Another journal

Over on Tumblr I encountered a great fibre arts bingo post, The past couple of years I’ve tried to be better about integrating successfully (starting and finishing) the multitude of fibre craft I work in back into my life. Often I glom onto a particular type of craft for a period (embroidery, that time I sewed along at home a Project Runway season, etc) and after the burst of obsession the method is sort of folded into daily life.

This both is great (I work in a lot of disciplines, I can’t focus on them all at once), and frustrating because I will feel like I’ve “forgotten” a thing, left it by the wayside. Which is silly. I feel like I never do fibre craft but in the past couple of years I’ve mended a coat with decorative embroidery, sewn multiple pairs of pants, crocheted a sweater. What is real though is I have so much craft stash. Too much. And I sort of would like to move *objects* next time we move, rather than raw material. So! Gotta integrate fibre arts into my more daily life, along with writing and whatnot.

A bingo card felt like a great way to do this and this square speared me directly:

Finish a WIP that’s been lingering for over a year.

Maybe you’ve seen me mention the t-shirt scrap quilt I’m working on, at some point over the past couple of years. I have saved many beloved t-shirts that were worn out or that we’d grown out of, or were from ancient eras that didn’t need to be remembered with clothing. Previously, I’ve turned t-shirts into yarn and made them into throw rugs. But some shirts aren’t well suited for that, or I want to preserve the images on them. So, why not a quilt?!

I can’t remember when I last worked on the quilt last so the first step was pulling the bag of it out and seeing where I was.

Turns out I had it mostly finished before being distracted and not finishing it. Like an asshole! I was annoyed but grateful. At least there was little left to do of my least favourite thing: piecing. NOT that I am piecing this nicely or neatly or with thoughtful pattern. Pieces are going together so they fit and make a final lap-blanket shape. That is all. I am not a precision crafter.

I made a list of what needed done next: finish the last couple of blocks and sew them together so they’d achieve lap-blanket size and shape, figure out what I was doing for the back, sew the sides together, bind it, quilt it.

Easy enough to finish the front. I’d, in the recent past, done a bit of a closet clean that had pulled aside a couple of t-shirts and those were all I needed to finish the blocks and get it blanket-sized.

I am a small enough person and I live in Southern California. I am cold all the time but acknowledge that sometimes all you need is a light blanket that is two layers of t-shirt. For the back I took some more boring shirts and just made big squares with them, sewed them together and called it good.

I hope you are enjoying the dimly lit shots, by the way. Anyway, I sewed the sides together, right sides out because I was going to bind it. Quilts are bound, I think? It felt right. I sewed together so much scrap and made about 200 inches of t-shirt scrap strip. Then. Then I had to cut 200 inches to a consistent width. Thankfully, there’s the thumb trick (using the first joint of the thumb as a ruler or guide when cutting or sewing).

Then it was ironing 200 inches, then sewing it all on, not that neatly. But the thing is, neatness literally doesn’t affect how cosy a blanket is. I know my skills and it has never been sewing on binding neatly. But then?! It was done, it is a blanket.

It’s still not technically a quilt as it is not yet quilted. But I was able to hunt down some quilting thread and start working on it. It’ll take a bit, because did you know (I knew, I knew this going in and yet), t-shirt fabric absolutely sucks to do this kind of stitching in? I’m also quilting it in a pictorial way. The final thing is going to be messy and imperfect and also wonderful. Memories of a life in this thing.

I can’t really check this space off the bingo card yet, but I nearly can. And I quilt a bit every night so it won’t take too much longer until this is done done done.

So, I did not miraculously turn our apartment into a perfect, finished home in one month. I AM NOT MAGIC. All I have been told are lies.

However, it is pretty much at a point where people I know and love can come over and I know they aren’t judging me. I am not where I could host, like, craft night or something yet because I was raised a certain way. And that way means that a house with a pile of unshelved books and not enough hangers for the coats so a bunch are still in a box or whatever is something that you should be ashamed of. Ongoing house goal is to get it where I can have a birthday party. The Ikea trip for a million bookshelves will happen by then.

But! I sewed the things I bought the fabric for!! Which is awesome. I did not meet some of my secondary sewing goals, but one of the whole points of this damned focus month exercise is to remind myself that I am not a machine. Just because I have more time in my day from not commuting does not mean every minute must be spent doing. I just sat and watched a show yesterday afternoon. On my day off! I wasn’t even like, sewing buttons at the same time.

