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Category: Sewing Room

The Tendrils of My Thoughts

I am a little scattered this morning. My sinuses are draining, which may account for at least some of the randomness of my thoughts as every time I seem to get settled on a particular track, I am stopped and rerouted by a trip to the tissue box.

It seems therefore that this is proving to be the perfect morning for a few random bits.

I replaced the hose on my gravity feed iron this morning. The previous (yellow) hose had proven to be a problem when I was working on the Christening gown, not surprisingly as it was actually a piece of medical tubing I had dug out of George's box of essential supplies after he passed away. The hose had served for a few years, when I was only sewing lightly and in short bursts, but it did not stand up to the prolonged heat necessary for a larger project. This is not surprising; it was never meant to go on a hot iron. Admitting defeat, I ordered a proper hose, one intended for use with a hot iron. Yesterday I removed the old hose, which also required some scraping, soaking, and general work to remove areas of melted rubber from the metal parts of the iron. This morning the new hose went into place, and I am ready for prolonged work in the studio, without the frustrations of working with inadequate equipment. Of course the problem was one of my own making, but that seems to be often the case with human endeavor, not that I am willing to go down that path very often (admitting to mistakes, not the making of them, a process in which I engage far too frequently).

One of the amaryllis bulbs is about to open. I am very much looking forward to the big reveal.

A friend and I attended a reception yesterday evening, where the upcoming season of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra was announced. It was a lovely evening, and the presentation was interspersed with musical interludes performed by the symphony's Wind Quintet, Looking at the amaryllis bulb this morning reminds me of one such interlude, where they musicians were playing some 17th century Hungarian dances. The music felt joyous and peaceful, and wrapped itself around my thoughts like the tendrils of a climbing vine, gently winding their way into my thoughts and opening up, like a flower into new vistas.

Such I suppose will be the case with the Amaryllis. I am looking forward to the exuberance of the big reveal, and already in a musical state of mind, I am reminded of the vibrant joyousness of last week's symphony performance, which ended with an excess of joyful exuberance as the Knoxville Symphony and the members of the Youth Symphony performed Dvorak's Symphony #9, "From the New World". I was particularly tickled by this (I have always loved that symphony) because George always hated it, thinking it was far too populist and overwrought. And yet George's memory accompanied me to that concert as the Dvorak, among other things, was paired with one of George's favorite pieces, Korngold's Violin Concerto in D major. It is quite possible that in my youth I felt much the same way about the Korngold as George did about the Dvorak. Anyway, the Korngold was stunningly performed. Tessa Lark brought a beauty and lyricism to the piece, which too my ears had always seemed to full of schmaltz for comfort. I think I believe both new depths and new lightness was revealed, a newly discovered sense of joy, as well as the deep peacefulness that comes when one recognizes how one is shaped by one's past, and yet not necessarily defined by it.

And lastly, Tikka. Here she is sleeping in my closet, her head resting on some metal hand weights. This seems particularly uncomfortable to me, but as it is one of her favorite spots, I must assume our understandings and experiences of comfort are different.

Tikka was diagnosed with Cushing's Disease around Christmas and it took a few weeks to get the details of the diagnosis and treatment squared away. She started her new medicine late last week, and although not all of her symptoms have abated, she is already a much lighter spirited, bouncier and happier dog. I am reminded of how she slowed down over a period of months and how we thought the problem was back or hip issues, both of which are present, but now I see that this disease was probably just building up slowly, see how things can sneak up on us before we realize what is going on, see how powerful healing can be.

January 23, 2019
Circuit Boards and Sewing Machines

I cleaned out the garage a few weeks ago and at that time I brought the box labeled "speakers and stereo cables" inside and put it on the living room sofa, where I could not ignore it. There were two reasons for this, the first being that it is well past time that I get the stereo system up and running, and the second being that I needed to get everything that doesn't belong in the garage out in order to move to stage 2 of the garage storage plan, namely organization. Don't hold your breath, I have a remarkable capacity for sitting on projects, especially big projects with no externally regulated end-date.

