This is why I haven't been sewing...

My sewing room is a mess!

 I took these pictures in January.  This situation has not improved.  If anything, it's gotten worse.  There is a spare bed under there somewhere.  LOL

 So, this weekend, our condo had a garage sale.  The condo board (which my husband is on) decided to rent a dumpster.  Yay!  

 So, far, I haven't found much garbage.  95% of my stuff is going to be donated.  I'm ready to purge!

 This is the junk closet.  You can't even walk in here.  I would like to get this set up with a small table and a couple sewing machines, to free up more space in the actual bedroom.  

 I have about 6 sewing machines, and I intend to use about 4 of them.  I would also like to save up for a separate coverstitch machine.  Mine is an 8-thread Babylock, so it does both, but it's nice to have a separate one when doing lots of knits.  I'm also saving up for a corner sewing cabinet.  A really nice one.  Costs about $1700.  And I'm worth it.  :D

So, today I started in earnest.  I already accidentally found a permanent home for my laptop!

This is one of my sewing cabinets.  There's a nice Singer in this one.  But I don't intend to use it until I get more organized.  So, for now, it will be home for my computer.  I brought it in here so I could listen to my iTunes.  It's such a perfect spot!

Anyways, I better quit blogging and playing on the computer and get back to work!

Fun Upholstery Update

I haven't said it in a while, but I still love my job.  I am absolutely blessed.  We live in our own little world upstairs in our huge woodwork shop.  It's just the three of us, and it's very cozy.  Our workspace is close enough to the offices that we get an awesome wi-fi signal.  I found some big iPod speakers at a garage sale not too long ago, and I am the DJ.  I have the Slacker Radio app, and I love it.  The guys love music, and they seem to be happy with whatever I play.    I like variety, so I change stations every day, sometimes twice a day.    This is something I am thankful for every day.

 This week we are working on 57 booths.  These are the parts to cover the seats.  Above are the panels, and below are the sides.  I cut these out in just over a day, and it will take me about a full day and a half to sew them.

 This is what they look like on the finished product.  :)

 Downstairs, upstairs, everywhere, we are surrounded by piles and piles and piles of boothing.  I believe we are working on 3 different projects.  The guys downstairs are building these for us.  Often we build our own.  I love dabbling in woodwork.  The project we are currently upholstering consists of 57 booths, which includes a bottom base (usually covered in carpet or rubber), a top base, a seat, and a backrest.  All four pieces are approximately the same size when finished.  Lots and lots and lots of rectangles!

 Here are backrests on the right and bases on the left.  Top and bottom bases are almost the same.  Top bases get upholstered.

 Like this!  Bottom bases are left plain and covered on-site.

  

 Upstairs in our workspace, this is Jerry's current pile of backrests.

 And here is Jerry.  This is a great shot.  It captures his smiling face.  He's almost always happy.

 This is Juffrey.  Him and I get along extremely well.  We make a good team.  He is very good at upholstery, even though he only has 2 or 3 years of experience.  He's a perfectionist.  He does very nice work.  :)

 And last but not least, here's me!  I've decided to make a simple change and go for a 12-20 minute walk on my half-hour lunch break.  I say 12-20 minutes because that's the range I've ended up with in my first four days.  :)  The faster I eat, the longer I get to walk.  I'm pleasantly surprised that this is a habit that so far is really enjoyable.  I look forward to going, and I enjoy being outside.  This trail is about 4 minutes away from our shop.  It's quite lovely.  The rain didn't even stop me today!  I brought my jacket, and the skies smiled upon me and the rain let up enough that I didn't need my hood.  It was merely spitting.  It felt really good after our little heat wave.  :)

Happy Thursday!

Kitty Pictures!!!

I have a couple of random posts planned for you guys, but right now I only have time to share these super duper cute pictures of my kitty, Lucky!  Who doesn't love a cute kitty picture, amirite?

Here he is helping me fold laundry.

 This is a pic from my actual camera, and I think it looks positively magical!  All my other pics lately have been from my iPhone4.  I was puttering around in my mess of a sewing room, and he decided to jump into one of my bins.

And this is the number one cutest picture of Lucky I have ever seen, and it captures him to a tee, because he is always upside-down.  And his eyes are just adorable!

 Happy weekend!  I'll be back later with some other random goodies.  :D

New Sewing Table at Work!

On Friday we had a bit of an unexpected lull, so I asked Juffrey to build me a sewing table. I've been wanting one ever since I got here. 

