Crazy Furniture Project

I have three large tables in my sewing room. Here are some old photos. It's beautiful furniture, but it takes up most of a room.

After we move, I won't have a whole room for sewing so I've started looking around for a smaller setup. Of all the options I found, I liked this Amish sewing cabinet best—in cherry, it's $3800! I wanted to order it, but that's a lot of money.

But then I ran across this solid cherry Mission Craft desk on craigslist for $400!

My hope is to convert it to a sewing cabinet without destroying it. We'll obviously have to cut a hole in the desktop, which is pretty scary, and install a sewing machine lift. I've written a number of local woodworkers, and so far I haven't been able to tempt any of them into taking the project.

We may have to try this one ourselves. What could happen? LOL

Furniture Rearranged

Last Wednesday, which luckily turned out to be a fairly sunny day, we hired a couple of movers from Oregon Trail Moving to help us move some furniture from storage and to rearrange furniture inside the house. Since it was so hot last summer we decided it would be worthwhile to move a bed down into the finished basement. The long-term plan is to install a murphy bed, but we just moved one of our bedroom sets down there for now. (I guess I haven't taken a photo since we cleaned up and made the bed.)

I don't have a good photo of the other side of the basement yet. Last night we got the television installed on the wall bracket and we started hooking up the gear. It's going to look a lot nicer with the wires all behind the walls. We are still hunting for a used nice-looking media cabinet so we will continue to use the inexpensive IKEA unit we bought to use during the remodel.

I also started moving my quilting stuff into the upstairs bedroom. I need to try and figure out the best way to use this furniture. Those are two Stickley bookcases and a Borkholder console table (all solid wood) that I scored off craigslist for very good prices. I think I may cover the console table with an ironing pad and use it as a permanent ironing station.

I'll have to show photos of the second bedroom next time. I still haven't taken any pictures since we moved in the new furniture.

I had planned to have the movers just move the big furniture pieces and then we would move the rest of the boxes and little stuff ourselves, but they managed to get virtually everything loaded in our pickup and rented U-Haul trailer. We only have a few things left in storage to retrieve before the end of the month.

The extra help was great, but I had rather expected to be able to deal with stuff a little at a time. Since everything came at once I now have a rather large pile of boxes down in the basement I need to finish sifting.

Closet Shellacked

I finally got my act together this week and continued work on my closet. I varnished the top shelf and did two coats of shellac on all the rest of the woodwork. (I used varnish on the top because I was hoping it would be more durable when we slide tubs and boxes across the surface.) 

We still need to finish making shelves for the cabinets. Unfortunately, the guy we hired to help us with this project cut the wood incorrectly and now we have to either buy more sheets of plywood or piece some of the shelves. Right now, Jeff is trying to piece the wood. 

I've also been working on cleaning my sewing room again. For the past few months, I've had a bad habit of finishing a project and then moving on to the next project without actually cleaning up the mess from the project I just finished. I had piles of fabric all over the place and a mountain of scraps overflowing onto the floor.

I've temporarily shifted some of the stuff from my sewing room into the closet to give myself more room to work. I will likely be moving some of the tubs from the sewing room into the closet permanently, but I still have a lot of boxes I need to unpack first to see how much room I have left.

I ordered brass rods and flanges and we got the rods last week, but the flanges were back-ordered. The shipping date looks like they may come next week. I'm hoping.

Oct Friday Night Sew In

For this month's FNSI, I had planned to finish the overnight bag I started in August. I still need to finish sewing the lining.

But instead, I ended up spending most of the evening cleaning my sewing room. A couple months ago I started sifting the boxes that were stashed in my bedroom closet. I had boxes that moved here from California ten years ago and I'd never unpacked them. I finally did. I found quite a lot of stuff that belonged in my sewing room.

I've spent several hours this week trying to unearth my sewing room tables again. I thought I'd get the room cleaned by this evening, but there was still a pretty big pile of fabric stacked up and I spent probably three hours ironing and folding everything so I could put them up in my fabric stacks. My table is finally clean and I can work again.