Thursday the box got moved to the floor so I could sit on the sofa. Saturday morning I thought the situation was ridiculous. The simple truth was that I had attempted to set up the stereo when we first moved in only to find that the CD player didn't work. I made some attempt at replacing it locally but found nothing that was musically up to the standards of my existing unit, and the entire process of researching equipment and procuring it online was more than I could bear, as was, apparently, the thought of packing it up and sending it to the manufacturer for repair. So I shoved the cd player back on the shelf and piled entire process back into a box, labeled it speakers and wires, and stuck it in the garage. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it was time.  I told myself I could at least open up the cd player and see if the problem was something simple and obvious, like a fuse. I can replace a fuse.  But when I opened the box it wasn't as simple as I had hoped. It actually took me a few minutes, in my disappointed haze, to make the connection between what I saw, and what I know, or knew. I don't really know what I expected; what I found was a computer. In retrospect this is not really surprising.

Eventually it dawned on me that I might, in fact, be able to do something here. I still have my multimeter, I still have a few tools. Although it has been years since I have repaired or built computers and circuit-boards, and I have no knowledge of stereo technology, this looked fairly simple, and I thought I might be able to diagnose a simple power issue. In the end it was simple. The components in question were visibly damaged and it was a simple case of replacing a few wires and connectors, and then using the meter to check the power flows.

The most remarkable thing, really, was the way this connected me to a younger version of myself, my younger Jack-Jill-of-all-trades self, the young woman who worked for a computer time-sharing company back when PCs were new, the young woman who could make our mainframe talk to any pc program on the market; the young woman who could build a pc, fix a motherboard, design a database, reconnect a broken satellite link, the young woman who thought APL was fun. Even though I had long since realized I didn't want to design computers and didn't have the patience for programming, realized that since I didn't dream computing I had no future in a field where living and breathing your work were de rigueur, I have to admit I had missed that young woman's attitude – her deep conviction that there were no problems without solutions. It was a pleasure to meet that girl again and to realize she had been with me all along: older yes, hopefully wiser, but still filled with hope and determination. Determination seems to have been dormant lately; I'm glad to have her back.

So I set up the stereo, connected the speakers, and listened to Olivier Latry playing the music of César Frank.   Admittedly the sound will be even better when I get the bookcase speakers up off the floor and actually in the bookcase, but that requires moving books, and snaking wires through cabinetry, and I wasn't really up for that task this weekend. Just hearing music throughout the house, good full rich sound in all its glory, not just the limited sound of an MP3 through headphones was joy enough.

That was Saturday. Sunday I finished setting up the sewing room. Or mostly finished any way.

I'd been unpacking for weeks, and most every thing was put away. All that was left was unpacking and setting up the sewing machines. You would think that would be the easiest part, but it ended up being the hardest. Sunday I pulled the machines out of their cases, unwound yard upon yard of bubble wrap, and inspected each machine. I noticed that there were a few, hopefully minor, mishaps: a broken bobbin attachment; a few cracks in incidental pieces; a door to a compartment that would not close completely; mostly all cosmetic rather than functional. Then I started setting machines  on tables: two sewing machines, my old Elna and newer Bernina; the serger; an embellisher.

I had hoped that I would get everything up and running, that I could take a photo, and I could begin actually doing some test stitching. But that didn't happen. Disorganization ruled. I laid out the machines in the positions I thought I liked for ease of use, pulled out their cords, and started crawling under the tables to plug things in, only to find that some of the cords didn't reach, only to rearrange everything and start over. And over, And over.

Of course, I should have just attached all the cords to the machines and lined them up on the center table to begin with. I should have assessed cord length, space requirements, ease of use, suitability of extension cord placement if necessary before I started positioning machines and crawling under tables. But I didn't. It was Sunday afternoon. I was tired. I let my excitement get in the way of my common sense. It happens sometimes.

