Where I Sew

Recently on the Pink Chalk Studio Blog, by Kathy Mack, she began a month long virtual studio tour sharing a peek at the sewing studios of some of her favorite designers and sewing enthusiasts, real spaces where real people sew. We, her readers, were also invited to share our studios on her blog mosaic, what a fantastic idea.  I jumped on board with the help of my graphic designer, from A Jeweled Design, who figured out how to link the photo directly to the blog page, the photo originated from, to the Pink Chalk Studio blog. She then added the Pink Chalk “Where I Sew” icon to my blog post pages, in the side bar right below the sites I follow, so you can click on the icon and go directly to Kathy’s virtual tour page and see my studio photo, click on that and you get my blog page for that post. I highly recommend you also click on all the studio photos and enjoy some really wonderful creative spaces.  Since the photo from my studio only featured one area, I decided to do a virtual tour of my own showing you where I create, a couple of the photos are a bit dark because of the three windows, which pour in sunlight and make it tough to photograph, while other areas are a bit tricky to get a decent shot, hang in there with me, you will get the overall idea.  Here we go.

This is the photo submitted to the Pink Chalk Studio Blog which happens to be the one of my fabric storage walls, let’s start the tour here.

We move along to the adjoining corner of the room featuring my cutting table.

Down the window walls is where I keep my paper crafting and jewelry making supplies, it also houses my stereo, iPod, DVD player and flat screen TV.

This is my sewing counter wall which sits directly across from the fabric cubbie wall.  It has 8’ of counter space allowing for two sewing machines or one machine and a crafting area, which is usually the case, unless I am giving sewing lessons and need to put out another sewing machine, I have four of them. There are two small design boards over each area along with some of my dress form collection and couture dress photos.  Above the work stations there is another set of cubes which hold fabrics, notions and more of my couture dress forms.

My fitting corner has 3 mirrors at several heights allowing me to see a garment from several angles, a real must when fitting a garment alone.

Last but not least are the huge white closet doors opposite the windows, these are my inspiration walls with couture photos, a mirror and lots of creative mood boards. I left one of the three doors white to use as a design wall and to photograph projects on. (Not shown here)

Thanks for letting me share the virtual tour of Where I Sew with you, I hope you enjoyed it and it inspires your to find a creative space of your own, no matter what size space you have to work with.  If you already have a place you enjoy sewing or crafting in I would love to see it and share it with my readers, just e-mail me a photo and what kind of things you create in there and I will post it on my blog. It does not have to be a large room like mine, it can be your dinning room table or a closet, I can’t wait to see it, send it on over.

See you soon

Laurette

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Happy 4th Of July

I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful and spectacular 4^Th of July!!

(Photo compliments of Jolene Burt of A Jewel'd Design)

I know I am a bit behind, things are really ramping up with so many projects and house prep for the baby shower in less then two weeks.  I have been out shopping for pieces for my projects, which I started a few days ago, not to mention the deep cleaning and all the sewing of the baby gifts for my new grand baby.  You are going to be seeing quite a few of the fun projects as I finish them, check daily.  For those of you attending the baby shower just act surprised and fuss over them like you have never seen them before. (Giggles!)  Anyway… I am off and running but wanted to share a cute patriotic centerpiece for the dinner table, you can put it into your creative file for next year’s decorations.

This centerpiece starts out using a plastic hat with a wide brim wrapped in a red band with some patriotic stickers placed in the middle of the band.  I glued in a Styrofoam block and then covered it with red crinkle paper shred. Next I punched in some flag pinwheels and two mini American Flags. It really brightened up the table when I added a red table cloth and some red, white and blue fabric as a runner, all set and ready to party.

Thanks for letting me share my patriotic centerpiece with you; this is double post Monday so look for a second post right behind this one with more to follow all week long.

See you soon.

Laurette

Rock'n Garden

I had no idea I was going to be away from my blog for so long, this spring and summer have been full of events, projects and entertaining almost non-stop, keeping me pretty tied up and unable to write about all the fun we are having. I can’t remember when we have been so busy at this time of the year. Because I was gone so long I thought I should start sharing some of the projects we have been working on. 

