Sew Half Crazy

2/27/2010

My perfect craft room

Heather 2/27/2010 1 Comments

As anyone who does any amount of crafting (of any sort) you know that you accumulate stuff quickly. It's no use to toss this stuff because it can still be used or utilized in some fashion. So what do you do with this stuff? You stash it, and what do you do when the stash starts taking over your space? I don't know about you guys, but my stash is starting to drive me crazy. I don't like that my craft room is a mess and dysfunctional....I can't work as well in there because of it. I knew that when we moved in my room wold be one of the last to get tackled and well we're coming to the end of the house list. :)

So here's what I have now.....

The room is the smallest of the bedrooms upstairs. Roughly its 10' 5" x 10' 3" with 2 windows on the north wall, and a closet on the back wall. I'm asking a lot of this small space, but I'm confident that I can get it to where it works for me.

I plan on keeping my existing computer desk, printer cart and craft table. Everything else....GONE.

I'd like to replace my sewing table with this: Ana's sawhorse table which would be good because buried somewhere in this room is another sewing machine....actually its an embroidery machine that I have yet to play with. sad. :(

And since I'm getting rid of ALL my storage I'm going to convert the spaces in my closet behind the door opening to shelving. This will allow me to also put my craft table in the closet when I'm not using it. I need space for the scrapbooking stash, sewing patterns, and just miscellaneous sewing stuff.

So I'm planning on building this: the Bedford 3x3 Bookcase also from Ana's site. I actually plan on building 2 of these shelving units and stacking them. It should provide more than enough space to hold basket. Per the specs on Ana's site these ClosetMaid Canvas Drawers should fit just fine. I don't know if I'll stick with the neutral or go with the colors. I may do the neutral so I can embellish it how I like.

I'd like to add some art to the walls, and I have some ideas on that, but that will have to wait for another day. :) I do like this however, Magnet Board from Beneath My Heart, and the magnet would be awesome, but I also love cork boards....so I might have to come up with something that works for me.

I love how this workspace looks and feels. It's bright, airy and open and I love that.

This is from Better Homes and Gardens. I don't like the window treatment though. The two windows that are in my room are on the front of my house, so any window treatments I do need to look good from the outside as well. I haven't decided what I want. I like the shabby-chic look, but with the desks and everything I don't know that I'll be able or want to deal with curtains. So then I was thinking of a shade of some sort. I'm sure inspiration will strike...at least I hope it does.

I do like this window option...1) because I have the curtains already and 2) I like the idea of painting a custom design. I love florals but I rarely use them because of the girly factor, but I could do a silhouette of flowers and I think it'd look lovely. The only thing I'm concerned about is the length of the curtains I have now. They're 84"......I could always shorten them and that would be simple to do, so maybe I'll just direct my energies in that direction. :)

So here's what I'm envisioning. I'd like to do a staggered yellow stripe on the wall and then create a U-shape work area in front of the windows. I want to keep space so I can expand my craft table to make cutting things out easier.

2/25/2010

The return of Revenge Green

Heather 2/25/2010 0 Comments

Yesterday I told you the back story of the green in the exercise room, well today that 3rd stripe was added to the room, and I couldn't be happier. Dev was even impressed and as soon as dinner was done he wanted to show Daddy what Mommy had done :) Luckily, Daddy likes all the color this time round, and we are both quite pleased that this particular project is winding down. You see this project actually started in August....in an effort to complete the rooms before Harrison got here. There were several hiccups in the plan, but the lounge was finished on Feb. 6th. Just in time for the super bowl. :)

So this is where we started...an unfinished storage area.

Yes, this is me framing while 7 or 8 months pregnant. Aren't I nice?

This is Devlin's face when we showed him the mess that Daddy made

And this is where we are now. The lounge is done save for the baseboard (pictures here). The exercise room needs a bit more, but we've had the carpet for a while now. We got it as a remnant from Lowe's for $50. Not to shabby. We still need to get a door for it, but we're reusing the original door to the lounge for the storage area. It's not a lot that still needs to be done, but boy will I be glad when the elliptical is out of the main basement area and the pilates stuff is out of the family room.

After these two rooms are done I can then focus on the rest of the basement, which has been started but needs to be finished.