Now all the machines are lined up, all their cords are attached. They stand at the ready, waiting.  Soon I. too will be ready. But this time I will measure and plan, I will make sure that I have everything I need, I will be methodical. Who knows, perhaps once I'm done with this I will be prepared to climb on ladders and snake speaker wires through cabinets. Perhaps not. Perhaps I will simply sew.

July 20, 2015
Progress

Remember the shelving cubbies I was putting up in my sewing room in June? The project stalled, which was good, because I revised my plan.

Today I reconfigured the system, and added an additional 6 cubes for storage of books and patterns. I also got most of the boxes of books and patterns unpacked, although they are not all on the shelves yet. I made a few minor miscalculations and need to do a little shifting before I can finish.

Oddly, in June I was missing two pieces to complete the bookcase. I ordered a kit and ended up adding the aforementioned 6 sections to the overall bookcase. In the end I am still short 2 pieces, so I will have to order again.

But the room is finally beginning to look like a place I want to spend time in.

October 16, 2014
500 Dresses

I am making progress in the future sewing room, and the transformation, although slow, is nonetheless exciting. It is true I had gotten a good start last summer, putting up shelves and a cutting table in one of the two rooms upstairs. I started unpacking fabric. I'd like to say I got too busy, and that is partially true, but actually I just got overwhelmed. I couldn't make decisions, so I put everything off until I was ready.

I am ready now. Tables have been set up, but sewing machines are not yet on them. More boxes are getting unapcked. It is wonderful to actually have furniture, to have places to put things as I unpack, and to have the presence of mind to organize everything as well as to discern what is important and what is not. These shelves will mostly contain books: sewing books, knitting books, and books about related things like needlework and fashion. Do not worry; I am not lifting boxes of books. I can, however, open the top box on a stack and proceed, moving books a few at a time to the proper shelf. Although I tire easily with this lifting and moving, I actually like going upstairs to my space again, and I find myself driven to do more than is actually wise. I am learning to pace myself however, to listen to the voice that cries for rest.

Alas, this section is not quite finished. I need to order one more cubitec kit to finish this last unit. I suspected I would need another kit when I placed the initial order. However I still had boxes in the way, and Ialso knew it would be close. Apparently it is very close. I am short three pieces.

In order to make space for the shelves, I had to unpack the boxes of sewing patterns I brought with me from New York. When we moved I knew I had too many patterns, but I had trouble deciding which patterns to keep and which to eliminate. Although I had weeded out patterns before, I stil packed patterns for clothes I made 30 years ago, many of which I now realize I will never make again. As I unpacked, I easily eliminated 25 to 30 percent of the patterns outright. The remaining patterns were sorted by category, which will allow me to sort through them again as I file them.

Even though I live in dresses in the summer, even though I preferred dresses to pants when I was younger, and might again, I was surprised to see that I have more patterns for dresses than anything else. I had so many dress patterns that it felt like I had 500 or more, but of course I do not. There are nowhere near 500 dress patterns in my collection, probably not even 100. But it is obvious that I could make, and probably wear, 500 dresses in my lifetime given the time to do so.

But why the surprise? I loved dresses in my younger decades. I wore skirts and dresses more than pants as a young adult, but gradually stopped. I'm not sure why although I suspect it was due to my own insecurities, and various forms of upheaval in my life over the last 10 to 15 years. I would have said I'm not a girly-girl, but to some extent I am in that I love pretty shoes, and dresses, and jewelry, although I really can't afford the kind of jewelry I love nor do I have the life for it. If I walk into a store however, I find very few dresses I like. Too many are over-designed, or too frilly or too overtly flirtatious. I am definitely not a frou-frou girl, and I when I do cross over to the ruffly-side, I tend to want to mix it with something more tailored and almost masculine in effect.