This weekend’s project was in the backyard re-working some of the existing landscaping.  The yard was once a real showcase with lots of expensive designer landscaping all around the whole yard, because it was empty for over a year just about every area suffered neglect. Space by space we have been re-working and re-using as many of the existing plants and landscaping materials as possible.  There were a ton of river rocks all over, which had once been artfully placed to show off each specific area, little by little we dug up the rocks and repositioned them so they could be seen instead of being buried in mud and debris.  After two years of backbreaking labor we just had one area left to complete.  It was the area hit hardest with flooding whenever it rained and the gutter ran too fast, the water backed up into the lawn and the garage.  The soil in the rock beds had built up with sediment and leaves over time, creating a back up not allowing the water to drain, which meant it was a big project, it went to the bottom of the list until we had the time to fix it properly.  It was time to complete the landscape and eliminate the flooding; we are having the baby shower in two weeks and we want to have the party outside on the patio, weather permitting.

Stage 1: Work in progress

After:

For some strange reason the rocks had been originally placed up by the plants with a huge open area of dirt between the bender board and the green plants. We thought maybe there had once been rocks there but had no way of knowing so we did some digging and found quite a bit of rock under the mud.  We dug them out and washed each of them off then re-positioned them next to the bender board forming a nice little river rock boundary for the water to run over during the rains.  Once we had the rock in place we finished up by adding Scott’s Nature Scape in Sierra Red, very pretty creating a nice contrast with the red up against the rocks and all the greenery.

This was the area which created the build up of soil, leaves and eventually excess water when it rained.  We had to do a lot of digging to find the rocks under the sediment which we removed by digging out the extra soil and rocks then putting each stone back one by one.

Everything is back in place, all the rocks were cleaned up as well as the planting beds which got more of the Sierra Red bark to add contrast and cut down on weeds.  This project took seven hours of tedious, backbreaking work over a two day stretch to complete.  My husband and I were thrilled to be done and very happy with the final results, I don’t think we will be doing anymore bending over or digging in the next few weeks or until our backs recover. Our landscaping projects are complete, at least for this year; next up is my patio makeover which I hope to get finished by the baby shower, fingers crossed.

Thanks for letting me share our Rock’n Garden with you; I hope you enjoyed the last of the landscaping projects for this year, next spring we hope to be refinishing the patio pergola and moving onto some larger backyard projects.  I am not sure what else I will be sharing with you since the baby shower is coming up in a couple of weeks, I hope to have time to show you some of the projects we are working on for that, including some yummy snacks for the ladies.

See you soon,

Laurette

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Sweatshirt To Jeweled Jacket - Tutorial

One of the creative things I like to do is take old or unused clothing and re-purpose them into beautiful new garments or decorative items.  The most recent upcycling project was an olive green sweatshirt which I loved the color of but not the fit, it was brand new and never worn; I kept moving it from house to house thinking I would do something with it someday. After much debate I finally settled on transforming the ordinary sweatshirt into a stunning short jacket for fall.  For those of you who sew, this is a great project you can do with just about any sweater or shirt with just a few tweaks, follow along with my tutorial and you will be all set to make one of your own.

Pictured is the sweatshirt, I am going to makeover, in its original form. The first thing I did was to take my dressmakers chalk and draw a line down the middle of the shirt, measuring from each side to the center until I got it even. Once the line was drawn I cut a nice straight line down the middle to create the jacket opening, all set and ready to stitch up once I finished cutting off all the unnecessary parts.

I really did not like the cuffs on the sleeves due to the fact they were very wide and tight, they were totally uncomfortable. Once I had them measured for the new sleeve length, I cut off the cuffs and began pinning up a new hem.

I moved onto the bottom of the shirt measuring and very carefully cutting off the bottom band of the sweatshirt.  It was a really well made knit band with a fine tight weave which I set aside to use later in an unusual, surprising way.

Note:  I like to do all my cutting and pinning at once, then go to my sewing machine instead of popping up and down every five minutes, it saves a lot of time and moves the project along quickly.

