of today, I've just realised I've been typing this post for a week! Finally I got to hit Publish on this post!

For goodness sake just finish it!

I just decided it's....For goodness sake just finish it day.
I have put down my crochet hook for today.
I am getting off the net.
I am picking up my basket of unfinished sewing items (they no longer fit in a nice box they have taken over a whole laundry basket as well.)
I am marching purposefully into the sewing room for the first time in ages.
I am going to reacquaint myself with my sewing machines.
I will like it.

End of the day UFO Update:

I MADE A MAISEY I started cutting out Maisey for the March Challenge in the 12 Months 12 sewing challenges, and when Mum went into hospital, Maisey went into the overflowing UFO basket and I got her finished today. It's not March, but she's so cute you have to forgive us!

March Challenge done, in April...crossed off the list!

Oh yeah! Oh yeah, we have shelves!

THE SHELVES ARE FINISHED!

Above is a view of 4 of the 5 rows of shelves, the 5th, (the bottom row) is not visible because I couldn't get it into the shot with the phone camera. Hehehe apparently 2 metres high is too much for it;)

Above the top photo is the left side of all 5 rows of the shelves. The other is the right side of all 5 rows of the shelves. Apparently 2 metres wide is also too much for it;)

I wish I could, but I can't get a better photo for two frustrating reasons. 1. the proper camera battery is failing to charge properly...grr! and 2. to get the shelves into their location, the whole sewing room had to be packed up into one area of the room, kinda like tetris, so I can't get far enough back in the room to get the whole shelves in properly with the phone camera.
Once I start unpacking stuff and filling the shelves I'll be able to get back far enough to take another shot.
I LOVE MY NEW SHELVES! I Love them so much I want to sit and stare at them for hours. Some of that love comes from how hard a battle it was to make them! (Isn't that the case with all projects.)

The WORST part about this whole shelf debacle was pulling it completely apart yesterday. Having made them so beautifully, and perfectly, we had to pull every bit apart to fit it into the room. Involved with that was unfortunately pulling out hundreds of nails, levering off the backing sheets of MDF (which couldn't be reused afterwards...grrr!), removing the fabric panels (most of them ripped and shredded while being removed couldn't be reused afterwards...more grrr!), unscrewing all the screws holding it together, and then pulling apart all the shelves off their dowel joins and removing the side panels and carrying everything in the room individually.

Today we reassembled the whole thing again! We had to buy all new backing sheets, this time ply instead of MDF (incase it ever needs to come apart again it can be reused) and we learnt this time to use double sided tape to hold the fabric in place to make the nailing in easy! Some of the fabric panels could not be reused from  the first incarnation and had to be replaced by different fabric colours. I now have small dots, large dots and stripes. The colours are aqua, lime green, orange, dark purple and royal blue. SQUEAL of Delight! All done with plenty of organising to do to fill it. :)

UNFINISHED OBJECT progress!
Nearly every family holiday that involved a long car trip, also involved some sort of craft. Long stitches, Cross-stitches, Knitting Nancy, Finger knitting, knotted friendship bracelets to name but a few. We'd work on them on the way there, fill in rainy days in the caravan with them, and work on them a bit on the way home in between naps. Inevitably these often caused us kids in the back of the car to develop car-sickness...it was rare that they ever got finished, because once back home they were soon forgotten. Mum would buy us another the next school holiday trip, repeat.

This one was from the 1993 July trip to Bateman's Bay. It was found with it's unused threads attached to a piece of cardboard with holes punched in it for each of the threads and hand drawn representations of the pattern codes (I was quite organised back then apparently). Mum found it in one of her knitting bags, in the top of her wardrobe, with a packet of mints and her own UFO, a blue baby jacket and booties she was knitting for my cousin- who turned out to be a girl! - that's how we know the approximate year of the cross stitch.
Last night I finished it off and did all it's back stitching. Now all I need to do is give it an iron (once I can un-tetris the sewing room and reach the iron) and stick it in a frame. We'll call it still in progress.

UNFINISHED OBJECT tick one off the list!
While the shelf debacle has kept me out of action in the sewing room, I finished my UFO Pink Fluffy Scarf!

It was started in Winter 2004. Now I am certainly no knitter. My mum knits extremely delicate intricate patterns really fast, me, I always forget how to start it, drop stitches, break needles, loose needles, somehow add on stitches and generally spend more time pulling it back and starting again, I never learnt to finish it (until today) and I can only knit PLAIN hehehe - it drove my mum spare trying to teach me and she tried hard to teach me purl. I just have a blockage or some kind of defective knitting gene.
However, today I am proud to have finished the scarf, plain and possibly slightly defective as it is..and I "cast off" all by myself...well, with the help of this Patons How to Knit tutorial. I don't think I will ever be a great knitter, but I have conquered it's basics, maybe I'll one day find the light going off and finally know how to knit one purl one.