So apparently dress patterns are good. I have a collection it has taken me years to build, dresses that are definitely my style. And apparently, even when my inner life was in turmoil and I was not dealing well with the emotional stresses of my life, even when I was groping wildly to put my finger on that part of who I am and how I wanted to dress, there was some self-contained innner part who knew exactly what path I wanted to follow. Even as I was frustrated by my inability to find time and the mental peace needed to sew, I bought patterns. I bought patterns for the clothes I wanted to wear even though they weren't the clothes I was actually wearing. I did exactly what we are told not to do, I bought patterns for my fantasy life. But I wasn't buying patterns for evening clothes, or fancy clothes that would never suit my lifestyle and my personality, I was buying clothes for the person I truly was, for the person I had temporarily set aside. I didn't recognize it, as I was too busy keeping myself armed for battle, and my true self spent too much time in full retreat. But she was still there, in her cave, stockpiling inspiration.

Now I am seriously looking forward to sewing again. Some of this sewing will be mundane and analytical, along the lines of which of 5 sleeveless princess-seamed sheath patterns, each by a different company, is the best pattern for me as I am now. This kind of sewing definitely appeals to my analytical side. But there are plenty of creative options as well, and plenty of options for following the inpsiration of the moment.

But first I need to do more unpacking. I need to get a sewing machine set up. I need to find that last box of patterns. How do I know there is a box of patterns missing? I know it because there are dress patterns I know I own that I do not remember seeing as I went through my initial pattern sort. Perhaps I simply missed them, overwhelmed as I was by the overwhelming bounty. Perhaps there really is another box somewhere. I know I saw those patterns in this house. I will find them. Perhaps I should start by sorting through those dress patterns again more thoroughly.

June 21, 2014
Cutting Room 3

Well, here I am working on too many projects at once as is my wont. But I see actual progress and that is encouraging.

The cutting table, or more properly, work table, is finished:

The plywood is covered with batting and a heavy cotton twill that has been printed with a 1-inch grid and I am very happy with the final result. And although you can't see it in this photo, the last Billy Bookcase went up yesterday, so now the major elements of the room are in place.

I still have unpacking and sorting and storing, as well as getting a sewing machine up in the other room. But it is all a start. If you want more detail about the surface of the work table, you can find it here.

September 6, 2013
Cutting Room 2:

We literally just got the last cabinet completed and all the pieces together for the cutting table:

I am just thrilled by the fact that it looks so good and I have more room to move around than I thought. You can see the Billy Bookcases along the back wall, partially filled with fabric. There will be another bookcase where the ladder is standing now: it is scheduled to be delivered the end of next week. In front of the bookcases you see one end of my humongous new cutting table. The materials for finishing the top won't arrive until next week either, so you can read more about that in another post.

Here is a view from the end of the room:

The table base is basically made from 3 components, all of which I got from Homedecorators.com:

2 Martha Stewart Craft Space Flat File cabinets along the front side (because it faces the door).

1 Stanton 6+1 drawer wide storage cart which occupies the space between the two cabinets

3 Supreme 3 tier metal shelving units side-by-side along the back.

The larger lower drawer of the stanton unit holds my hams and most of my bulky pressing tools and it is convenient since it stands opposite my ironing board and press, of which you can see just a tiny bit on the left side of the photo above).

Here is a partial view of the cabinets side by side from the door:

The whites are not quite the same, which I knew when I ordered them, but I figured it wouldn't matter that much and it is much less evident IRL than in this photo, either that or I just don't notice, which may also be true. All of the cabinets from Home Decorators were supposed to be 36" high, except for the Stanton unit which is 35 1/2, but that wasn't the case. The cabinets ranged from 35 1/2 to 36 1/2 high, so there was a bit more shopping and cutting and gluing involved than originally planned, but it all works and I am happy.

It will be even better when the top is finished. But in the meantime I have a lot of unpacking and planning to do.

August 23, 2013
Cutting Room 1: A Little Sunshine On A Rainy Day

The first four of five Billy Bookcases are up. Only one top extension is in place, and the doors are not on it yet, but I have started moving fabric into the lower cabinets. The fifth cabinet was damaged in shipping and I have to send the damaged parts list to Ikea as soon as the top extensions are finished.