It took so long, I barely got any sewing done. All I managed to finish was a new collar and leash set for Bailey. 

I also got everything ready to start a new project. This is actually not a UFO as I just bought the fabric to make a new train quilt for my father. This is a design offered by eQuilter and I know my father will really like it. Since these are mostly printed panels, it should go pretty quickly.

But I won't be starting tomorrow as I finally got my first box of 160 flower bulbs and I need to get started at planting them tomorrow. I hope it won't be raining all day.

Denim Totes Finished

I finished two denim tote bags made from old jeans for my WOOFA Challenge.

I finished the circle denim tote I started last month. Since I didn't trust the strength of the bag itself, I made a second bag from trigger fabric to line the interior. I made the handles out of waistbands removed from jeans. At Jeff's request, I made them long enough so he can wear them over his shoulder.

Then I finished a funky woven denim tote I started probably 3 years ago. At the time, I was on a tote bag sewing binge and I decided to get creative with strips of denim. I couldn't decide how to finish this tote so I just set it aside to finish later. Later finally came.

I'm not sure it will be very durable, because I didn't sew down those strips. I used wonder under to adhere them to a backing fabric.

I made the handles out of 6"-wide strips and folded them into quarters, with the edges on the inside.

I spent another day cleaning and organizing my sewing room. I went through every container and every drawer and sifted them. I reorganized all the Sterilite tubs and labeled them. I believe I have all my in-progress projects currently in my sewing room added to a spreadsheet. (I likely have more unfinished projects squirreled away in our basement storage; those I am not including right now.)

I did not make a list of every project I bought materials for but never got around to starting.

Sewing Room Tidied

Yesterday afternoon I went into my sewing room planning to spend 40 minutes tidying so I could check off my daily tidying task in Habitica. I had a new pile of clear file tubs to replace the opaque boxes and I figured I may as well get started. That 40 minutes turned into about six hours yesterday and then another couple today.

Regrettably, I don't have any before photos. It was an embarrassing mess. Every horizontal surface was covered with fabrics and other misc. projects. There was a mound of fabrics and boxes under the table that poured out the sides making it hard to walk around the table.

I opened every box and took everything out and made a list of all my projects in progress. The list is staggering. I'm not going to list them all, but I was amused by more than a few of them. I had a square dance skirt that only needed elastic. I also had at least three square dance skirt projects that I had started but not finished. They were diverted into the scrap cotton bin. I'm not even dancing right now and I've heard most people don't wear cute skirts and petticoats anymore. (This makes me sad.)

I still have not finished those two lumbar pillows I made in 2012. There's a potholder that needs the bias tape edge. I never finished the lampas robe from 2013 plus a bunch of medieval clothing projects that pre-dated the blog. (Yes, before 2008.)

I also opened up my sewing table drawers and sifted them. I couldn't believe some of the stuff I had squirreled away. I had the hardware to make at least thirty (probably more) Roman shades. Yes, I liked making them and I might make more, but holy cow, I do not need 40 shade pulleys. My first instinct was to get rid of all of it, but then my family hoarding gene clicked in and I decided to pull out just enough to make Roman shades for our bedrooms. At least now it only takes up one shoebox-sized tub. I also decided I could get rid of the hardware I bought to make triple pleat drapes for Redwood City. Yes, Redwood City. We moved from there in 2010.

So now that I have this absolutely humungous list of already started projects, I've decided to do something drastic and stage my own intervention. One of the blogs I follow, Threadhead, mentioned she joined a 2020 WOOFA Challenge and I think I will too. I'm getting a late start and I'm prone to get distracted during the summer when it gets so hot, but even if I don't manage to make it through the whole year, getting several of these projects finished will be a huge win.

I haven't made my list for the challenge yet but I will soon. Right now, the hardest part is prioritizing them. I may just start with the projects that will take less than an hour to finish and get them out of there.

