Weekend Away

Had a nice weekend away in South Devon staying with family.
The weather wasn't too good so DH suggested shopping on two occasions. Once I'd checked he hadn't been taken over by an alien (he's normally very averse to shopping) I took full advantage and on each trip found a fabric shop.

So Friday afternoon was Exmouth and 'The Linen Box' a sewing and wool shop where I bought 2 metres of bright red rayon/linen mix fabric. Probably become red linen trousers. Perhaps too loud but I bet I would wear them :-)

Saturday afternoon was Totnes which has 'Stone Fabrics & Sewing Surgery' at the top of the High Street. There I bought some lime green shell buttons for the next McCall's shirt and 2 metres of lovely viscose lycra knit in a red coral colour which I am hoping will be a dress.
Dh also bought us goodies from the traditional sweet shop which was lovely.

Sunday afternoon we went to Dawlish Warren, walked on the beach and the sea front and had icecream in the sunshine! What more can you want?

MIL gave me some nice curtains which I hope will work in the Sewing Room - they are pink and green Dorma ones in a traditional floral design - normally too girly for me but I think will be nice in there with everything else plain.

JCC Photos

In all the photos I am wearing the same lime green and black chunky pendant. This orphan from my costume jewellery drawer inspired me with the lime and black pieces you see here in my June Capsule Contest Collection. Lime is a new colour for me and I am really loving it because its fresh and bright. I am pear shaped and so I like to have dark colours in skirts/pants and have the bright items on the top to give my figure visual balance. This is the first ever button front shirt I have owned which fits, as nothing I have ever bought or sewn before in this style has fitted properly. So that's a great triumph for me and has opened a whole new world of shirt wearing for me. In order to concentrate on the shirt I used patterns I had used before for the other items and have created interchangeable wearable pieces I am very happy about.
As an added bonus the plain pieces form last year's JCC also work with this year's pieces.

*The pieces*
Orphan - Lime/black necklace - purchased

Knit top - Simplicity 4076 knot front top in very soft lime cotton stretch knit.

Woven shirt - McCall's 5522 blouse in a lime woven cotton with no stretch.

Pants - Burda WOF wide leg pants (Oct 2008 #132) in a black suiting fabric with nice self weave stripe.

Skirt - Loes Hinse 5007 gore skirt in black/white stripe polyester.

Emptying the room

I have the room about 1/3rd emptied so feel like I am finally making progress.

I am definitely going to have some shelving/mini drawers wall mounted within arms reach when sitting for all those small bits which get used all the time.

I am going to get some shelving in the cupboard which currently has a hanging rail and 2 shelves above and store my current favourite fabric in there, with my out of season/less favourite fabric down in the garage. I had just been storing boxes in the cupboard due to the lack of shelving and it was a waste of the space.

And I think the time has come for a really big purge, though I might need some help with that!. Maybe I can persuade YorkshireLass to come for the weekend and help me be ruthless with the UFO boxes. I have also kept a lot of my clothes from when I was bigger - especially ones I had made - in the hope I could recut them to fit me now. Might need to revisit those in the light of being a Clear and Warm person some of them might be too cool colours for me. I guess there are some very outdated styles as well in the UFO box.

Anyway have paused long enough, back to moving sewing stuff.....

7pm and the room is now emptied. Its taken me about 4 hours of quite heavy work including moving two bookcases and their contents.

P.S. The photos show the emptied room. I don't have a very wide angled len on the camera, hence all the shots!

June Summary

Here are the garments I sewed during June. All but the shirt use TNT patterns.

Top left: Apple green and white poly knit in the Jalie 2449 crossover top pattern

Bottom left: McCall's 5522 in a lime woven cotton with no stretch.

Centre: Burda WOF wide leg pants (Oct 2008 #132) in suiting fabric with nice self weave stripe.

Top right: Simplicity 4076 knot front top in very soft lime cotton stretch knit.

Bottom right: Loes Hinse 5007 gore skirt in black/white stripe polyester.

Interesting to see that I have used 5 different pattern companies but still produced a cohesive wardrobe.

Sewing room planning

After I wrote that post I had a moan at DH about the room, and he came up to the room with me and started suggesting different layouts using the current furniture. He also said we might be able to change some of the furniture next year if that still didn't work.
(When we moved we just reused all the old furniture but in different combos so I currently have his old computer desk which I frankly don't love but its a solid and relatively expensive piece of furniture that goes nowhere else!)

I sat down on my seat and told him what worked for me and what was frustrating and he made suggestions as how I could have things set up going forwards. So I think that will be good. He has a good spatial brain, and set his hobby space up so it works very well for him.

I particularly love the convenience of having spare machine feet, scissors, seam rippers etc to hand in these little drawers and will try to get some more of these and have them wall mounted to free up workspace.

Sewing Room - before

I am very fortunate that in the new house I have a double bedroom as a dedicated sewing room. It is not decorated to my taste though and so although I go in there and work on my projects I don't really love it. I'm not very good at sorting things - I get inspiration and work on a project but need to be better at tidying up afterwards. Here's how the room looks at the moment. I have mismatched furniture (which will have to stay :-( ) and decor which will be altered next week - the border will be removed and the whole room painted pale green.

The room is a real state I can see, and I'm not sure why that is. I think in part becuase I don't love it. For a while at the start even after the stuff was in the room I didn't sew and then the desire to sew overcame my dislike of the room, but I think the lack of love there has meant I have not treated the room very well.

Anyway I am using the opportunity to mend my ways, and as everything gets moved out for the decorating work to be done (by someone else) on Monday and Tuesday, I am going to sort through everything as I move it back into the room over the following few weeks.

I am going to have to keep all the furniture as is even though it does not match because that is what I have already but I am going to have less stuff out everywhere which should make for a more pleasant room especially with the new colour.

The new colour the room will be is called 'Apple Mist' which I think is a great description. It should be a nice restful colour to work in.

Anyway its a bit embarrassing seeing the state of the room, so I am off to make a start.

Sleeve ease

Chatting with Jenni tonight about the sleeve and armhole and decided to measure them all. Very revealing I have got 3 inches of ease! Apparently about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half is the normal amount. Which kind of explains why I've had so much trouble getting the sleeve in the armhole.