ANYWAY. The house. The first room done was the bathroom, because a lot of time is spent in there and you are a captive audience for all the little things that are yet undone. (all these pictures click through to Flickr, where there are notes and more commentary and more images).

Then I sewed and installed the curtains. Which? Made all the difference in the living room. I like my curtains. They are sexy. Do not mock me.

The kitchen is what I focused on next, since I realised the living room still had a ways to go. I like our kitchen a lot. I’ve been cooking in there like a person in a movie. Being in the kitchen does not fill me with hatred because there is no space!

So, things I didn’t get to, and will be poking at as I go over the next month:

• Linen napkins, but not my fault, they were out of the fabric I ordered!
• Reupholstering chairs, for both time reasons and because I keep losing my hammer.
• Drapery over the bed, because we will have a princess bed, dammit, but I’m waffling over approach.
• A holder thing for arm warmers. I have a lot of arm warmers.

So, really, I did good! I’ll post tomorrow with April’s focus. So excited.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Whew. This has already been quite a month, with moving and everything. But I am still doing my focus month thing, it’s just sort of morphed this month. March’s focus is setting up the new place and Sewing For The Home.

It’s cheating a bit, allowing “setting up new place” to be part of the focus, but sewing for the home involves figuring out some furniture things, getting curtain rods and all that awesome interior design stuff I get hot for. Primarily it’s “sewing for the home”, but there’s auxiliary stuff that is going to be done as well.

I collect housewife books, hitting most eras from the late 1800′s onward—ones about the best way to clean things (vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and lemon juice, through the ages), first aid, how to arrange one’s day to fit in all the housekeeping, how to entertain, etc. A side effect of that are sewing books and new bride books. They’re full of what you need for the home, from flatware to curtains. My particular favourite (besides my 1960s new bride book, with ads from Sears in it) is a Singer Sewing for the Home edition from the sixties. The two colour illustrations are amazing, though their glory is dwarfed by the full colour plates.  When I have more things set up at home I’ll get pictures or scans, so worth sharing.

I pulled it out when we moved to the last apartment, using it to guide the few curtains and shower curtain I made for that place. Now that we’re in our first “real” apartment, with a living room that can be just a living room, that sort of thing, like houses in films. It’s getting not only curtains to coordinate with the walls, but some actual furniture pieces, handmade kitchen and bath towels, that sort of thing. Home sewing is the most satisfying thing, because it is mostly straight seams and hems that transform yards of whatever into useful things in about an afternoon.

I made quite the fabric purchase online last night, at Fabric.com, thanks to a generous tax return. Other than a bit of shirting that was less than $2 a yard I couldn’t resist, everything is for this month’s focus. You can skip over this bit if you don’t care about fabric.

Kitchen towels! Gorgeous red (which is kind of daring, with the green kitchen, but there’s dark wood-look stuff in there too, so it will go) towelling that’s 90/10 cotton/linen.

Hand towels and washcloths for the bath! We have plenty of bath towels, but our washcloths have served double duty for the kitchen for some time and are hella gross. Which means I get to try my hand sewing terry (blue to go with the insane blue of the bathroom walls) and binding with twill tape.

Our living room is big enough that when we have formal(er) dinners we’ll be eating in there, so the yellow walls were kept in mind (along with personal preference) in choosing orange linen for napkins. Cloth napkins guys!! It’s like I’m a princess.

Choosing a curtain pattern was difficult, as we’ve yellow and white walls in the living room (which is the only room that doesn’t have those stupid Venetian blinds) and the furniture is more or less white and blonde wood, but the loveseat is a sage and there are other pops of colour going on. I ended up going for green and ivory ticking striped cotton. I had to get loads of it, as there are three windows. AND I got curtain weights, because they’ve simply got to hang right. I bought the liner curtains pre-made, because who can resist the scalloped edges of these damn Ikea net things?

There are other projects that I already have fabric for, because I am a supplies hoarder and love deals. The other household sewing I hope to do this month are:

• Potholders (I’ve fabric for the outside and the heat-resistant stuff for the inside)
• Refinishing the cushions of some wooden chairs (this is going to be so fun)
• Maybe a new pillow, if I can find down (I also picked up down-proof ticking at Fabric.com)
• A couple other things that will totally show up as I go along

Whew! It looks like a lot of sewing, but it’s all measuring and straight lines. And ironing. And pre-washing. Crazy excited for this month, I’ve been waiting since January for it.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

(If you don’t know, I’m playing along at home with season 7 of Project Runway. Blog here.)

(I also sometimes blog at I Like Socks)

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.