Sewing Room Curtains Finally

Habitica has finally gotten me to work on several way-past-due projects. One of them was to make curtains for my sewing room. I was originally going to make pieced panels, but I failed to find the motivation to do that. Finally, when I decided to just use a plain cafe curtain, the project made it back into my queue.

Despite having a whole wall of fabrics, I either didn't have enough of the fabrics I liked, or didn't like the fabrics I had enough of, so I purchased a new piece of fabric. I wanted something that would look good with the stencil in that room.

I settled on this little herb fabric and I think looks quite nice. There were only 5 yards left and I needed 6 yards, so I bought the 5 yards and added a coordinating color at the hemline. I like it.

I discovered while working on this project, that some of the fabrics on the wall are really quite damaged from the sun. I knew most had a bit of fading, but I discovered when I unwound that purple that fabrics can fade on more than just their outer layer. Oh well. Hopefully, this will reduce the problem in the future.

Trying to Write

I am trying to not spend all my time sewing right now. I am splitting my time between reading/writing and sewing, so the Fire Dance quilt is taking a bit longer than usual. I have 17 blocks left to make.

We are really enjoying Habitica. It has been fantastic for getting us to do daily/weekly tasks that we should do but often didn't (things like change the bird cage, scrub the bathroom).

And we have turned more of our attention to reading and writing. I finally got my library access restored (my sign-in stopped working last year) and I have started downloading audiobooks/ebooks again.

I am currently trying to slog my way through Moby Dick. It's a book I've heard about so many times throughout my life, it seemed like I should have read it. I am trying, but it is written in 1850s English. We shall see if I make it.

Weekly Sewing Days

A friend of mine asked if we could start getting together for a weekly sewing day and I happily agreed. It's always good to find the motivation to spend time in my sewing room. I did finish one interesting new project last week. Jeff asked me to make a remote control holder for our TV area. Our remote controls were always going MIA and Jeff could never find his glasses. This solves that problem, assuming we put them where they now belong.

I made this out of a pair of Jeff's old dead work jeans, hence the wear and discoloration. I thought it added character. I didn't use any type of pattern, I was just winging it the whole time. I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

I've got some new potholders for Jeff in the works. The shape is a nerdy math pattern Jeff made for me back in 2012. I had forgotten what a pain it was to add the edging around this tight curve but at least this time I remembered to cut the fabric on the bias.

I chose the turtle fabric because it's Jeff's favorite

Curtains for my sewing room have been my latest forever project. I ripped apart the old Roman shades from Redwood City in Dec 2015 and because there were not enough squares to make nice looking curtains, I decided to add a second batch of purple squares.

Usually, I like piecing projects, but these just have not been able to hold my attention, perhaps because I don't really have a plan once I actually finish them. Since I'm nearly done with the squares now, I'm hoping this time I'll make it to the end of the project and be able to show photos of the finished curtains soon.

Write, Sew, Write, Sew

I'm enjoying November. It's nice to take a break from our overconsumption of news. We've fallen into a bit of a pattern of writing during the day and then consuming news/TV in the evening. I have taken to listening to videos in my sewing room while I'm sewing. So I am back to work making squares for my sewing room curtains; I've made about a dozen more purple squares in the past couple of days.

This is what the squares look like

I'm hoping to get the squares done this month, though maybe not assembled into curtains by then. Honestly, I'm just happy to have my sewing room cleared and usable and to be making some progress again.

Our light hasn't been good, but here is a picture of the Morris chair I finished recovering earlier this week. (Maybe someday I'll invest in better photo-taking gear.)

It seems like the cushion is a little too wide for the chair. I guess I should have also measured the chair and not just copied the cushion I removed. Yes, it's the same size.

Sewing Again

I decided I wanted to make new cushions for the cool morris chair we bought five years ago. Yeah, it's been sitting around in our living room for five years in an unusable condition.

The disaster that confronted me 

Anyway, late last week I went into my sewing room to sew and it was such a huge mess I couldn't do anything in there. Everything was covered in a thick layer of grime, there were probably four projects piled on top of each other, and there was so much junk stashed in there it was hard to even get around. I had to spend an entire day just cleaning up the room.