I can't claim any responsibility for the results so far other than buying the cabinets and helping lug them up the stairs. I am grateful to know a couple of good handymen and am very happy that A has taken on this job since I know I would be nowhere near this far along were I attempting it myself, and I would probably be lying on the floor with my feet up on the sofa feeling stiff, sore, and frustrated, and too tired to unpack fabric.

My only other responsibility so far, other than moving tons of stuff around and helping carry, has been to crawl around the garage floor while I glued large pieces of plywood together, and haul more heavy stuff around to weight the pieces, in order to make the 42" x 108" (3 1/2' x 9') top of the future cutting table.

Seeing the assembled slab of plywood lying on the floor, although not in its final place, I see that although the cutting table will dominate the room, I will have room to work around it, and I am happy at that thought. Only half of the base cabinets have arrived, and two of them are awaiting assembly. The final cabinets should arrive this week, and the materials for finishing the top probably this coming week or early the following week.

I probably won't get more fabric moved today as I'm hosting a dinner party this evening. But I can go upstairs and sigh occasionally, and dream of the space to come.

August 18, 2013
Update

The pillow made from my needlework class sampler arrived yesterday. It turned out lovely, although smaller than I imagined it would be; I obviously had trouble in my mind translating the flat two-dimensional fabric to a three-dimensional pillow. It could also be that the other pillows in my house are less tightly stuffed. Nonetheless I love the way the shape of the pillow itself brings depth to the stitches and I am surprised to learn that I like the pillow far more than I liked the completed canvas in its flat form. I am also happy that I sent it out rather than planning to do it myself as it would still be languishing in a pile somewhere, just one among many ufos.

I am working upstairs, organizing my studio. I am starting with the 9 x 17 foot space that is destined to be storage/cutting/pressing room and from there I will move to the second room, which will be the primary sewing room. All that has been accomplished so far is to move everything out, including the rolling metal shelves that were being used as fabric storage (seen here, only imagine them about 3/4 full of fabric) The two shelves pictured will remain in the attic for storage, although the fabric will move to the new storage wall once it is assembled. I am expecting big deliveries of components for my new huge cutting table today and the components of the storage wall on Thursday. Then the real work will begin.

I unpacked about 20 boxes yesterday, as well as moved furniture, and there is more unpacking, organizing, building, and putting away to come, so expect posts to be spotty.

August 13, 2013
Unpacking The Colors of Dreams

I am finally unpacking fabric. Picking up each piece and putting it away certain aspects of an awakening. Each piece, be it humble or more exotic, seems so perfect. Dreams flow around me like whisps. Happiness envelops me.

I do believe I have the most beautiful fabric collection in the world. Of course this opinion is highly subjective. I am certain that ever collector feels their collection is the most beautiful, and rightly so.

These photos are not particularly representative, of colors yes, but of the entire collection not so much. Sublte gradations in color of flat weave basic fabrics don't photograph well, at least not in the still-darkish light of my studio with my photographic skills. But these are fabric pieces, the stuff of dreams.

In the past few months I have dreamt of my fabric. I have thought about how I would sort it and organize it and how it would look on the shelves. As I imagined my wall of fabric I quickly realized that in my dreams I saw the fabric sorted by color, and that in fact color is more a more important factor for me when I am looking for a fabric than fiber content, weave or weight. I did have my fabric sorted by type of fabric once, following some directive that this was the most efficient path. But any system is only as efficient as the people who use it. And I never look for a particular fabric by its weave or weight. Color always comes first in my mind. Even when I am imagining a dress, I am not imagining a wool crepe dress or a silk dress, although those features may be part of general plan, in that I may imagine a blue crepe dress or a pair of pants out of gray wool suiting. It is the color that comes first, not the fabric, with blue and gray being the critical points. I can adapt the execution of my vision to suit the requirements of fabric more easily than I can change my mind about color.

And so I am sorting by color as it is the color I remember when I am looking for a particular fabric. I have a pretty good memory for color and have, on more occasions than I can count, seen a fabric and known instantly that it was a perfect match for something I had waiting on the shelf at home. In fact my "memory-matching" ability is often more on-point than my ability to match something in the poor artificial lighting found in many fabric stores. Each shelf has its own unique range of shades but I am not sorting the fabric in any particular order on each shelf. There is not enough time in the heavens for me to fool with that. It is not like any one piece is going to be more than a few feet away from any other piece.

