Buona sera #needleworkmonday friends!
Here I am at the very end of Needlework Monday, and refreshed having had a wee sewing session to finish some difficult details on my new pinafore... and I cleaned up my kitchen and sewing room and bedroom spaces these past days, which means I can no longer put off projects because there's no inspirational place to sit down in!
First the pinafore - which is made from a lovely old cotton sheet, and I constructed it intuitively and spontaneously, as I shared in my post last Monday: it needed the inside of the bodice around the breasts to be taken in a bit - as you can see here - and the shoulder gathering loop needed finally securely setting in place.
Awfully fiddley jobs! And I put off things like this, which require a bit more precision than comes naturally to my sewing approach! It needs to be done, for the bodice to sit correctly though, and I am keen to wear it!
I also want to put big pockets in, but am awaiting verification of where they should sit, and what style of pocket they want to be.
And in the meantime, I've been moving furniture around the Arthouse, and making it much more conducive to creative projects: this is in my studio/ bedroom, where I often bring sewing through at night to relax and finish. The seat and low table by the window is for a particular sewing/ reading/ resting with a cuppa moment in the day - can't believe I didn't put a table together like this, but as I gestate further I feel a strong calling to be resting into self more; to just sit and tune in, and/ or to process emotions - I am still feeling an awful lot of catharsis around letting go of my stepmum who died very recently.
And I transformed my bed space - bringing it diagonally into the room; having the lighting behind me is much better for my sewing time in bed! And the plants behind me too feel wonderful. They were all by the window until I moved them here, and they sort of crowded the other corner, but here they are like having company in bed!
Sewing in bed is such a wonderful means of relaxing and keeping warm at the same time, in the winter - I often do computer work from bed (am writing this from the same bed!) especially if I'm feeling a bit emotionally intense.
This is the chapel room, and is full of my sewing things and machines. I swapped desks and tables and chairs around today, and found a much better wee workstation setup for the chapel room, which you can see above here.
I'm transitioning to natural light and solar power for my electrical current also, so this will mean prioritising working in front of the windows during the days, especially on days when there is less sunshine or when I have to use the energy I've harvested for other machinery in the house.
My sewing materials stock is a bit overloaded now, so I will be shopping for fabrics less, and making amazing things out of old stuff more!
I'm excited to have a good idea (ANOTHER ONE!) about the collar on my favourite sweater coat too: I replaced the original collar on it because it was a bit naff, but then I rarely wore it with the mustardy collar - too synthetic and just-off in terms of colour combinations: this pushes me to make sure that something is really how I want it to be before I sew it in place permanently - though I'm gaining confidence too, in just picking a garment up all over again and starting a new phase of adjustment - so powerful to gain momentum in that!