A Place Of Her Own

Since April, I've been sewing on the dining table. Well, to be honest, most of those days my machine sat unloved on the dining table while I glared at it. As my sewing paraphernalia grew, it took up more and more space until we were eating dinner on the couch each night. My fabric was spread around the house, my tools were usually out of reach, and bunny fur was getting everywhere.

My mannequin lived by the bookcase, make a creepy silhouette in the window.

No more! For Christmas, dear darling hubby got me the Expedit desk from Ikea. It's a pretty sweet sewing station. It's wide enough for my sewing machine and ironing board. Like most Ikea goods, it's modular and you can add new cubbies or buy door and drawer units to change the functionality. He set it up in the basement in an area we'd painted and carpeted. It's very comfy and well-lit.

Yes, I hung tulle form the ceiling.

What looks like cardboard tubes under my mannequin is really postal paper for patterns.

I have all my tools and fabric organized and at hand. No more searching for my scissors or seam gauge. My sewing box, which doubles as my pin cushion, is both out of the way and easy to get to. I don't have to walk to another room to get a book to reference. I know exactly what fabric and threads I have. My bobbins and fasteners are tucked away in drawers. So tidy!

Books and pins at hand!

These wooden boxes can from my parent's business. It's special to me to be able to reuse them.

Cotton waiting to be transformed into clothing.

We had an ornate card table in that space, so now it's my cutting station. My mat's a little large for the table. If I don't get a new table, I'll paint this one white.

I need to make some curtains to add to the hominess and subtract from the basementness. I like the white and brown, but I want to add touches of pink to make it like a cute French chocolate shop. And if you happen to be someone who sleeps in this area when you visit, fear not. There's still plenty of room for an air mattress.

Appliqued Robots

Skills acquired: applique, using fusible and non-fusible interfacing, dull needle identification

Meet my first applique.This was done on a toddler's tee shirt. I tried a variety of stitches on scraps first, and liked the zig-zags best. I know that will mean a little fraying, but that's okay. The button belly is happy.

I had black fusible interfacing and white non-fusible, so I had to use the non-fusible. (I've since stocked up on fusible.) I'm not sure if it was the best thing to use. It felt stiff, but that is sort of the point.

This is what I was putting on a onesie when my machine punched a hole in it. I had one antennae and the face left to do. That's all! The repair shop said they should have my machine ready by Monday. I miss it so much!

Blast You, Machine!

I've learned a hard lesson about dull needles. Of course, I should have checked it before over six months had passed. I was on the last few stitches of a onesie I was appliqueing for Christmas when my machine ate it! It needed to go in for servicing anyway as tension settings no longer seem to matter. I knocked it up to eight at one point but it was still crazy loose.