Move over Bacon

... the kid is moving into the sewing room :)

With Special Thanks to Karen, who hooked said kid up with a machine of her own. And logic dictates that said machine will be followed by fabric stash of her own and pattern stash of her own and... well, let's just say it's time to clean house.

So this is my stash, bared for all to see. I honestly feel a little naked.

It's still in a messy state, I'll make it all neat in its new home. I had a "before" picture showing fabric oozing out of every crack and crevice in my sewing room, but then I remembered my parents occasionally read this.

It was that bad.

For now, it's just piled according to colors.

I evidently have a thing for stripes - not a polka dot in the bunch!

and no yellows. I wonder what that says about my psyche... Do you think that's a profession out there somewhere? Stash Therapist! Can you imagine the implications of the snake skin?























The scraps and recycle projects have been contained - I even got all my scraps sorted into baggies.

I also discovered I have a good variety of lining on hand.

I have an extremely rough (kindergarten art) sketch of a storage system I'd like to craft. The way I see it, there are 4 essential elements to the fabric storage *working right to left:

1. bins for scraps, 2. shelves (preferably with glass doors) for fabric that is best stored folded, 3. vertical roll storage for large yardage, and 4. horizontal bars to accommodate hanging smaller yardages of fabrics that shouldn't be stored folded. I think of the old fashioned tiered newspaper hanging bars at the library.

My muslin station is already pretty cool. That's tracing paper on top, and there are muslin scraps in the gift bag. You can just see my rulers hanging next to it. Note the glasses ;) !!!

I hear IKEA calling, so there will be more pictures as the stash storage develops.

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I finally came up with an idea to practice my smaller silk painting in a portable way.

I used one of the styrofoam packing inserts from a toaster oven box as a mini fabric stretching frame. It can be placed flat over the design for "tracing" and keeps the fabric raised. The silk scarf, courtesy of Dharma Trading, is stretched across and pinned, it's the perfect size.

Speaking of other nifties, during my quilt making I discovered that the plastic template sheets that JoAnn's sells for $5 are the same as the 3-pack of flexible cutting mats you can get at the dollar store. (Cidell, hope you're reading this!)

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And send me all your lovin' and positive energy, because I think I may have found my dream job*. Fingers and toes crossed.

*Karen, no it's not what we talked about ;)

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And speaking of daydreams- have you ever dreamed about what your Project Runway audition video would be like! Come on, I bet you even chose music!

Houston, we have a problem.

In all my sewing days (all 300 or so of them), I've never had a pokey dart.

Until now.

I'm showing the rear dart, but all of them are poking at least slightly.

And the problem is that it's in suede.


and it's already been topstitched.



And frankly, I'm afraid to go in and start messing with it.


Everything seemed fine when it was flat, but as soon as I connected the seams (this skirt has one long horizontalish seam that spirals around) and pulled it on... well- let's just say I know my butt is in need of a few laps, but it's not got corners yet. And the muslin was soooooooo perfect.

So I'm stalled. I have a good idea of how to fix it, thanks to the PR boards again, but I'm not too eager. I have doubts as to my ability to pull this off :( And my machine is not happy. I tried to use the Trusty White from my mom to do the seams in the suede, but it didn't even break the surface. My Viking D1 is proving to be as tough as it is pretty, but as all tough girls know, the tough need a break.

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In the eternal search for the AB bag fabric, I did come across some neat buttons that I would like to use for purse feet:

But no fabric yet. To be honest, I've read so much about the difficulties of the thick home dec fabric in the Weekender that I'm thinking I might just beef up some lightweight fabric with interfacing and go with it. I promised my machine a break after the leather, and I can't really find any home dec that I like. I'm thinking silk shantung. In chartreuse. With a baby blue liner.

or maybe I've just been looking at this dress (on PR) too long.

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I'm thinking about stash organization. Have you seen this flickr site?

Wallflower

Something in my subconscious is trying to blend me in with my background.

I didn't find any home dec for the bags at Jomar, but since I'd already dished out bridge toll, I figured I'd grab a $1 remnant. In the sea of remnants, this 2 yds of knit hooked me.

I tried to coerce this floral satin into being a coordinating liner for my AB bags instead of something with a circle skirt.

The satin turned out to have a very nicely structured stretch. *sigh* The satin won. The AB fabric search continues, and the satin will become this image of girlishness:

pockets!

which also happened to have caught the eye of a certain 11 year-old.

I do have 5 yards of the poppy print...

:)

So close, yet sew far away.

That's the view from where I spend most of my time. It calls to me. *sigh*

9 years ago, I'd glance wistfully over at my toddling daughter, and she'd look up from her little toys and wave. Today, the toddling son- well, let's just say as I type this he is straddling my lap, manipulating the skin around my cheeks with his fingers, and smashing Lucky Charms into the keyboard with his toes. Add in negative nap (that's something akin to negative ease, if you get me), and that means I cross the threshold into the sewing room rarely.

I do, however, get to spend a ton of time thinking about sewing and doing kidsafe activities. Enter the crayons.

I thought the idea for the personalized croquis in Sew Stylish spring 08 was brilliant. Unfortunately the picture I copied didn't have feet. Make sure you get the feet- the whole outline is essential in establishing nice garment proportions.

I'm going to play with this for a few days, but already I'm getting an idea that I should avoid certain lines. I also like the idea of using a pattern sketch to "try on" the dress before you commit.

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I loaded up the kid with waffle fries and headed into JoAnn for some snooping in the home dec fabrics to use in the Amy Butler bags. I peruse them only slightly more frequently than the quilting cottons, which is next to never, so I was a bit lost at first. I did manage to find a couple of combinations that caught my eye, but I'm not in love yet.

Oooooo I can't wait to get started on them :)