The first thing I did was to start stitching the hem of my new jacket, I decided on three layers of stitching to make it decorative instead of just a simple ¼” seam.  Because the fabric is knit the edges did not need to be folded under or any kind of finishing stitches on the raw edges.  I sewed each set of stitches ¼” apart for a nice uniform look, I chose a double row of stitches for the cuff finish.  Once the bottom hem was completed I moved onto stitching up a small placket down the front of the jacket, just a single row of stitches since I had other plans for the opening.

It was finally time for the neck opening, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with it, and I had a lot of ideas which took me forever to settle on one design. As soon as I cut off the band from the bottom of the shirt I knew right away I was going to use it on the neck to change the lines.  I draped it across one shoulder which I liked, then I considered evenly sewing it around the neck and using the long ends to make a self tie or bow, my final choice was to lay it on collar style which felt more like the jacket I originally had in mind.

This was the tricky part, getting the band around the neck without causing a lot of stretching and ruining the shape of the jacket.  I chose to leave the original collar intact in case I wanted to alter it again in the future.  When I removed the banding from the bottom of the shirt I cut about two inches away from the original hem seam so I would have extra fabric to work with, it turned out to be a good choice.  I was able to place the neck edge up against the existing band hem seam and pin it just below the old collar hem, I used a good number of pins to make sure everything stayed in place while I stitched it up. Stitching along the original collar line would allow for the new collar to lay down over the old one concealing it and giving the whole area more stability and no sagging or stretching.  I could have added some stitching in the ditch or other stabilizing stitches but I wanted to be able to remove the collar at some point in time without a lot of fuss.

Before:

After:

My olive green fall jacket it complete with one photo showing it without the jewels running down the front and the second photo showing the gems, I hand sewed into place, sparkling in the light giving the illusion of the crystal jewels being larger then they are and slightly uneven.  I can assure you they are evenly spaced with hook and eye closures just behind the stones.  Plain sweatshirt turned custom trendy jeweled jacket without a trip to the designer showrooms. How much fun is that!

Thanks for letting me share my jeweled jacket makeover, I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and you are inspired to make one of your own.  Did I mention the sweatshirt was part of a set, can you guess what I am going to make out of the poorly fitting sweatpants?  I guess you will have to watch for that makeover to appear in a future post, it is already in progress.

See you soon.

Laurette

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Festive Updates

The weekend was a smashing success with all of the family events we had. Things are slowly getting back to normal with lots of laundry, setting the guest room back in order, putting away tables, chairs and all the other party decorations and accessories. I think the clean up is almost as much work as the set up, but it was very much worth all the work.  Everyone has finally gone home so I thought I would do a quick catch up of each event before going on to share some of the makeover projects I have planned for this weeks posts.

First up was the pre-school graduation for my oldest granddaughter on Friday evening, unfortunately I wasn’t able to get close to the kids and I was taking photos into the sun, but you get the idea.  They were just darling in their cute little caps and gowns, loved it.

Next came the 30^Th Birthday party for my son, given by my daughter-in-law, she did a fantastic job with the decorations and all the wonderful food, we are all very lucky to have her in his life and ours.

Last but not least was Father’s Day on Sunday, I didn’t get any good pictures at dinner, I was too busy running around making sure everyone got fed and fun gifts handed out and opened by all the Dads. They got to play golf in the morning and had barbecued steaks with all the trimmings for dinner, cooked by the ladies, what lucky guys.

A quick update on my outdoor studio kitty, Toby, he came home from the pet hospital mid morning on Monday, he spent 7 days there and is happy to be home.  He is slowly getting better day by day but he still has a long way to go before he ventures outside again.  Thanks for all the good thoughts, they worked.

That pretty much sums up everything going on in my home since I last wrote to all of you, time to get back to work on my creative projects.  I have lots to do before the baby shower for my daughter-in-law next month including getting out the invitations and completing the patio makeover, which is where the baby shower will be held.  Never a non-creative or dull moment around here.

Thanks for letting me share all my festive events from last weekend. Coming up next are some before and after makeovers, watch for those in the next couple of days. 

See you soon.

Laurette

Pretty In Pink

I just had to share these sweet little bubblegum pink newborn kimono jackets and matching burp cloths.  They came out so cute they make me think of pretty baby girls all soft and sweet smelling after a bath, brings back lots of memories.

