Home Alone!

Here I sit, alone in the new kitchen. Yep, I’ve been absent from sewing for several months, but not from “creating”! This summer, while my husband was unemployed (since the end of May) we completely renovated our kitchen. By ourselves. Nuts? Crazy? In hindsight, perhaps! 34 days of hard slog, and the boys were at home for most of it…they had the best time watching all the TV they wanted! But it was worth it. (Photos at the end if you’re interested.)

Anyway, before I show you that, here’s a peak at what I’ve got planned for this weekend. My first EVER weekend at home…alone. By myself. NO kids. NO husband. (They’re all at his sister’s for 2 nights, 4 hours away) Sewing! Can you say HEAVEN!!! Gawd, I feel so selfish!

1.    After a mere, what, 9 months, I cut out the fabric for Sherry’s Ruby Slip. The pattern’s been traced since I downloaded it last December, and I’ve had the fabric in stash since before that.

 

The fabric is nothing fancy, I think it’s a polyester satin, but it will be a wearable muslin in camisole length. And as the lace is no where near wide enough I’ll be patching bits together. Once I get the fit worked out I’ll be making a full length slip.

2.    The BCT (Basic Canvas Tee) from Stephanie at 3hourspast. Again, I’ve had this pattern since Stephanie first introduced it, but only just traced it this afternoon.

3.    The Kirsten Kimono Tee from Maria Denmark. I’ll be sewing muslins for both tops tomorrow so I can compare the fit. On paper they look quite different.

4.    A refashion/resize of a top I bought last week at the Sears store that’s closing this weekend. There was hardly anything left in the store, but my mum and I both found something for the ridiculous amount of $7! Ordinarily the top would not be worn all the way down, but ruched about the waist/hip; it’s just too big and that neckline is… plunging!

After months of seeing Beth’s fantastic refashions I’m finally going to have a go with her techniques. I would never in a million years have even thought of buying this top had it not been for seeing how Beth does it! Go figure! (By the way, check out her latest refashion, the art deco dress! It’s awesome!)

5.    Finish the adjustments on my Pants block. Jeez I’ve been dragging my feet on this, but I’ve got to get it done. I desperately need pants, and I’ve got fabric in stash for at least 3 pairs.

I’ve been working here in the kitchen all afternoon, tracing the patterns and cutting out the fabric, right on the counter/bar since it’s so fabulously huge!

And here’s the before and after photos (note: the walls were also repainted, in the entire space; everything is off-white now)

 

 

I took pics at the end of most days while we were doing it, and put them in an album on flickr. For posterity. I still have to pinch myself, it seemed like an eternity. And we were totally Exhausted by the end, I was actually sick of being in here and just wanted to get out of the house.

So, here’s a few stats:

• 40 work-days to completely finish the kitchen. We put the plinths, baseboards, ceiling lights and finished the painting a couple of weeks after that last photo.
• ~700 screws used to eliminate all the squeaks in the subfloor, and to anchor the new base floor onto the subfloor. We installed the cork boards on top of that.
• 489 unread sewing posts on the day of the last photo above.
• 6 weeks to read through ALL of those posts, no kidding.

Man I’ve missed sewing. It sure is good to be back! I’ve got another post in the works to show you what I was about to start sewing just before we started the renos in mid July, and only got to sew up a muslin last week. It’ll have to wait, it’s ICING!! And right now, I need CAKE.

Have a great weekend.