Saturday, June 30, 2012

Chaos Theory – a butterfly flaps its wings…

…and starts a chain reaction that results in a hurricane on the other side of the ocean. Well, that’s the theory. In my case, it began with the simple decision to buy a new sofa.

Before I go on, yes, there has actually been *some* sewing going on, but not nearly as much as I’d planned. This all began early in March, we bought a new sofa, something we’d been thinking of for many months but couldn’t find the right one. Until then. So, the chain reaction.

  1. Old sofa would move to the basement family room, so…
  2. Family room sofa bed would be moved out to the office, but…
  3. office is not big enough for the sofa bed, so…
  4. switch the office with the kids TV room, but…
  5. the computer desk is too big in the new office with the sofa bed, so…
  6. we bought a small IKEA desk, and…
  7. (this is the key!) the old computer desk would be GREAT for my sewing room as a pressing/ironing area! BUT…
  8. the sewing room was a MESS and CRAMPED, so…
  9. I rearranged the sewing room and the old computer desk fit perfectly! then…
  10. I made the new ironing pad and was able to do a little sewing again. FINALLY!!!

new ironing pad

I made this from the Singer book, Sewing for the Home.

new ironing pad  new ironing pad

The one thing I would add to the directions in the book, is that the staples should be at least 1/2 inch! I don’t know how many didn’t go in, the layers at the corners were pretty thick. I love it, what a treat to have such a large pressing area, and it fits pretty snugly. The great thing about this is that if I need to use another sewing machine it just pops out, it’s portable.

I can’t find any of the BEFORE shots, so here’s the AFTER shots:

2012-06-29 003  2012-06-29 005

2012-06-29 008  2012-06-20 0112012-06-29 007  2012-06-29 006

And after all this, we then decided we’d need to repaint the whole living/dining/kitchen room (it’s all open concept, high ceilings), get a new counter top and make it an eat-at bar, but we’d better move the stove away from the eat-at area for safety, so, WTH, we’re now going to rip out the 50 year old kitchen and put in a new IKEA one!!! And that means that the big cabinet in the sewing room which contains my good stash will be moved to the kitchen and I’ll have to find another shelf for it! Can we say “design creep”!!

As soon as the IKEA kitchen sale event is on, sometime in July, we’re starting the reno, so I won’t be doing much sewing. Hopefully I’ll be able to do a little something in August!

Have a great summer!