He routered all the edges round and sanded it nice and smooth. 

It gives me 18" of extra table space all the way around my sewing machine. 

I can't wait to sew something on it this week!

Also, here are some shots of the boothing we've been working on for the past month or so. :)

These are benches in the waiting area. They don't have backrests. 

And these are the booths we made tons of. I believe we made about 90 booths. This section has 4. 

I love my job!

My New Job

I left my dad's upholstery shop last summer (very amicably), and after some much-needed down time and a couple odd jobs, this March I got a full-time job as an upholsterer at Woodwork & Pub Interiors. It's 10 minutes from home, and I absolutely love it!

We do boothing for restaurants and pubs. Most of it is from scratch. We build the booths down in the woodwork part of the shop. Walter is our supervisor. He does all the computer drafting for the millwork and boothing. 

This is our CNC machine. It cuts curves. 

These are pieces for simple corner booths like the black ones above. 

Walter is very smart, and this month he designed some incredible curves. Jerry got to upholster these. 

Jerry has 30 years of experience, and Juffrey is his nephew. I love them both. They're so much fun to work with. 

And last but not least, this is me!  This was back in March. I got to recover some RV cushions for one of the bosses' friends. Quilted with 5" squares. So fun!

Oh and I get to wear these totally awesome steel toed work boots. : D

I absolutely love my job!!!  

Christmas PJ Pants

Merry Christmas!  It has been 3 years since I've sewed a pile of PJ pants for Christmas presents.  Most of the flannel I picked out was in my queue for PJ pants for 2 Christmases ago!  It feels good to get a bunch done again.  

For this batch, I made 5 pairs.  I'm making 11 in total this year.  Including one for me!  I only had to buy flannel for 3 pairs this year.  The rest had been bought 2 years ago.  And this pink Snoopy flannel was in my stash.  I made my mom a pair out of this ages ago, and it must've been on sale, because after another pair, I still have a bunch left!  These are for Allee, my 14-year-old friend who loves to sew.  She saw this in my sewing room and requested a pair of PJ pants.

 This funky neon animal print is for my brother's girlfriend, Elisha.  This was one of the 3 flannels that I bought.  I found this at Fabricland.  Isn't it awesome?  I knew she loved animal prints.

 I made 2 pairs of these camouflage pants.  One for my dad, one for my husband.  

 And these Homer Simpson pants are for my husband.  He loves the Simpsons.  I honestly can't remember where I found this flannel.  Isn't it awesome?

Allee got her pants and posted this on Facebook for me.  She says they fit perfectly and they're her new favourite pyjamas!  I always love hearing that!

 Elisha absolutely loves her pants!  She wore them to bed Christmas Eve (we had a sleepover at our grandparents' house), and all day Christmas day.  They fit perfectly!

It's nice for me to see the pants on people.  It  confirms for me that the patterns I use fit really well.  The pants I make for myself are from a different pattern, so I'm glad to see that other bodies fit in them.

I'm not dead!! And on that note, Merry Christmas!!

This year has been full of challenges, so I haven't been sewing much.  Over the past few weeks, I've managed to finally get back into my sewing room, and the sewing bug is biting me!  I have 7 pairs of PJ pants cut out already, and have lots of Christmas sewing to do, plus some new stuff for myself.  It has been way too long (Feb/Mar 2012) since I made a garment for myself.  I'm ready for some new duds.

 This flannel is for my PJ pants.  Technically, it's the only flannel I can show you, as the rest is all for Christmas!

A few weeks ago, as a quick and easy new project to make to get my sewing mojo flowing, I decided to make a bag/purse.  The pattern is McCall's 4851.

Sewing it up was easy enough, although it turned out a lot bigger than I had anticipated!  You can fit a whole binder in the bottom of it!  And since it has cardboard in it to keep its shape, it sticks out a lot when carrying it.  It's okay for stuff when you need a lot of space (a weekend bag, perhaps?), but I took it to West Edmonton Mall during a crazy-busy weekend to go shopping, and all it did was get in my way.  

I'm not much of a purse person to begin with.  Any chance I get, I'll downsize and stick my wallet, phone, and lip balm in my coat pockets and leave the purse behind.

Anways, even though it's too big, I'm sure it'll come in handy.  It's fun and colourful and cute, and I enjoyed the simplicity of sewing it together.

I hope to have lots more to share with you in the coming weeks.  It's good to be back in the blogosphere!