Sewing Room Revamp - The Beginnings of Change

My sewing room has been the same for the past 7 years.  Wow.  No wonder I need a change!

I threw this one in because it was among a bunch of selfies that I took while procrastinating from doing actual work, and I thought it was cute.  I had a blast going back through all my photos to pick things for this post.

I love this zigzag ironing board cover.  I found it at Winners.  And by the looks of this, at one time, I managed to get a decent chunk of my fabric stash neatly stacked in this shelf.  It didn't stay that nice for long, let me tell you.

This is another part of my stash, and has been my arch nemesis for far too long.

These shots are from 2011, and things have not improved much, until the past few months when I finally started decluttering.

Can you even see my serger?  LOL

And this little pile of goodies eventually morphed so badly that they squeezed the ironing board out of its spot and it had to get set up in the bathroom.

Looks familiar.  In almost every shot of my sewing room, I see this.

And, just for fun, one terrifying glimpse into the closet of shame.  I will get to this eventually.

Last June, I decluttered my desks, and they actually looked pretty good, and maintained this look fairly well for the past year.  But don't look under the desk!

Here are a couple of pairs of jammy pants I was sewing before Christmas.  It shows the pile in the corner.  See, I bought a whole bunch of clear boxes to fit into my IKEA shelf, and I fit almost my whole fabric stash into them, but then I had no room to put them, so they've been sitting like that for several months.

And, to lighten the mood, a couple of gratuitous cat photos.  This is Lucky.

He's been around for 5 years or so, and he's really fun to have around.  Not quite as snuggly as Digit, but he's very entertaining.

Here is me back in February, and you can see behind me that the pile just keeps growing, up and out.  Something must be done!

So, the time has come to start the revamp project.  First step, remove the giant Expedit desk.  This involved a whole lotta decluttering to get to this point.

I got to use my new drill.  I love power tools.  Several years of upholstery will do that to a girl.  :)

The first thing I did was to build my new shelf to put on top of my existing shelf, to give me 8 cubes of new space.

 Then I built my new sewing desk.  

 It succinctly holds two machines, and there's lots of storage in the drawers.  When I finish rearranging the room, this desk will go right in front of the window.  I can't wait!

Shelf revamp: Before.

 Shelf revamp: After.  There is still a bit more fiddling to do.  There are two more clear boxes to put in the second to bottom shelf (and the stuff in the shelves all has to go somewhere else), and I have some new containers to organize some of my crap up in the top two shelves.

And look!  The corner is bare!

 But look over here!  There's still a whole crapload of stuff that just got displaced.  Ah, decluttering.  So much fun.

 See, my shelf isn't as organized as it used to be many moons ago.  But I cleaned it up a fair bit since I took this photo.

 Another kitty picture to lighten the mood!  Decluttering sucks!  Haha.

 One of my favourite features of my sewing room is the evening sun.  It is so pretty in here after supper.  And it's looking rather tidy in here!  There is no junk piled up on the bed.

My latest sewing project.  And showing how little things creep into all the nooks and crannies.  They're like gremlins!

This is what my corner looks like today.  My goal is to get rid of all this stuff somehow (including the bookshelf), because I need this space to be completely empty so I can rearrange the room and finally get the table into an empty spot, not right in front of the bed, in the middle of the room, blocking the bathroom door.

Speaking of the table in the middle of the room, here is another huge accomplishment!  I emptied all 6 of these tubs, and had a brainwave to fill them with specific categories of fabric.  Yeah, and here I thought I could get my entire stash into the IKEA shelf and not have to have bins under the table.  Bahahaha.  Nope.  I guess I've got a lot of sewing to do!  Anyways, now that these are organized, it looks pretty decent.  This task alone probably took somewhere between 3 and 5 hours over two days.  I should get a gold star just for this.

So, all that finagling was a big pain the butt, and now I am taking a break, and hoping that my revamping mojo comes back soon so that I can tackle the crap in the corner, probably tackle the closet of shame, cuz I'm gonna need to use a lot of that space, and then I can finally rearrange the room.  It's going to be amazing.  I'm even getting a peg board, and I have dreams of building a quilt board for one of the walls.  But I'm super excited to finally get this far.  It's been a long time coming, and it feels really good.