CROCHET - I got hooked.
This evening, I even did a few tutorials in how to crochet. I made a whole long line of chain stitch on my new Crochet hook, I've never seen in person, or touched a crochet hook before. It's one of those things I've always wanted to learn. I'm quite impressed with myself really. It's been a busy day:)

Knitting to conceal the pain of I can't get to the sewing machine and we still have shelves in front of our TV.

So, I can't knit other than basic basic plain. I started a scarf...hmmm in 2004. It's pink and fluffy and makes me sneeze when I knit it. I found said scarf today in the linen cupboard (luckily not in the sewing room), to give me something to make while my lounge remains a construction/deconstruction site and the sewing room is in pieces and inaccessible..I can't even reach the sewing machine, but I can see it behind the Futon, just out of reach.
In our Lounge room sits the enormous beautiful storage shelves we made on the weekend and finished last night. If you can't see from the grainy camera phone pic, the fabric is Orange, Lilac, lime and blue with white spots and Orange, Lilac, lime and blue with white Stripes. I used two stripe panels of each colour one horizontal and one vertical and two each colour of the spots.

They looked exactly the way I wanted, just perfect! so perfect! Better than I hoped it would be.
However, how can something so perfect be so evil! They can not be encouraged into the spare room no matter what we do. After angling them five different ways from Sunday, the closest we came to actually thinking they might go in was when we  still needed an additional 1-2cm of bathroom doorway to swing the shelves around into the spare room doorway. They just wont go in! and a couple of tantrums later, we just went to bed defeated.
So, despite the fact I am typing this calmly, a moment ago I was heart breakingly pulling out nails with pliers in an attempt to deconstruct the shelves. They have to be completely pulled apart and moved into the sewing room piece by piece, then put back together again inside the room. It's a pity we did such a good job of it. The nails are really embedded and are really hard to jimmy out - and thats just the nails holding the MDF backing sheet on...the shelves are all dowel joins, once I get down to pulling those apart I believe I may cry!..Lord I just can't explain how depressing this feels to pull apart!
So here I am pulling out nails, knitting a row, pulling back a row or two to fix the knitting and silently wishing we'd just driven the 5 hrs to sydney Ikea.

Taa Daa...February sewing with Knit Challenge Completed! - and other progress.

I found some time to finish my top for My Favourite's 12 month's 12 sewing Challenges, February Sewing with Knit Fabric Challenge. I'm still not happy with it entirely, especially the missed stitching of the double needle that is continuing, but it is finished! I still love the colour of it, although it looks like Pyjamas (Thanks for saying that Husband...hehehe).

I loved the cuff in the pattern picture, but now I'm not so sure..it seems awfully large. If I were to make it again  I would certainly make these smaller.

I stitched on some buttons just above the split in the cuff. I found them in a button jar that came from my mum's house. They are clear plastic, but swirly, and they seem to pick up and dance with the colours of the top underneath...hard to see in photos though.

Progress on the March FOSAL Ornament - Pattern chosen :)
I've decided to stitch up a bauble using this free pattern from Better Homes and Gardens.
I have also decided to stitch it up in purples rather than the blue they are using in theirs. I am not starting it until March, but it is kitted up waiting until then. Forgive the photo, I took it with my phone camera, because the proper cameras battery is charging.

Progress on the Shelves and Sewing Room :)

Sewing room looks like a bomb hit it. (meh!) Lot's of sorting and shifting and moving going on.

The whiter than White brighter than Bright shelves are all painted blindingly reflective white and were at any minute going to be constructed. I came in for some air-con and water...not blogging hehehe...and as I was typing, Husband (out in the hot hot outdoors) let out some cursing...and now he is off to go buy or do something...I'm not sure I should ask what went wrong. I snuck out there to take a photo of the progress, only to have the warning, Battery Exhausted (that makes two, three of us!) come up. It is certainly a very large project. Progress Halted...albeit Temporarily.

OK It's now 9pm on a Sunday night and the construction phase got moved into our lounge room. I'm not too hopeful this project will have a conclusion tonight but I do not believe that we will be putting up with  construction in the lounge room for too long. 

Here are some phone camera pics of the construction phase.

Yes, we know theres a Christmas garland and Christmas Lights still up..they somehow got missed when we packed up everything else, and are now jokingly are being referred to as the Easter lights...(they'll be gone soon I promise.

It's so very very Large!

So that's as far as we got tonight. It's a giant white skeleton. Weekend is over and Husband is back to work tomorrow... At least it is at a stage where I can cut out the material for the back and attach it, if I don't get called into work tomorrow, and Husband can attach the backing sheets of MDF tomorrow evening. God knows how we are going to angle it into the tiny hallway and then into the Spare room! - I'm expecting tears...husband says it will be fine, but it's so very big!