Decrapifying the Crap, I mean Craft, Room

So, when I bought my two bedroom condo I was completely over the moon. I would have a sewing room! A room! Just for sewing! Where I could leave my sewing machine set up all the time! Very exciting. In addition to sewing I also make jewelry, do mosaic, make polymer clay beads, and just generally do a lot of crafts, so I needed a lot of storage room. I got shelves and plastic storage bins and had all kinds of good intentions.

But let's get real. I am a messy person. I feel cheated because I got the Virgo uptight gene, but not the Virgo tidiness gene. So my sewing room very quickly looked like this:



That, my friends, is a craft room that is *lived* in. My craft room has looked good exactly one time since I moved into my condo three and a half years ago. I never got it *quite* put together when I moved in before I started using (and destroying) it. But then about six months after we moved in (a good friend bought the condo next door) we had our housewarming party, during which all rooms had to be accessible. Fortuitously, a friend was staying with me and did me the huge service of just sitting in the room with me and keeping me on task until it was clean. Staying on task is not something I am good at, and it's multiplied by a thousand in the craft room where there are so many supplies to "sort" and "organize" rather than actually doing any work.

I really don't know why I got some kind of wild hair a couple weeks ago but somehow I felt the time had come to clean out my craft room. Well, I kind of do know. So, I had the brilliant idea of using hanging storage for my fabric stash. I got the Stolmen system from Ikea and it worked pretty well...for the stash I had when I started. But then, as stash does, it grew. There was too much to hang. So I started stacking it up along the hallway part of the room (it's a terrible teeny tiny room with a long narrow hallway that opens out into the modest room part). And then I started stacking it up in the hallway of the condo next to the washer/dryer after the fabrics had been pretreated, and that's when it became unacceptable. Craft room mess is allowed in the craft room, but (theoretically) it's not allowed in the rest of the house.

I have a friend who is very neat, very patient, and very entertaining. I asked if he would accept a home-cooked meal in exchange for sitting in my craft room keeping me company and helping me convert the hanging rods to shelves. He was willing and agreed to come over on Sunday.

I had been teaching another friend to sew (more on that later) and we finally finished her project at 11:30 on Saturday night. I went into the craft room to start prepping it for cleanup. I became overwhelmed. I became anxious. I became panicked. I wanted to immediately call the friend who was going to babysit me and cancel because I Just Couldn't Do It. It was Too Much. Somehow, though, I found it in me to give myself the calm-down pep talk--there are no deadlines here. Just do what you can. The worst that happens is that it looks the exact same. Even a small change will be good. I worked for about an hour, started to get rid of some crappy stuff from stash, and then went to bed.

My friend who was going to babysit me planned to arrive around 3. I went in the craft room and saw how truly disgusting it was and realized I could not let this neat friend--who had been wanting to see the craft room for some time and I refused--see it in its current state. So I began to work. Just knowing he was coming over kept me on task. I worked steadily from about 9:00 on. I got rid of hideous fabric and all kinds of alteration projects for clothes that I didn't even like in the first place. Why???? Most of them were from clothing exchange parties and I took them because I *almost* liked them and they were free. But seriously, I'm not hurting for clothing. Geez. One of the things I've been working on the past several months is not taking things just because they're free. It's a hard habit to break but I'm proud of how well I've been doing. I gathered up the UFOs I was interested in finishing (a whole series of them will follow).

And somehow, slowly, magically, the craft room became clean. I was even able to vacuum the floor! It felt truly like a miracle.

By the time my friend arrived everything was clean, all the fabric had been pulled out and arranged by type (wovens and knits) and color (ROYGBIV, approximately) in the hallway and was ready to be put on shelves as soon as we put them up, pretty much the only thing left to do. The chili was even already on the stove.

Here are the wovens:


And the knits:

I realized that when I complain that i don't have a lot of knits I'm not really lying.

We put up the shelves (which involved moving the poles around; I had put them up alone when I first installed them and they were pretty wonky but I gotta say even with the two of us it was hard and I felt like one tough chick for putting them up solo the first time). I had only bought three (why?) so I couldn't put away all the fabric but still, it was awesome.

Then I made cornbread and apple pie and we ate dinner.

I had the next day off work. I normally get every other Friday off, but on what was supposed to be my off Friday I had a meeting in Baltimore. I decided to take that Monday off because I knew I was cleaning Sunday and would probably want Monday to finish the job. This was perfect. I needed to go to Ikea to get more shelves, and while I was on such a euphoric decrapifying high I filled my Taurus's entire and generous trunk with stuff for Goodwill that had been cluttering up my bedroom. I nearly shed a tear of relief when I dropped that stuff outta my life.