2/24/2010

Nap time is fun time

Heather 2/24/2010 1 Comments

Do you remember a few days ago I mentioned that I painted our first kitchen a shade of green that my husband hated? Well, I've picked another shade of bright green...he's calling it revenge green, but even with such a horrible moniker its still lovely.

We've been finshing a part of our basement that the builder did not, and the exercise room is now leaf bud green (per Valspar). I have added a set of stripes and plan on doing another stripe to finish the room off, but I wanted to share with you the progress till now.

Now you may or may not remember me mentioning that I have a 4 month old, and one of my girlfriends is always asking me where I find the time...Well the answer is NAP TIME! H (or Harrison) is not a great napper. Devlin was a wonderful napper; he would sleep for 3 to 4 hours at a stretch, but then again he was not great at night. Harrison is wonderful at night; goes down at 8 or so and doesn't get up till 7ish.

My other secret is the exersaucer. Harrison loves it, especially now that he's teething....he just shoves those little toys in his mouth and noms away, which leaves me plenty of time to get small sections done on my projects. This is when the stripes in the exercise room have been done. Devlin is also a wonderful big brother, because he always runs to tell me the moment that his brother is not happy, and if I don't respond to his liking he gets louder. Effective, but time restrictive. Gotta love Baby Einstein as well....the music playing in the background keeps both boys happy as they both love music.

So like I said (as I get back on topic), another stripe will be added and it will be in a raspberry color. The stripe that is shown is actually a slate blue color and not gray, but I couldn't get the pictures to cooperate.

Maybe sometime this week I'll be able to get back to my sewing, but at least everything is cut out.

2/22/2010

Back to sewing

Heather 2/22/2010 1 Comments

I just realized that I named this blog, Straight Stitches, and the only things I've been talking about is building furniture and shopping. There has been no talk or pictures of anything I've sewn. I figure this is about as good a time as any to show off what I've made for the house and for myself, especially since the fabric for the next outfit I want to make is sitting in my washer right now. :) Now it would help if I had a dress form....but since I don't you'll just have to imagine what some of these pieces would look like on a person.

I've made another jacket of this style out of a mettalic linen. Love this pattern.

This is a yoke-style skirt with pleats (not that you can seem them) but I forgot to buy enough fabric to lengthen the skirt. 25" is not long enough to reach my knees (where I like my skirts to fall) so I added a 2 1/2" lace trim to give me the added length.

Now I am not a small person....even if I weighed 50 lbs less I still would not be small. I am 6' 2" and have had 2 children. Up until they started making tall jeans that had an inseam of more than 34" my mother thought I liked wearing highwater jeans. Nope...I didn't like wearing them I just didn't have any other choice. Now to give you an idea...my waist to floor measurement is 48" exactly. My neck to waist measurement is 16 or 17"...I need to get new measurements on myself, but I have not made myself anything new to wear since before I was pregnant, but suffice to say that most store bought clothing does not fit me as well as it could. I love my jeans....but in order to get a shirt that is long enough to hide how short-waisted I am the shirt does not show off my waist at all, and I do have one....honest.

Clothing is not the only thing I make either. I started off with curtains and various other home dec projects, and like the blog title most home dec projects only involve straight stitches which makes it the perfect launch pad for beginners. My husband and I have lived in 5 different places and I have decorated 4 different houses 4 different ways. When we began living together I was very conservative and stuck to neutrals....and then one day I jumped off the bandwagon and painted our kitchen a lovely shade of chartreuse, added bamboo roman shades to add some flair to our very white kitchen. I thought it was lovely and played off of our black/white checkered floor...he hated it, and since then I have not painted another room a bright shade of green...till now, but more on that later.

In our 3rd place we were not allowed to paint...so I added color with fabric....unfortunately I was green enough that I picked what I wanted for each room completely ignoring the fact that the house had a semi-open floor plan and nothing really flowed.

Our 4th place, I learned a bit and it flowed well and I coordinated everything....except I was going through a modern phase....then I got over it and I began to wish for a more transitional/traditional look with a few ecclectic pieces thrown in....enter our first home.

We bought our first home in May, and it's the 5th house I've decorated and I'm having a blast doing it. We moved when I was 5 months pregnant, so I got out of the heavy lifting, but my husband works full time so I did most of the painting and all of the sewing, and let me tell you...my 5 - 8 month pregnant body did not like sitting for long stretches...so I enlisted the help of my grandmother to help me with some of my sewing. She made the 4 valances in my living and dining rooms. I got the kitchen valance done before we moved, and the rest of the valances were all done after we moved.

As you can see from some of the pictures...I've definitely moved out of the safe neutrals mindset. My house is done in warm jewel tones. It's bright when I need it to be and dramatic when the lights are dim. Most of my colors are named after foods as well....which works, because I love food. Eating it and cooking it....and I wanted colors that evoked warm, just ate a tummy-full of goodness feeling.

I do ask my husband for his input, but 1) he's color blind and 2) as long as I don't make him go broke (direct quote) he doesn't much care what I do. This is annoying....not because he usually likes what I do but the fact that he has very little to offer in the way of ideas and such. I usually end up consulting my mom and Bet...then I'll talk to my girlfriends...then I'll go back to my Mom and then it's off to the store we go.

Sometimes it's easier/cheaper for me to buy curtains from the store....my favorite are the sailcloth curtains from Target. They're sold in pairs and are about $10, which is cheaper than I can make them for, but they're boring. Every last one of them. For Harrison's nursery, I altered tan curtains by added a ruffled edge of leopard print fabric and then hiding my stitching with tangerine ric rac. Perfect for the safari theme in his room. Dev's curtains were not altered, but they are/were (before the sun got to them) a brillant red, and he picked key lime green and sky blue for his room, so the red really pops.

I also altered these chocolate panels to accomodate the transom window above our sliding glass doors in the kitchen. I added some dressmaker details to them. I had some voile from my mom and saved gimp and beaded trim from past valances so I decided to use them. I cut the curtains a 1/2" below the header seam. Then I cut my voile so that it was double the width that I needed and gathered both sides and stitched it to the two peices of the curtain I had. I did not bother to finish the side seams of the voile. I just ran my serger down it. After I stitched down the seam allowance I glued my beaded trim over the bottom seam and then over that I glued the gimp down. Usually I would have stitched the trims down, but I had previously used these trims and there were some imperfections and snips, etc in them so I decided that glue was the best way to go.

After I move H's laundry out of the dryer I can move my fabric in, get it dried, and then make this look like that and finish it off with these. ;)

I can't wait to get started...and I'm even more excited to be finished!

2/21/2010

Making a new bench!

Heather 2/21/2010 0 Comments

So in January, I found this wonderful blog called Knock Off Wood and on that site I found plans for a simple bench that was a knock off of a bench that was seen in Better Homes and Gardens. Now I have seen this bench before, not that exact bench but many, many benches similar to it. I saw these benches while I was very young and growing up in rural VA. My great-grandparents owned a farm and they had a multitude of these benches, so when I saw this bench and its plans I got the idea to replace my gargantuan coffee table in family room and replace it with this bench to give my boys more room to play.

Here are the plans for the bench. I modified these plans to accomodate what I needed/wanted it to do. Having two young boys means lots of toys, and while I strive to have my house look the way I want it too....I also need to be realistic, and my reality is that my boys have a lot of toys and those toys will not always be in their rooms. I have baskets everywhere in the living areas of the house and I'm ok with this, because at the end of the day my older son puts away his toys before bedtime and then my husband and I pick up the baby's toys and put them away and we have our adult space back.

The original plans for the bench call for it to be 36" between the legs, I lengthened this to 48" between the legs, which increased the overall length of my bench to 53 1/2" long. I was worried that the added length would be weird against the other furniture in the room, but it was fine. It also adds extra seating for when we have people over, which is quite often.

You'll have to forgive the mess in the pictures. When I was building this bench were were in the middle of finishing part of our basement, so I figured I might as well work down there since there was already a mess down there. Better than freezing in my garage.

I used an ebony stain on the bench to match the rest of the wood pieces in our family room....it's also easy to hide dents/scratches on a darker piece of furniture I've found. You have to love the original scratch remover from Old English. :)

After the stain went on, I used a satin polyurethane to seal it. I usually use high gloss but the rest of the pieces in the room are satin. I'm thinking next time I do a piece that will get a lot of abuse I'll use semi-gloss. Hot wheels and any finish on a piece of furniture is never a good combination. Unfortunately, hot wheels, robots, dragons, banging, bouncing and etc....are apart of having boys and kids in general.

