Hiatus is over! Giveaway time!

How exciting is it that I am officially moved into my new sewing space and ready to get going on the projects that literally piled up in the waiting period? It's very exciting! 

I am so happy to have this space, though it has the occasional spider and it smelled like a basement (because, well, it's in the basement) until I put in air fresheners. It has opened up the living room and made the house feel bigger. And it's nice to have the mess all tucked away where virtually nobody will see it ;) I am finally ready to unveil the room, are you ready to see it?!

It needs paint, not sure what color to go with yet. And new curtains (one of the projects in the pile), but it's a great space, almost like it was meant for me to make it into a sewing room. It's tucked away in the basement, right next to the laundry room. You want to see more?

I need a bookshelf for this space, it's really not very useable the way it is (yet! I will be making changes!). I would be happy to repurpose one, if only I could find one.

This is a better view of my little corner where my sewing table is. There is a window right by it, and a light right above it. The lighting is super nice, and I can see everything I am doing really well. 

Here is the cutting table, that has SO much more room since I moved everything for the machine into the desk and had my wonderful husband build me a thread holder (it will eventually be mounted to the dresser so I will have even more flat surface). 

Thread holder close up. :)

And the dresser and dress form. It's nice to have room to put it all up and not have to tuck it into corners. There is even enough room to put up the ironing board and leave it up if I want to. 

And here is a little peek into something fun! I am happy to be part of a repurpose showdown this month. The item to repurpose is a scarf. I'm not really a scarf person, and happened to have some. So I chose this little beauty.

Its super soft, and a really great coral color. Really, it's just beautiful.

So here is the deal. In all of the excitement of getting a new sewing room, and being part of the showdown, and it being summer, and just cause I want to I am going to be doing a giveaway here on my blog! Pretty awesome, right? If you can guess what I will be repurposing this gorgeous little scarf into you will be entered to win something special, custom and hand made by me! Just submit your guess as a comment here on this blog post. The showdown is over at the end of the month, and I will announce the winner at the first of July. 

Happy Guessing!

Migration

You all may not have seen my Sewing/Living room before, or if you need a refresher you can see it here.

In an attempt to prevent the sewing room from merging with the living room (as it has done almost on a daily basis) I am moving. To the basement. With (possiby, in the future) the spiders. I will be sewing while armed with a large can of spider killing spray, so they better not invade my space. Cause if they do, I won't hesitate for a second to spray them to death. Here is a little sneak peek at what is to come (sorry they are just cell phone pics for now).

Dresser, after sanding the veneer off and adding some bracers to it (it was super old and wobbly).

Drawers, the fronts were sanded down and then primed with this deep brown.

Crackle Medium over the dark base

This is after the top-coat dried. The crazy, complicated damask print I used as a stencil that took me ALL DAY to finish cutting out cause it was 9 pages. LOL

And the finished dresser, with the damask print. I have decopaged the bottom drawer, but you will see that in a later post :)

 If you are friends with me on facebook you have probably seen these, and the pictures of the desk I refinished. I am excited to say that I am about half way finished with moving all of my stuff down stairs. I am trying to find/build a book shelf - ish type of thing (not confusing at all, right?) where I can store works in progress and/or finished stuff. But there is a lot of room, and it's not carpet which means clean up will be lots easier. Lots of light too, and since I will be sewing on the desk I can actually use my table for cutting. It's intended purpose :)

Stay tuned for more updates as I go through this process, it's going to be so nice!

Oh my goodness!

I'm sorry it has been so long! Two months even! That's just craziness. But, life happens. For those that may not know, my Father-in-law has had cancer for a long time. He finally had to start doing radiation treatments, and my husband and I live the closest to them. Which means we have decided to put a lot of other things on hold and spend time with them. They needed some help getting their garden started, which in turn inspired me to get mine started. It has been so nice to spend time with them, I couldn't be luckier, I absolutely love my husbands parents :) I keep telling Scott how much he is like his father, and the older he gets the more true that becomes. But I can't think of a better person to be like. They really are wonderful. 

Onward! 

I have a great friend that was in need of a hat for an event she is going to be attending this summer, and she asked me to make her a mini top hat. It took me some time digging, and making sure I had the right items in the correct colors. But I did it! It's finally finished. I'm so excited to share the finished product with all my wonderful readers! It was a fairly easy project... or would have been if I hadn't been so horribly under prepared. But that is entirely my own fault. I had to make my own pattern. That's not usually too hard to do, just time consuming. I really should have sketched it out first. I'm so bad about that. Even in my graphic design projects I rarely draw things up first. It's so much faster to manipulate things digitally on my computer that it is for me to draw up a sketch of an idea. One day I will learn! :) Anyway, here are the photos of the finished hat, I hope you enjoy! 

Back view of hat

Front view of hat

My loverly kitchen!

