plan – No Chaos No Order

Current craft room and sundries

Posted on August 25, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random, Sewing .

So, it’s still not completely organized, but the main furniture is in place and its even more workable … but there’s a long way to go. Part of my plan to get there is to finish some projects that have been hanging around for years!!! ARG!

But, first, I needed to make some curtains for the living room. There are already those roller shades, but they block out most of the light and I’ve never gotten along well with their type. Also, I like light and want more in the house, but I want to feel secure walking from my bedroom to the bathroom that I won’t scar someone. That, and W doesn’t want people scoping out our technology. SO: Curtains!

BUT, but! I noticed as I was sewing the tab curtains – the easiest curtains to make! – I found myself getting angry. ANGRY! Was it the fabric, slippery as it is? Perhaps the sewing machine, with gnarling bobbin thread? No, and no… it was while IRONING! Hm, ironing a flat piece of fabric should be calming and pleasant, yes? Normally, but in this case the ironing board cover kept flipping up onto the ironing board and shifting around and just making a nuisance of its self. So, now I suddenly have a new project that I felt compelled to start and complete RIGHT THEN.

CURTAINS: I used some old curtains that warren had, cut them up, threw out the lining and pleating, hemed the edges and sewed on some grosgrain ribbon as tabs. Easy!

Original curtain I cut up and made new ones from.

clean and breezy!

IRONING BOARD COVER: I wanted the cover to NOT MOVE while I ironed, so I used grommets to tightly lace it. A few items of note… I bought Soft and Natural batting for the padding, but I washed it and it destroyed it. I was embarassed and already spent money and wasn’t going to spend any more money, so I used pieces from some old sheets (visible on the chair) and cut out eight layers of fabric which I sewed along the top edge to keep them together instead. Turned out very nice actually – dense and sturdy! I also laced it up wrong the first time. You can’t open the board up when the laces criss cross in the tapered bit, so the next picture shows the final lacing. And then there’s the final board! Boring, but sturdy, clean and effective! Yay!

Lacing up the ironing board wrong.

Fixed the lacing

Ready to use! Nice!

New craft room

Posted on August 19, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random .

I moved over a month ago and am slowly working my way to an organized and efficiently useful craftroom. So far, I have it “servicable” which means I have a lot of shuffling to do for each project I want to work on, but I at least have space on my table. I also took a couple nights to create a lovely fitted ironing board cover because I was getting way too frusterated while ironing new curtains for the living room. PHEW! Here are some ‘before’ pictures with ‘current’ coming soon. I’m hoping to have ‘finished’ pictures by the end of the month…

Messy craft room

More mess

Even more!

My winter coat… too late!?

Posted on March 14, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

I bought a 3/4 length vintage wool coat early last month, thinking I could tack some ribbon flowers over some moth holes and wear the coat for another month or two before it was too spring-y. The coat is a burnt/rust orange which worked best with yellow, orange and begonia ribbons. But the flower making has taken me a LOOONnnnngggg time. I’ve gotten most of them made and then need to start sewing them and all the vining and leaves I’d like to the coat. Which will be another long process.

I think I may get to wear the coat for a week or two… If that! And, if I meet my weight goals, it will be too big to wear next year, so I feel that my efforts are being wasted. But, I tell myself, I can take the coat back to Fat Fancy (the FABULOUS store I got it from) and sell it for more than I bought it, so that’ll be good, right?

Here are some pix of my progress so far…

The black threads indicate moth holes.

These are my plans of where to put the flowers and vines.

Tentative flower locations.

Coat back with flowers.

Multiple project update 112909

Posted on November 30, 2009 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

Ack! So much going on… I’ve commited to completing four things by the end of the year:

1) Steampunk miniseries script. I finished typing out my outline last night and have asked a couple of people to review it for gapping plot holes. I’m kind of afraid it’ll be really boring for them, but it seems interesting to me. Sadly, I can see myself reflected in the main character and I’ve always found that annoying in other people’s writing. I’m hoping by encouraging more collaboration among friends that we’ll remove that blatant reflection and turn her into her own person. After I hear back from them and make changes, I’ll have to turn it into an actual script.

2) Business Plan. I’m nearly finished with my primary rough draft based on a magazine article I read a few months ago. Then I’ll go through it referencing a book that I’ve found usefull and add anything else that seems helpful.

3) Reference photos for web page and Steampunk miniseries. I enjoy this athestic and am going to base my webpage on this anachronistic style. Warren needs some photos to help him see what I’m thinking of so he can build the page. He also suggested I provide photos to the group as they work on the script so they can get an idea of the mood that I’m shooting for in the series.

4) Red dress photo shoot. This is a fun 1950’s era dress that I made for myself. It’s the first dress I fitted using my duct-tape body double and it turned out so nice! I actually like it and wear it! But now we need to take some pictures for the web page and in preparation for a rainy-day project I’d like to do soon…

SPEAKING of other projects… Here are some other things that I want to do:

5) Crochet gauntlets and hooded scarf. I bought a bunch of yarn and need to get these made – it’s cold enough!

6) Rainy-day project. My friend is going to dress in a 1950’s milk-man’s outfit and carry a crate with single-serve milk boxes while I wear my red dress and we pass out home-made cookies to people on the MAX. Covert photos to document the memory and/or arrest. I won’t be SELLING anthying, so I’m hoping that doesn’t happen…

7) A friend’s bride’s maid dress. The wedding is January 1st. She (the bride’s maid) is pregnant and getting bigger, so I’m putting the sewing off as long as possible before the wedding… a tight balance!

8) Pattern drafting. I have drafted a lovely hip-block that I’m using to make perfectly fitted garments. Skirts are good for me right now because they are simple and are easier to refit since I’m loosing so much weight (50 pounds so far!). I need to hurry and draft a pants pattern based on it before I loose much more weight, though, to make sure I know how the process works. I’ll have to do the whole thing over again when I reach my goal, but I figure a couple pairs of pants will be nice, since all of my pants are falling off!

Phew – lots to do!