Once I organized my in-progress projects into tubs, evicted the non-sewing room junk, and wiped down the grime, the room was much better.

I finally repainted the damaged frieze. The plaster popped out a piece when the bathroom was demo'd and then we asked our plaster guy to patch it when he came out to surface the bathroom walls, but I had never gotten around to touching up the paint.

And I've also been meaning to show a photo of the floor mat. When I wrote about it before, it was still curled from shipping. It flattened out nicely and I've been really happy with it.

This view never gets old

Starting to get organized again

Quilt wall hanging

Tidier, but still needs some work

It took me about four days to finish cutting the foam and sewing the cushion covers, but I did finish them. It was not the most fun sewing project I've done because it was a struggle sewing so many layers of bulky velvet, but I'm glad to be finished. I will show photos of the finished chair maybe tomorrow when I have a chance to take a photo during the day.

And, since I had a few hours to spare this evening, I pulled out the curtain project again. Yeah, another project I abandoned unfinished for way too long. I was wondering why I abandoned it back in April and then I remembered that my sewing machine had died and I needed to take it in for service and by the time I got it back I had basically lost interest in working on it.

Hopefully, when I get burned out on writing in November, I'll go work on piecing squares for my curtains for a few hours. And, now that it's November, Jeff and I will be turning our attention to participating in NaNoWriMo. Wish us luck! 😈

Custom Chair Mat

Last summer when I first moved out of my sewing room, I realized how much damage my rolling chair had done to the floor. You can see the whitish spot in the photograph below where the finish was basically worn off.

After spending the bucks to have the floor professionally refinished, I figured it was important to get a chair mat to protect my investment. Well, I spent months looking around for one. A standard chair mat would not work because of the arrangement of the sewing tables. I would have had to buy two of them and I would have had to figure out a way to cut at least one of them down so it would fit in the corner.

Since I am really trying to clear out the forever tasks from my To Do list, I finally found a solution. It turns out you can order Custom Chair Mats! Okay, maybe you all knew that, but it hadn't occurred to me until last week.

Of the companies I contacted, only one company, American Floor Mats, was willing to sell direct to non-commercial customers and also had some sort of warranty on their mats. I sent them my drawing and they sent me a quote. Basically the way their pricing works is you buy the standard size cutting mat that is larger than your design and then they cut it down to your dimensions for free. I needed the largest size (96"x60") which was $304. But since the floor refinishing was nearly $1500 (including the hallway) I feel like it's a worthwhile investment.

I received the chair mat today. It came rolled up so it's going to take it a while to relax and flatten out again. But I think I'll be really happy with it.

Update much later: The mat relaxed and lays flat on the floor. It has protected my floor beautifully and I'm really happy with it. I'd recommend this company.

Finishing Sewing Projects

This week has found me in my sewing room. I am trying to finish projects already in the works before I take over the room with my massive reupholstery project.

I am currently back working on my sewing room curtains. Since I tend to work assembly line fashion, I only have the one finished sample square to show. I'm still building components to build the blocks and should finish quite a few at a time.

I guess it's been since December since I last talked about this project. Ultimately, I decided to disassemble the Roman shades and reuse the squares in curtains. It took me about a day of hanging out watching Netflix and ripping apart all three Roman shades. I ended up with 16 of the green squares, but that isn't enough for curtains for my sewing room. So I am making a second set of 16 squares, this one with purple as the basis. Once it's put together, I think it will go well with the sewing room colors.

Anyway, I did get started on it in December, but then I didn't have the motivation to make 100s of 2.5" pieced squares. This time I'm taking it a little slower. I work on it for a few of hours then go do something else.

The something else yesterday was making new pillowcases for the guest bedroom. I realized I never made matching pillowcases for the purple and yellow quilt so I spent about an hour pawing thru fabrics and then making these.

It's really nice to have the guest room back in useable condition.