Brittany over at Love Stitched challenged us to post photos of our kitchens.... and mine isn't anything too fantastical but it's mine :) and I love cooking various things in there. It's on the south side of my house, so it gets lots of sun. This time of year on Utah, that equals heaven because I can open the curtains (that I made for my kitchen BTW) and it gets this gorgeous warm glow. It warms up the tile on the floor and makes the kitchen look awesome. So here are the photos :)

view from the back door. Complete with potty sticker pages, empty milk carton, water bottles waiting to be refilled, and the hubster's lunch box.

The view from the fridge (so just opposite the previous photo) with out white board, key holder and mail sorter (both made by moi) and tablecloth made of grandma's fabric scraps.

View from the sink, you can get the full effect of how "cozy" our kitchen is. I found the stover burner covers on clearance for like $2. The wicker doll I inherited from grandma, and our messy coat rack that Chelsaroo takes over with all her stuff.... that doesn't really go on the coat rack. LOL

My sink and the best window to open the curtains on. Complete with big arse cups of soda from the night before (that included LOTS of Rockband on the PS3) and my spider plant that you can't really see that well. I am so proud of that thing cause it's the first one that I didn't kill! LOL

The window above the table. Good view of the curtains I made, and the shelf I repurposed, and the hubster's sweet moose calendar :)

Above the doorway going to the back door/basement. I put it there to try to remind us that we ought to be grateful for the things we have, and not focus so much on the things we don't.

So that's it. The tour of my kitchen. It almost always looks like that, I was going to clean it for this post... but I would just be kidding myself LOL

Linkster

Yep, another one. Here it goes :)


Breakfast of champs - Toast and Diet Pepsi. Don't judge me, it was whole grain bread.

 The sad state of my Sewing/Living/Family room... 90% of the time.

 My Texas Double Whopper. Deliciousness. I always order it without Onions.... and get onion rings... Kind of an oxymoron.

 My new hotness shoes! I freaking love these. I have yet to wear them outside, but i wear them int he house all the time cause they are so fun. Yep, totally vacuumed in them. June Cleaver!

 Papa Bear, diggin treasures. He loves this, and it was FREEZING! I had to sit in the car cause I was so dang cold!

 Bagel Face! This boy makes my whole life!

 Chels wanted a purple room, but it's in the basement. So we compromised. :)

 Redneck fest! Monster Jam 2011 with Chels. And I am TOTALLY wearing a Perry the Platypus shirt. I loves me some Phineas & Ferb :)

HAHA I love that face.

So we come in the house, and I hear "Here I come Chelsea!" I turn around to see this....

After telling him it's bedtime he says "No I can't I'm all hypers!"

I ask him "What are you doing? that's dirty!" And he says "Nope He's not in there." What? in the world is this kid thinking?! He is looking for Buzz Lightyear. LOL

The product of my messy Sweing/Living/Family room

And another result... in progress.

Aw, who can't love a chubby Doxie!?!

Desicions, decisions....

Well, I think that I have decided to go with a dark blue (that matches the pinstriping on the fabric) synthetic fur for the cuffs. As for the collar I have been considering using it.... but adding the strips down the front of the jacket has really limited my options. So, do I take that portion off and add a more traditional style collar that would fold down flat (like what you see on double breasted jackets/coats).If I decide to go that route, I would use the dark faux-fur for that as well. If I stick with the mandarin collar I will use the same material used for the jacket... and then I have the dilemma of which way the pinstripes should go.
Help! Please give me your feedback! I have been having the most insane dreams about this jacket the past 3 days cause i can't make a choice. LOL. End the insanity!

Drafting patterns from patterns

I got this hair-brained idea the other night (due largely in part to my daughter having a mother-daughter Alice in Wonderland night at school) to make a military style jacket. I have seen a lot of patterns that would fit the occasion. However, I also had a much more labor intensive and thought provoking option.... to draft a pattern based on a REALLY old one I have.


I stumbled upon this old pattern (something like 1830's) of a men's military coat. Generally they are made of wool, but since this is going to be my own thing and not historically accurate AT ALL I decided to go with something different. I chose a poly-cotton pinstripe. Its fairly lightweight, won't wrinkle too easily, sturdy, and a good color. Here are a few photos from the first part of the process.

It has taken me some tweaking to get the pattern to work. At first I measured my arms wrong and cut the sleeves too narrow. This meant adding a gusset in the shoulder that runs down to the elbow. Lucky for me, it ended up looking fairly natural. I also didn't account for needing to add darts to the front cause it will be a woman's coat and not a man's like the original. I cut the front sections too narrow, but added a 1.5" strip down the front of both sides. Also, ended up looking fairly natural, like it was meant to be there. I haven't yet decided how I will close it, if I should use a zipper, buttons, frogs, or leave it open. Here are a few photos of the progress I am at now.

I will be adding a buckle tie or something to the back (it's pinned for now) but I am stalled out on that part... I haven't decided what color to do the cuffs and collar. I am planning a mandarin style collar for the jacket, and was thinking something contrasting would look good. But I need to decide on that first so that I can make sure that everything coordinates. So, if you have any suggestions I am completely open to ideas! I am also open to thoughts or ideas, I'm not completely dead set on the mandarin collar.