Sewing Room Revamp - The History

I thought it would be fun to share some history of my sewing room in this house.  

Here I am in 2008, sewing my wedding dress.  I think this is how my sewing room was set up right from when we moved in.

 These two desks followed me from my parents' house.  They fit really well in corners, and I had them like this even in our apartment.  Believe it or not, we were lucky enough to have two extra small rooms, and I got to have a sewing room!

 As you can see, I have had an eternal struggle with extra junk that doesn't have a home.

 I always loved that cubby over the desk.  It was very helpful.  I've since given that desk to my mother in law, and she loves it.  It is a perfect simple sewing desk.

 This poor old brown bookshelf has followed me through a lot of stuff, too, and I am really hoping I can finally get it out of my sewing room!

Sometime in 2008, after my wedding, I invested in an IKEA Expedit shelf and attached desk, and they have served me very well for a long time.

 Look how organized I was!  

As we all know, it's hard to stay that clean.  This is in September 2009, when I left the Bridal House (I worked there for 7 months and learned tons about bridal alterations) and decided to work for my dad 3 days a week and start my own sewing business for the other 2 days.  It's extra messy because I was painting.  ;)

 So, I did a major overhaul of the room, and painted one wall lime green.

 I believe the name of the colour is celery.  I still really really love it.  :)

 Here is the revamp.  I took these pictures in January 2010, months after I rearranged the room.  Who knows why I didn't take them right away?  Oh well.  Isn't it pretty?  I also invested in a Juki industrial sewing machine, and it is my pride and joy.  :)

 I didn't even have that much junk under my table!  Although, I haven't shown you any pictures of my junk closet, which is always a total disaster.  ;)

 I guess I decided that the Expedit desk wasn't big enough for both machines, so I dug out the old little one.  That Expedit desk was really good at holding clutter.

 I think this mirror is the only thing that hasn't moved, and it will continue to live there, simply because it fits perfectly beside the door and won't really fit anywhere else.

 These pictures are hilarious.  According to a photo I took of my clock on the wall (among close-ups of literally everything in my sewing room, plus about a dozen selfies), it was almost 4:00 in the afternoon, and I was majorly procrastinating.

 This is Digit.  She's our first cat.  She had some health problems, so she lives at the farm with Ma & Pa now, and is very healthy.

 She was a fantastic sewing companion.  She loved to hang out with me while I sewed.

 Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?!

 Occasionally, at fittings, I would be lucky enough to have a second person willing to take photos.  A couple of them were very creative.  I absolutely love this shot.

 This is the other creative photographer.  By the way, this dress was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  It was more than 2 sizes too big, and I had to make major alterations, including the straps, the armholes, the side seams, the hem (which I cut from a train to floor-length), and had to re-sew the beading.

 But I powered through, and it turned out to be one of the most beautiful dresses I have ever had the privilege to work on.  She looked like a princess, and the hem was absolutely perfect.  I believe it was for this dress that I installed a heavy duty hook in my ceiling to hang the dress from.

 This is one of my proudest accomplishments.  This is a custom Medieval overdress that I designed and made to go over her existing wedding dress, which I also had to do minor alterations to.  I absolutely love this dress and I still can't believe I designed it!  (By designed, I mean this is a major frankenpattern.  The bodice is made from three different patterns, and the skirt is simply gathered rectangles, with a bit of an angle where they attached to the waistline.)  (you will find the blog posts in June and July 2010)

 This was another labour of love.  I designed and made Lindsey's wedding dress (it is essentially a very complicated frankenpattern including a corset with a strapless bra, crinoline, skirt, lace overlay, and overdress with lace cups and lace cap sleeves.  The overdress is made from three different patterns.  The bodice and sleeves aren't finished in this shot, but this is one of my favourite photos.  I also outfitted her 3 bridesmaids with tops and skirts, and made a couple other minor things.  (you will find the posts in August 2010)

And in case you didn't notice, all these dresses were photographed in my sewing room.  I thought that would add a fun touch to this post.  