At Ikea I got some more shelves and looked for a storage solution for my notions. I had them all in plastic tubs, which is great in theory and was an improvement on just throwing them loose on the floor, my original storage system. But in reality--dude, I use my notions all the time. So the bins were always open and were full of dust and debris and weren't organized.


The best option at Ikea was the Fira wooden storage drawers. They come in three configurations: nine small drawers, three long drawers, and two deep drawers and a long drawer. I use these for my beads and while they are fantastic I vowed never again because they are such a huge pain to put together. But for the price ($12.99 per unit, that is two units stacked up in the photo) you're not even going to touch the quality. They're real wood and will last forever. I figured a little effort was worth sparing the earth some cheap plastic crap. There's a drawer for elastic, one for zippers, one for velcro, one for shoulder pads, etc. etc. and I was very excited to use my elastic drawer for the first time last weekend.

I got home and built the Fira drawers and put up the rest of the shelves and shelved the rest of the fabric. The only bad thing? My stash looks totally reasonable, even small, on the shelves. Must...not...buy...more. When it was all done I just breathed a sigh of contentment. Every time I walked by the craft room I just had to poke my head in and savor it. I was inspired to finish several UFOs.

I am a realistic person. I know I have not been transformed from Messy with a Capital M to a Neatnik (ahem, the rest of my condo proves that). I'm not even going to pretend I'll keep my craft room nice in perpetuity. But conquering the anxiety and just DOING IT (as Nike would say) felt so great. The best part is, it only took me a day! Come on! It was not insurmountable, horrible, impossible, Sisyphean. So this is a post to my Future Self: you can do it. You can make the craft room look like this:

Very Belated PR Weekend Post

I went to my second Pattern Review weekend in November. This was months ago now, so my memories are hazy and pleasant of fabric, food, and friends. Well, the fabric itself gives me pleasure. A full day of fabric shopping in the Garment District is kind of brutal. After 2006 and fearing that the weight of the bags of fabric would break my arm I vowed to bring some sort of wheeled contraption, but I didn't actually think to look for such wheeled contraption until I was packing. Oops. I did bring my big Ikea bag (the kind you can buy for 59 cents at the register), so I could at least carry stuff on my shoulder rather than in the crook of my elbow with plastic carrier bags. It helped marginally but I think my spine is still a little crooked!

There were some people from last year and new faces as well and everyone was just a doll.

It was Cidell's first time and she magnanimously arranged for my lodging with her friends and family. As the hotel was prohibitively expensive, I greatly appreciated that! I would not have been able to go had she not provided places for me to lay my head.

Blah blah blah, let's get to the fabric haul and the reason I'm finally posting this (I used the CHEAP ASS MOOD FABRIC, so I figured I should show its provenance):



Top row: green velvet from Metro Textile, purple and black striped shirting from Paron (Vera Wang), pinstriped silk dupioni from Paron, green silk/cotton blend from Paron, navy stretch wool with orange windowpanes from Metro Textile, knit print from Metro Textile, grey pinstriped cotton with a sheen and stretch from Mood

Bottom row: white batiste from Chic, lightweight black wool from Chic, white shirting from Chic, knit print from Metro Textile, two way medium weight textured blue stretch woven from Paron, magenta cotton knit from Spandex House.




The trip of course included a stop at Metro Textiles, where JodiB, Cmarie12, and Cidell posed for a picture.




Karen6790 and I arranged to swap some BWOF issues, and she surprised me with these fantastic vintage patterns! I love the illustrations on old patterns so much, and to imagine the women who made them at that time and where they wore their clothes.

Before we left town we stopped off at Crumb, a trendy cupcake bakery with a dizzying array of choices. I got Raspberry and Snickerdoodle, though I should explain that by Snickerdoodle they meant Snickers. There is a big difference between the two flavors and I was surprised a bakery would get mixed up. Devastatingly, I left the cupcakes in Cidell's car when she so generously brought me all the way into DC. She saved them in her freezer and I had them last month and they were still delicious. I guess filled cupcakes are their thing. The raspberry was filled with purple, and the snickerdoodle with chocolate mousse-ish.

On the way home we stopped by Cmarie12's. Seeing her clothes in person is really breathtaking. She puts so many details into everything and all the construction is perfect. She definitely won't be catching a look of the inside of my garments. `-) Her fabric closet was very inspiring. There is a lot there, but it is all organized by color and very visually stimulating. We were petting the fabrics and this crazy green that looks like astroturf really caught my eye. She gave it to me! I am thinking a 60s shift and a cropped jacket from BWOF. She worked for a button manufacturer for many years and has sooo many great buttons, and she insisted Cidell and I fill our pockets with them. It was so much fun! For someone who only got over her fear of buttonholes last spring, I sure do love buttons (and have a lot of them).

