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.

Learning to crochet

Teehee Small feat of marvel in the battle of "I don't know how to crochet". Taadaa wonky, out of shape, my tension sucks so they are all a different size, Granny squares. I'm so proud of myself. :)
I can't say I know how to crochet, but I can say, I know how to knockout a few albeit wonky Granny squares now.
I followed the best Granny Square tutorial videos and instructions over at Meet me at Mikes. I don't know if I will do a Granny square a day, but Pip's Granny Square School is awesome! Make sure when you use the you tube based tutorials, go watch them on You Tube, as there are extra written instructions on the You tube pages for each one.

While learning this and swapping between 4 colours, I was constantly battling to keep the wool near me (i swear it has legs), off the carpet and untangled. I started googling for Yarn or wool holders. I was envisioning some kind of paper towel roll holder type scenario. Instead I saw all sorts of clay contraptions. I decided I could do better. I saw the 4 Glass jars I had bought from Woolworths about 10 years ago.

I used to keep pasta and rice in them in the kitchen, but now I have fake tupperware with flip top lids (the cork lids of the glass jars didn't seal airtight like plastic does) So, they had been sitting empty for quite I while and now they are repurposed!
I drilled a hole in the top of the cork lid, cut to length a straw (4 pieces a bit deeper than the cork lid plus a little extra) The straws I used were those thicker, wider clear plastic Subway enormous drink straws, because the regular drinking straws I had here were too thin to pass the wool through. I can't remember the size drill bit I used, I just held them up the the straws to see which one was similar. The straw pokes into the hole in the cork lid to allow the wool to move smoothly through without wearing down the cork.
I put the wool in, used a crochet hook to pull through the wool into the straw and out the top. I then got my husband to jam the cork lid down hard so it couldn't slip off when I tugged the wool. They work perfectly! The glass jars are heavy and stop movement and even when I tug a bit on the wool or it jams because of tangles inside the ball of wool, (I swear this stuff tangles inside the ball more than any other wool I've ever used before do they do something different now?) the lids stay on and the jar stays put.

And now, on this rainy day weekend, back to filling my beautiful shelves and organising my sewing room.

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:)