So, that is the history of my sewing room from 2008 to about 2010.  Next up, the saga of the big mess, the beginnings of my next big revamp, and what it currently looks like in my sewing room.  :)

Vogue 1247 - Rachel Comey Top

I sewed something!  Yay!  

I've been lurking this Rachel Comey Vogue designer pattern for a while.  I looked it up on Pinterest and found several very nice versions of this top.

 So I decided to try my first one out of quilting cotton.  I know, I know, probably not the best choice, but I'm considering this more like a wearable muslin.  This cotton was in my quilting stash, and I had probably 4 metres of it.  So I still have a fair bit left.  I had to cut it in one layer, as the 45" width isn't wide enough for the kimono sleeves.  It helped me save fabric, but it did take quite a while to cut.

 I added 2" of length to the lengthen/shorten line, and I'm very happy with it.  I noticed that this top is quite short, and I'm 5'10", so I knew I wanted it longer.  

 I also added 1/2" to the neckline, all the way around, as it is quite a large, gaping neckline.  I initially added an inch, but after I got it partially sewn up and tried it on, I determined that 1/2" would be sufficient.  I'm happy with it.

When I first started sewing this top, I wasn't sure quite what to do with myself, because my serger is away for service, and I'm just now realizing that my Babylock Evolve is literally my right hand in my sewing room.  It has been my everything since I bought it in 2001, and it is my only serger.  As for sewing machines, I always have a few spares lying around.  So, I had to decide how to finish my seams.  The instructions have you finish everything in french seams, but I've read a couple of reviews, and french seams make for a very bulky join at the centre front where all the seams meet.  So, I dug out my pinking shears, which I have probably only used once, and pinked all my seams at about 1/4"-3/8" and pressed them open.  I'm very happy with the result.  Look at that join!

 I really liked the designer details in this pattern.  I loved the bias bound neckline.  And it was really easy because they have you bind the whole neckline and then join the centre front seam last, so it's really simple.

 I love all the design details like the cuffs, the bias bound v-neck, the kimono sleeves, the pleats, the centre front darts, the angled seams below the waist, and the shirttail hem.  But in reality, in this quilting cotton there is literally no drape, which I knew this pattern needed, and there's a lot of weird wrinkling and bagging happening all up in the chest area.

 Based on the finished garment measurements, I cut a size 16, which is probably a good two sizes smaller than my measurements suggest.  There are 4" of ease at the hips, which I think is just about perfect, and there's even more at the bust.  

 This top is meant to be ridiculously oversized and sewn in something very light and drapey.  I was considering making this in linen; I have some in coral, and some in white, but I think linen isn't going to be drapey enough.

 If I do make this again, which I'm not entirely sure I will, I will probably make it in a size 18, so that it's even more roomy, and make it in a very, very drapey fabric, like a lightweight rayon.  It would be fascinating to see how big of a difference fabric choice would make in a design like this.  I should do it just for the sake of science.

 I love all the details of this design, but in this application, it didn't quite pan out.

 That being said, my wardrobe has almost no nice clothes, so I will wear this.  But hopefully I will make some more new tops to wear very soon.  I still love the idea of boxy tops, especially kimono sleeves.  I wear unisex t-shirts all the time, so I know I can pull off the rectangle shape.  And bonus! Garments with no fitting are really quick and easy to sew!

This last shot shows off the colours a bit more accurately.  This colour choice is outside my comfort zone.  It's a beautiful print, but it's on a beigey background, and it's not my best colour.  Still, it's not that bad.  The funny thing is, when I tried out the selfie timer option on my camera, it took 10 frames of each photo.  I imagine that's so when you're taking a shot of a big group, you avoid the blinks.  So, when I downloaded the pictures to my computer, I didn't bother keeping all 10 frames of each shot and picking out the best one.  I just picked the first one of each pose and said to heck with it.  Ha ha, now I can see why you should keep the 10 shots and weed out the blinks.  Hee hee.

I'm glad to finally get something sewn, and I'm excited to dig into my stash and whip up some more.  Also, it's encouraging to see that sewing all those church quilts does sharpen my sewing skills.  :)