It was definitely another successful PR weekend. Though I got quite a bit of fabric, I felt that I showed remarkable restraint. Of course, I've only used two of them (well, three because I've used the batiste for underlining). There's still time...

BWOF 10/2007 # 114, Kimono Top

This pattern was the sewing course for the October 2007 edition, which I don't quite get. It's a pretty easy knit top that could easily be made with no instructions at all. Maybe Burda is trying to welcome the new sewist by choosing an easy pattern, and assumes that those of us who are old hand at it won't be in the least intimidated by making a lined jacket with a complicated closure with only a few cryptic words and no illustrations. The original has a tie neck, which I found a little too va-va-voom for work, so I left the neck plain.

The bottom half of this shirt is doubled so the lower hem is actually a fold. This is sort of a novelty design that I feel eh about having completed it. Doubling the amount of fabric that clings to my belly? Not really a Dress For Success strategy for me. I also didn't like how they wanted you to finish it, which was to sew the doubled bottom piece as one to the top and then "neaten the edges." If you have a serger this might be ok, but even then you're going to risk having some seam allowance show through. Here's what I did instead. (Click on the pics to see larger versions.)


First, sew the doubled lower bodice as one to the upper bodice to within about two and a half inches of the top.



Next, by machine sew the outer layer of the lower bodice to the upper bodice by machine, being careful not to catch in the inner layer.



Fold in the seam allowance of the inner layer of the lower bodice, finger press the seam allowance of the upper bodice down, and handstitch the lower bodice seam allowance in place.



The final result eliminates danger of seam allowance show-through and is a lot tidier than the original instruction!



Now, if I weren't so slapdash I would have hand-sewed the entire inner layer to the outer layer, but that would have been way too much work.


I had another issue with the pattern--the lower bodice as drafted is way too short, and also a little tight for my taste! I added four inches of length to the lower bodice (for a cumulative gain of two inches), and about an inch and a half in circumference.

In the end, I don't really love this blouse. This is not the most flattering for a woman with a small bust and I epitomize the woman with a small bust. I kind of hated it when I first finished it, but when I put it back on to take photos I don't so much hate it as feel indifferent toward it. Give it a few more weeks and I might even like it.

CHEAP ASS MOOD FABRIC

Cidell loaned me a couple of issues of BWOF (before she gave me a subscription for my birthday and got me well and truly hooked) and one of the projects that really caught my eye was this blouse, from the 6/2007 edition, #127. It's even a petite, so I didn't have to adjust anything. It didn't grab me at all from the photo, but the line drawing showed its true potential. I didn't see it as a short sleeve blouse (as designed) with that high necked collar. Then I got the idea for a long cuff to go with the Edwardian kind of collar. Here's the photo gallery.

My main challenge with this project was the fabric, or, as I kept referring to it when on the phone with Cidell, the CHEAP ASS MOOD FABRIC (and yes, I was shouting). This was part of my PR Weekend haul. We were looking in the cotton shirtings section and I found this gorgeous polished cotton gray with tiny pinstripes and had to have it. It was $12/yd, which seems an awful lot for cotton shirting in life (though not at Mood), and there was only a little over a yard left. I was so excited to work with it. I was pressing the first seam, admiring the beautiful sheen of my "polished cotton" when it began to melt under the iron. AAAAARGH! That is so sucky! Mood totally screwed me over, selling me some cheap-ass melty fabric for $12/yd by putting it in with the cotton shirtings.

I was really stretching to fit the pattern onto the fabric. There was a little less than a yard, and the exposed edge had been swatched mercilessly, taking away even more length. When I was done, all I had was a minuscule pile of tiny scraps. I read The Good Earth in junior high and all these years only one scene has stuck with me. The protagonist goes to meet his first wife and at that time he was a humble farmer. He said all he wanted was a woman who could make a kimono so efficiently that you could hold the scraps in your hand. (Figures I'd remember the sewing scene!) This project came pretty close.

Because I did not have enough fabric to recut the left center front panel the gathered part of the left bodice is hard and rough and melted. Ugh. It put me in a really bad mood for the rest of the project because it was ruined from the very start. And although I knew it would *look* great at the end, *I* would always know that it was poor quality because of the CHEAP ASS MOOD FABRIC, and I really hate putting a lot of work into poor quality materials. I considered abandoning the project, but I refused to be defeated by Mood and its CHEAP ASS FABRIC.

