All Dressed and Ready for New Years

Fully dressed and ready for the New Years celebration.

 

The loom that is, not me!

Some weavers like to start a new year with the loom dressed with something new, full of potential. I'm wanting to do more weaving in 2020 than I did in 2019 so I felt a fresh new warp was a good place to start. Ironically, as I pack up the Christmas decorations, this warp will likely be for Christmas stockings to be sold at the Christmas Craft Market next November. 

Well now ---

That's not the kind of thing you want to see late in the evening on December 23.

While attempting to preheat the oven for dinner last night we discovered a problem -- an especially BIG problem since I'm supposed to be cooking a big turkey dinner with all the fixin's for 8 people tomorrow.

The lower element in my oven has died. Looks like it went out in a twisting and firey wreck, bit it did so quietly and unnoticed under a cover/ false oven bottom, likely during a recent self clean cycle. That ashy bit completely crumbled and fell apart when it was touched later.

The moment businesses opened this morning my husband was on the phone making numerous calls and hunting down a replacement. By 9:00 AM he was on the road to a supplier in the next community over. 

Amazing Feat

Behold my fearsome wrapping skills.

You never know when previous experience with wallpaper and/or sewing pattern drafting might come in handy. Please note that the Santas are all upright -- and perhaps salute my Mad Skillz. I know I certainly surprised myself!

First Project

The first project sewn in the newly renovated and redecorated sewing room is a Christmas outfit for a dear friend,

my walking buddy, Kona.

She doesn't look overly excited about it does she?

What's She Hiding Anyway?

A few of the Facebook comments on my last blog post made me realize that people might feel the room was too tidy to be believed. Maybe they are thinking that a creative person's domain could not possibly remain that way for long? I've decided to show you what is hiding behind that wall of Kallax cubes.

 

The white bins that are not open hide all my sewing patterns, my boro stitching supplies, and other crafting things like pine needle basketry, a glue gun, doll wig supplies and more. 

The drawers store all my sewing and serging threads and bobbins, sorted by size then colour of course.  ;) 

The bottom baskets are chock full of fabric, sorted by type.

The needed, but rarely used, small shaped ironing board and a sleeve board are hidden between this unit and the wall.

It is all well organized, but it is still an awful lot of visual clutter and I prefer to keep it behind closed doors. I don't work well in a chaotic environment. Along that same line, I have no television, radio, or stereo in my creative workspaces. I prefer working in silence.

On the other side of the room the doors on the pressing station hide my iron and other pressing tools. The baskets on the lower level are full of fabric, sorted by type. The drawers hide all the measuring, cutting, and pinning supplies I like on hand as well as dressmaker's tracing paper, small cutting mats, rotary cutters, and rulers. On the floor hidden underneath the unit is a couple of mid sized cutting mats and a longer grid ruler. I keep my larger cutting mats hanging from a skirt hanger behind the door to the room.

The drawers to my sewing table hold all of my interfacings and stabilizers, machine manuals and accessories, machine and hand-sewing needles. Under the table and just visible to the left of the drawers is a rack I use to hold taller rolls of dress maker's pattern vellum and a roll of butcher's paper. 

The little bit of "clutter" I allow out in the open are things I grab for frequently while sewing; pins, clips, various scissors, snips, tweezers, a sewing awl, elastic glides, my handmade needle book with my favourite hand-sewing needles, a bobbin winder, and a collection of sewing machine feet. The mint tin actually stores broken needles and pins and will eventually be safely discarded. 

So there you go, my mess hidden behind closed doors, for the sake of my peace and sanity. 

The weaving room next door is much more crowded and cluttered, but I'm working on it!

Unveiling and Grand Tour

Welcome to my new and improved sewing room! Let me give you the "Grand Tour".

The decorating theme of the room is "boro", a type of patching and simple stitching technique originating in Japan. In keeping with that theme I made a welcoming rag wreath for the door using this tutorial found on Pinterest, with some changes. For one thing I used denim from jeans so the strips needed to be longer so I could tie them. I also added strips from quilting cottons in indigo prints and finally added small white artificial flowers.

 

Standing just inside the doorway and looking across to the window you get a good view of the wall colour (Behr paint's "bootcut") and the beautiful vinyl plank flooring my husband laid. The floor colour is "driftwood". I love it!

Together he and I made the pressing station on the left. More details on a previous blog post if you follow the link. I keep all things related to pressing and measuring, along with much of my cutting tools, in the drawers and behind the cupboard doors. The baskets below are full of fabric.

Directly under the window is a narrow table that was originally for a knitting machine. I didn't initially plan to use it in here but I have found I need a convenient "landing place" for things that I want available, yet out of the way, when I'm working on a project. It allows my pressing station and sewing table to be clutter free when they are in use. The little table also works well for spinning with my charkha and yet it is narrow, only 16" deep, so it doesn't take up much room. The runner on the table right now is a Saori weaving and it's just there for the Christmas season.

General lighting is provided by the LED track lighting on the ceiling, purchased from Home Depot, while bright task lighting is provided by shop lights mounted beneath Bergshult/Granhult wall shelves from IKEA.

As practical as all those lights are I think my favourite are the little dragonfly lights. I leave them on when I'm not in the room and the main light is off. It provides a very inviting, soft, "mood" light.

Standing at the window and looking back towards the other wall you can see my Linnmon/Alex desk from IKEA, another task light mounted under a shelf, and a little shelf bought ages ago at Micheal's. I keep most of my embroidery floss clipped to it and sorted by colour number. The chair is a Langfjall purchased at IKEA. Yes, we made several trips to IKEA. 

Continuing the Boro patching/stitching theme I sewed custom covers for each of my machines, sewing, serging, and coverstitching. The covers might look lumpy and bumpy but it's because they follow the shape of the machine underneath. 

And here's the real workhorse of the room. My 25 cube KALLAX unit. It's not in the configuration I originally intended. Once I started putting my stuff away I found that I wanted more doors and less bins. A lot of what I had to store worked best on a shelf, rather than in a pull out bin but I really did not want all the visual clutter of filled shelves showing so we bought more of the doored inserts. I love the clean, clutter free look.

I reserved the centre top shelf as a living space for "Willie", my little creative mascot, a Dream High Studio House Elf.

As we leave my little sewing sanctuary I want to show you a few small details up close.

Beside the door and visible from my sewing chair, a cute little clock purchased from an Etsy seller some time ago.

Above the door more sewing mice. This time in a framed cross-stitch my daughter made for me years ago.

And shutting off the lights as we leave the room -- a light fixture decorated with alcohol inks. 

If there is anything else you'd like to see up close, or if you have any questions about items you've seen in the "tour" just let me know and they may be covered in a future blog post. 

It's NOW the Christmas Season

It's now officially the Christmas season.

For some the start of the Christmas season is the American Thanksgiving, for others it's "Black Friday" when they hit all the sales. For many children it's the opening of the first window on their advent calendar. For still others it's when they decorate a Christmas tree or shop for a present for a loved one.

For me the start of the Christmas season has always been marked by the baking of the first batch of shortbread. That's usually the 1st of December for me, so I'm a little late this year. A relatively new tradition for me, discovered a few years ago, is enjoying a glass of cranberry liqueur. I'm by no means a "boozer" and this delicious small treat is reserved for the Christmas season.

Dragon Mist Liqueur is made right here in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada.