Slowly Coming Together...

 I've mentioned once or twice that I'm in the process of moving the sewing space from the nook at the end of the laundry room to one of the recently vacated bedrooms upstairs.

I really wanted to paint and put down something other than pin-eating carpet, but, well, it didn't happen.

I actually bought new machines; hit deals and decided that I've spent too much time dealing with either old or inadequate machines.

They sat in boxes for...a long time...waiting on me to get the space upstairs ready.

Unfortunately, the current Janome sergers have a different footprint than my old faithful lady and they don't fit the old extension table that I've used for about 3 decades.  So I got a new one...less specific.  I thought it would work.

It didn't.

It's too short from shelf to table (about 3/4") and not deep enough front-to-back for the waste tray.  And it's too high.  So disappointing.  It doesn't look like I can get an extension table like my old one anymore.

I got that from Nancy's Notions in, oh, 1990?  My Sweet Babboo thinks he can router it out to fit, but I'm not sure.  It's basically contact-paper-covered flakeboard, so I don't know if it will trim out easily or if it can be restored to a smooth finish if it is.  Currently, I'm using it with the leaf down and the little plastic extension that came with the machine.  Not ideal, but whatcha gonna do?

The old sewing machine table fits the new HD 5000 just fine.

I really intended to get EVERYTHING set before I sewed anything but, well, we had an urgent need for a garment for the Church Christmas production, which was this past weekend.  So I gleaned what sewing supplies I didn't take to church and made a quick skirt.  We had one older girl who was dancing with the younger ones and she was in an adult skirt. But it was wayyyy too big and heavy for dancing.  Would've been fine if she were just walking about, but for dancing...nope.  

I had purchased some rayon/poly blend on sale to make myself a Dickens skirt but I had a different part and didn't get to wear Dickens.  So I used about 3 yards and made a new skirt...a wee bit shorter, with a hem circumference of only 120" instead of 180".  I cut the pieces after dress rehearsal on Thursday and had a new skirt for her by showtime on Friday.

I   used a  strip cut from a manila folder as a template to press up the hem;

It was gathered with good ol' dental floss

Total elapsed sewing time:  Approximately 3 hours.

She was MUCH happier in that skirt and she could move much better.

On a related note, I had some wait time on Tuesday last week so I did a little task on the Wonky Dress...someone donated some lace collars and one of them suited it pretty well.  So I hand tacked it on.

It looks right properly frumpy vintagey housewife now, so I'm donating the dress to the church costume closet, in case we need someone who looks rather like a vintagey housewife, lol.  The pulls and other issues should not be visible from the stage.  It's found a good place to live out a dress up life.

The production had folks in Dickens costumes, in the best approximation we could get of clothes from the 30's, the 50's and the 80's....we've never had so many people wearing so many different costumes before.  But my bit was modern, so while all my friends were posting selfies of themselves looking all cute and costumed...I was, like, 'Look!  I'm actually wearing makeup!' LOL

The run went really well; we were sold out for Sunday's closing show.  I finished the data entry this afternoon and will take tomorrow off.

Maybe I'll even get some more work done on the sewing room set up...