In the end, the project does look great. But I did some stupid things because I was just so mad and distracted, like forgetting to interface the plackets (which I think qualifies as What's slapdash about this project). The lower placket turns under and shows my belly so I have to unpick the stitching and interface it (with a very cool iron) and then stitch it back up. I haven't done this yet. Maybe when I'm giving a sewing lesson on Saturday I can wield the seam ripper. I also need to shorten a few of the button loops because there are a couple that are a tad too long and don't stay buttoned. But I love the look of them and also the totally awesome Dior buttons that came in one of Cidell's 4 lb bags of buttons from Fabric Mart. It's a couture blouse! Made out of CHEAP ASS MOOD FABRIC.

Patrones 252, #9 Sportmax Blouse

When Cidell loaned me her Patroneses (which always makes me think of a Patronus from Harry Potter), the first--and perhaps only, now I think about it--project she pointed out she was in love with was this blouse. I smiled and nodded and thought, OK, that's kind of weird.

But then the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. Something about the drama of the sleeves was calling to me, and I traced it out.

I bought the pinstripe fabric from Kashi when I was in NYC for the Mermaid Parade in June (here's the other fabric I got on that trip--this is the third project from that haul, which isn't *too* bad). I didn't really have a specific project in mind, just knew I wanted shirtings because I never have any when I want them. In fact, though I have yards and yards and dozens and possibly hundreds of yards, I never have what I want when I want it. But my fabric buying habits are a story for another time. Anyway, I got the fabric home and decided it would be perfect for this pattern. So I let it age. For months. And then finally picked it up.

It worked up pretty quickly and easily, as quickly as a blouse does at any rate. Blouses are a huge timesuck for me. I don't know what it is. The collar? The placket? The buttonholes and buttons? It always takes double the amount of time to sew that I estimate, hours and hours more than it seems like it should. I don't know why that is, nor why I keep making them! This is the third one in the past few weeks.

I like to find the designer reference Patrones uses for its designs so I looked at Sportmax's Spring 2007 RTW show (in case you did not know, as I did not, Sportmax is Max Mara's bridge line, or RTW line, or something--I should really learn the definition of all the types of lines). Oddly, there doesn't seem to be one. For all the other Patrones projects I've done, it's been a direct copy of a runway look.I looked at the other shows and it didn't come from an earlier season. I found a blouse with a drop shoulder and full sleeves, but they aren't gathered at the hem, at left. And then there was a dress with full sleeves gathered at the bottom, but the shoulder was at true shoulder and they're longer than the sleeves on Patrones's blouse, right. A mystery.

What's slapdash about this project? Probably the buttonholes. I'll admit it, I kind of just didn't want to have to wind a new bobbin of the light blue, and I wanted to use up the dark blue. I genuinely did intend to have the color blending and the bright blue buttonholes on the reverse, but it was kind of born out of laziness.

So Patrones's instructions are not models of clarity. There's the minor problem that they're in Spanish, but my Spanish is OK and having worked with so many of them by now I know a lot of sewing vocabulary (though I can't pretend there aren't still words that mystify me and elude translation). Perhaps the kinder descriptions would be "zen and spare" rather than "short and useless." Below is a direct translation (or as direct as I can get). As you can see, it leaves a lot to the imagination:

Patrones 252 #9
Sportmax Blouse

Number of pattern pieces: 5 (from 15-19)

Fabric: 2 m of 1.4 wide fabric in striped cotton

Cut:
17 Blouse front (cut two)
16 Blouse back (cut on fold)
15 and 15A Sleeve (cut two)
18 Cuff (cut two)
19 Collar (cut two on fold)

Construction:
Sew front and back darts.

Sew shoulder seams.

Pass a double gather in the sleeve cap and sew into the armholes.

Sew sleeve and side in one continuous seam.

Pass a double gather at the ends of the sleeves.

Apply fusible interfacing in the middle of the cuffs on the wrong side, iron, fold right against right, sew the short end, turn, and sew to the end of the sleeves, tightening the gathers and forming a pleat at the middle of the cuffs. Turn cuffs.

Fold the front placket and secure with a backstitch.

Apply interfacing to the wrong side of one collar, iron, and unite the two collars right against right. Sew the upper edge to mark A. Trim the seam allowance a little, turn and sew one layer to the neckline to mark A. Turn the layer opposite. [It’s not noted but assume here you hand stitch the other layer in place on the inside.]

Make hems, sew buttonholes, sew buttons.