the traveling sewing machine

For many years, my sewing machine lived in it's original box in my tiny closet underneath all of my clothes.  Every time I wanted to sew, I needed to go dig it out of the bottom of the closet, which usually took a lot of effort and heavy breathing.  When I finished graduate school, I repurposed my desk into a sewing table.  It was tiny, but a lot better than excavating my sewing machine out of my closet every few weeks.

During school, my desk lived in the living room.  Meanwhile, I had a room full of dying plants all to themselves.  It was called the Dying Plant Room.  I desperately want to be a gardener, but I'm just not good at it.  The dying plants lived on, but always looking desperate for even a single drop of water.  When I finished school I didn't water the plants more, I just used my newly-acquired wisdom to know that I should give them away.  So I gifted every half-dead plant to a friend.  How nice of me.  With those plants gone, I moved my sewing machine desk into the Dying Plant Room and rebranded it as the Craft Room.

But I had one problem with the new Craft Room.  It was full of windows, which makes it incredibly hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.  Uh, and I usually sew in my skivvies.  I can't be bothered to take on and off my clothes every time I need to try on an article of clothing.  That is really too much to ask.  So the window-ful Craft Room wasn't going to cut it.

So me and my sewing machine are on the move again.  We've decided to invade the Man Cave. This time, we're leaving behind the desk, and making plans to build an L-shaped desk that spans two full walls of the (former Man Cave) now Studio.  This weekend, we plan to commence the epic endeavor of hand-crafting this monster desk, so my sewing will be on hold for a few days.

This hot Man Cave mess will soon be transformed into a sexy Studio!

Wish me luck!

(As a side note, every other room in my house is called the normal name:  the Bedroom, the Bathroom, the Kitchen.)

blue dotted shirt

A few weeks ago I found this:

I loved the bold blue polka-dottedness and the vast amount of fabric.  I imagined a little large old lady wearing this dress to church on Sundays and to dinner with her family.  Her favorite Sunday dinner was chicken dumplings and she always went to see her cousin Maybel, who was also very fashionable.  It was her best dress and she treasured it.  And she never once stained it with communion wine or chicken dumplings.  As I was ripping the seams, I even discovered that she probably sewed it herself.  She loved this dress.  Now I love this dress, but I decided it needs to be a shirt.  And probably a skirt too, but all in good time.

To start with, I ripped the seams to separate the sleeves from the bodice and the bodice from the skirt, so I get the individual puzzle pieces.  I ripped the seams because, surprisingly, as tall and large as the previous woman was (I'm imagining her living in the Amazon), the top piece is actually pretty small.  I needed to save every millimeter of fabric.

Then I put it on inside out and pinned the sides to take it in.  I sewed a straight stitch along the pins and a zigzag stitch for extra security, and chopped off the extra fabric with my pinking shears.  Lastly, I carefully folded and sewed the smallest hem I could manage on the bottom of the shirt and for the sleeves.

And that's it.  I wore it the next day with my awesome, recently-thrifted green blazer.  My husband said, "You look like someone who means business, but wants to have fun doing it."  Score one for the polka dots.

And then I changed into my jammies, but couldn't take the top off.  When I get proud of making something, I need to wear it a lot!  It matched the blue dotted pajama pants that I also just found at the thrift store.  I just had to show you.