And of course this too is good. Because I have been known to say I want a green dress, and end up with a purple dress. These things happen whether I am shopping or sewing, and it is one of the happy little inconsistencies of life. I continue to believe that, had I not been looking for the green dress, I would not have noticed the purple one that finally caught my attention.

And now that you know that I almost always start with color, I'd love to know what prompts you to start your search for a new garment or a new sewing project. Do you imagine a silhouette? A weight or type of fabric such as silk or cotton? Or do you start off thinking about a color? If you start out thinking about one color, such as a blue dress or a red blazer, do you ever end up with something else entirely? Do share.

September 18, 2012
Plans on Paper

I've been playing these little games, moving tiny bits of colored paper around, pondering their placement, loosing this bit or that bit, and then rearranging them all again. Every time I would get something on paper that seemed right, I would realize that some important ingredient had gone missing and I would have to start over.

At times I really just wanted to start pulling out my hair.

All this has been necessary in order to figure out what furniture I am going to move and where it is going to go in the new house. Now that the framing is almost complete, the deadline looms for telling the builder where I need outlets, telephone jacks, cable connections etc. Aside from that, time is running short. It is already November and I think it is best to sell as much as possible before the holiday hullabalu officially begins in a few short weeks.

Although it was fun playing with colored bits of paper representing furniture in our primary living space, I initially thought that would be the hard part. After all, I am really not moving any furniture to my new studio, planning on setting it up completely when we get to Knoxville. I thought that part would be easy, but of course it is not.

It is kind of strange, planning a space for a studio, when I haven't sewn much in a long time. It sounds kind of pretentious. I don't know exactly where I am going with this, only what I am interested in doing. I am not planning on going into business, this is not a good time for me to go back to work although a part of me would love to do so, so I feel a bit of the dilettente, and it makes me peevish sometimes. And yet, I will have the time, and the space, and I have sewn a great deal in the past, hopefully learning something from that experience, and it is time for me to work at exploring something I love and perhaps determining how far I wish to pursue it.

But even though this is not in any way an industrial space, and home power requirements will more than meet my needs, there are special circumstances to be taken into consideration beyond basic "bedroom wiring". And so planning for my work space has taken even longer than the entire living portion of the house. For example, I know I will need more circuits than are normally alloted for a "bedroom" space. I will need seperate circuits for pressing and sewing. I know that the press and the iron together can draw up to 3000 watts of power. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does that is enough to blow a shared circuit if anything else is in use on that circuit. It is much cheaper to plan for electric usage in advance if possible than it is to fix a problem later on.

I have two small rooms. My basic plan is that one room will house fabric storage, cutting, and pressing as it seems logical to me that these things should all be in close proximity. This room will also house my knitting machine, primarily because there is a convenient place for it next to the yarn closet and also because I can close the door, so that I can keep work out if necessary without worrying about little kitty claws.

The second room, which is open to the stairwell, will contain my actual machine work stations, pattern storage, books, and another surface that I am calling my finishing station. This is where I can block sweaters without having them take up space on my cutting tables, or where I can sew sweaters, work on beading or embroidery or other handwork. These are all tasks I prefer to do standing up with a generous work surface. I have learned from experience that it is best if finishing and cutting occupy different spaces. This second room, the sewing room, will also have a cozy window seat where I can sit and look up details or thumb through my books and inspiration files.

Although I went ahead and pasted up a rough plan for my own reference and for the builders, I know there will be some minor variations when it comes to final execution. Yet this is enough to let me know where I need power and where I need light. I am glad I did this now because although I had a vague idea of what I wanted in my head, I hadn't actually worked out the requirements for a workable space. There have been more than a couple of compromises but I think I have come up with something I can work with and it is a good place to start.

November 1, 2011