This is the only time you will see me making any pink baby clothing or accessories, we found out the new baby due in October is a BABY BOY! We are over the moon and so excited to be having our first grandson; he is going to be so spoiled.  All of my baby projects will now be the usual blues and greens with some yellows and oranges thrown into the mix.  I guess the little pink jackets and burp cloths will have to go into a box until the next baby girl comes along. After sewing nothing but little girl things for the last six years it will be really fun to work with other colors for little boy projects while still sewing pretty things for the girls.

Today while picking up the toy room I realized it is decorated predominately in oranges, greens and pinks (perfect for little divas).  I think I will need to do a bit of a re-vamp to make it much more gender neutral; oranges and turquoise blues added into the color scheme should do the trick.  More fun projects for me to work on during the fall and winter months, at least I have time before the baby will be old enough to play in there, but it is something fun for my creative mind to play around with until I have time to work in there.  I think it might be time for me to pull out my sketch books and blank mood boards so I can jot down any ideas that come along in the next couple of months.

For those of you who read this blog on a regular basis, you may have a noticed a lag in between my posts.  I wanted to let you know I am working on several projects at once which is keeping me away from my writing; I am also swamped with taking care of a very sick outdoor studio kitty and several family events all happening this weekend. So far I am keeping my head above water but who knows how things will go, fingers crossed. 

For those of you who follow the antics of my furry studio helpers please keep good thoughts for my kitty, Toby, he is very ill and in the cat hospital in pretty bad shape, I will keep you posted.  

As for the rest, everything else should work out just fine, I have my granddaughters pre-school graduation, my son’s 30^Th Birthday party and a Father’s Day barbecue, all three days in a row with two of the events in my home and stay over company for five days as well.  Once all this is over I will be back early next week writing again about some great new projects I did this week.  Keep checking in between now and then in case I get some time to sneak up to my computer and share all the festivities with you as well as a progress report on Toby.

Thanks for letting me share my bubblegum pink kimonos with you, be on the lookout for several fun makeover projects, I can’t wait to show them to you.

See you soon.

Laurette

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Cherry Red Stones

Last weekend I did several paint projects, I painted my tired old plant stands a lovely bright shade of lime green which perked them up and added a pop of color to my dull looking patio.  The second project was spray painting several decorative stone tiles, they started out one color, which faded over time in the strong sun, and ended up a pale shadow of what they were.  The original colors were great at our former home but didn’t work at this new one; a change in color was definitely called for.

This once cute little decorative garden stone had been stepped on and broken in two pieces, it also became very faded from a rich green to a washed out pale green. I really loved the little animals; they were just so darling I wanted to save them; I glued it together and gave it a good cleaning to see if I could revive the stone with a vibrant new color.

The crack and chalky faded green color pretty much disappeared with a couple of quick coats of KRYLON Interior-Exterior spray paint in a high gloss finish, Cherry Red; it dries in 12 minutes or less.  This is my favorite paint to use on projects which are not metal or rusted; it does not run or drip and goes on super smooth.  For my rod-iron art pieces, plant stands and patio furniture I use RUST-OLEUM, it blocks rust and leaves a nice clean glossy finish.

My final piece was a hanging decorative tile which also started its life a dark green color it faded to an awful pale green.  I used the same process of cleaning it and giving it several coats of, Cherry Red, KRYLON spray paint to protect it from the sun and rain, it hangs on the fence at the top of the hill giving the fence and yard  extra color when the roses are not in bloom.  I could have bought two new pieces but decided to upcycle them with fresh color and use them in my yard instead of putting more stuff in the landfill. Think about looking around at what you have and ask yourself what you can do to use it in a new and different way, you will be surprised at how much fun it is to make something old new again, give it a try and let me know what you did, I would love to hear about it.  For more projects and ideas take a peak at this fun website; www.projectsinacan.com created by KRYLON spray paints.

Thanks for letting me share my Cherry Red painting project with you, I hope it really does inspire you to pick up a can of spray paint and get to work on some of those old garden pieces making them into pretty new show pieces for your yard or home.

See you soon.

Laurette

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