I'm quite happy with how the finish product has turned out. I'm even happier that the toy baskets fit nicely underneath it and each boy has a large container for his stuff, now to weed out and sort the rest of the toy baskets on the main level. :) I also think the increased length works with the scale and size of the room and other furniture. My son, Devlin, is showing off his father's creation, because apparently Mommy did not build it. ;) I'm good for gummies but not furniture making according to him :)

Thomas Cabinet & Hutch

Heather 2/21/2010 0 Comments

So after making the bench for the family room, I was officially hooked on making my own furniture. The next project was an easy sell for my husband, because the shelf I'd be replacing he happens to hate. :) So I went back to Ana's blog and found the plans for the Thomas cabinet and hutch.

I didn't even need to alter the plans, save for allowing that I was not going to be pushing the cabinet up against anything. So after making allowances for the tops to overhang evenly on both sides and buying enough moulding to go around 3-sides of the piece I was good to go.

I started off with building the cabinet and that was cake. Ana's plans make it so easy to follow and assemble the project. I did wait to build the door; however, until everything was built. The hutch was equally as easy to construct. I was a little nervous about how large the header was but I decided to go with it because I would be adding crown moulding. The only hitch I came across was the plan said to put the bottom shelf of the cabinet 3 1/2" up from the bottom and then add 3 1/2" base moulding. I couldn't find any 3 1/2" moulding. I could only find 3 1/4" moulding, so I added another 1x2 beneath the shelf and just puttied across the seam so it looks seamless now.

I also should have measured how far the top extended from the side of the hutch, because the first crown I bought was 1/4" to wide, which, of course, I didn't notice until after I'd cut the first piece. So after a trip to Lowe's, I bought slightly smaller crown and then it was all good. Figuring out the angles for the crown was also interesting, but a quick google search told me what I needed to know, and luckily, we have a compound miter saw which made the job a lot easier. The bevel should be at 33.85 and the angle at 31.6, but as you can see the moulding ended up working out and I'm quite pleased with the results.

I knew I wanted the piece to be an antique white, but it's so cold here now that I can't spray paint, so I went with latex. I was able to paint it inside without worrying about to many fumes for the kids.

After the paint dried overnight, I was able to add the glaze. Now I usually have a very specific idea of what I want a piece to look like after I get done with it, but occasionally my idea doesn't pan out in reality, which is what I was really nervous about. I've never done any glazing and most of the specialty painting techniques that I've tried have not turned out the way I expected. So I practiced on a scrap sheet of beadboard. I brushed the glaze on then wiped it off with a rag....and wiped some more until I was happy with how it looked. Then I ran it by my boys.....and when we were all happy with it I got to work on the inside of the cabinet. I'm so brave. After the inside of the cabinet turned out the way I wanted I did the rest of pieces and then let it dry for the rest of the day.

I moved the piece into my kitchen and replace the hideous shelf, and have been very happy with it since. :)

2/20/2010

Spring is here.....almost

Heather 2/20/2010 0 Comments

Well the bookcase is glazed and resting in its new home, with stuff on it already. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and the fact that it's hiding my ecclectic collection of cookbooks. It's also hiding the magnet toys for the boys :)

The glaze turned out better than I had hoped, which is nice because there is nothing more frustrating than having an idea and implementing all of it and then having the final step not turn out like you imagined it would.

I was quite nervous about doing the glaze but I tested my idea out on a scrap piece of beadboard and I liked what I saw so then I went to the inside of the cabinet (If I hated it at least it would be behind a door, I'm so brave) :) and then after that turned out well I went to work on the rest of the piece.

After I got everything where I wanted it I realized my door was slightly off, and by slightly I mean by like an 1/8"....so moved the door hinges to fix my problem and luckily the hinge is big enough to cover the original hole so I didn't have to patch that up.

I've been very excited for weeks about the Maymont Flower Show which is held in Richmond towards the end of February and every year the Fisher women go and get ideas for everything they'd love to do to their gardens. This year my grandmother, Bet, my mom and I went (boys in tow as well) and we enjoyed ourselves emensely.

It's fun to see what the entrants have come up for the theme that year, and honestly I have no idea what this year's theme was, but all of the entries were gorgeous. I must say my favorite was either the courtyard of orchids and other exotics or the one with the elevated house. I do love orchids, they just don't like me :)

It's always nice to get a taste of spring during the dreary days of February.