Not the week after all..

I have a long, skinny laundry room that really was just a closed off side of the garage.  The sewing nook is on the far end; past the sink, the washer and dryer and clothes rack.

The area at the bottom of the steps down from the main floor of the house was a horrible, horrible mess.  I think stuff got dropped there when we moved in and never moved.  No, I didn't take a 'before' photo of that...it really and truly was too embarrassing.

But that's the only bit of the laundry/sewing room that got cleaned.  My hubby came down with a nasty sinus infection which turned into bronchitis that had him coughing so hard he was actually whooping to get his breath back.  I was scared that he'd somehow contracted whooping cough.  But, no, he was just coughing really bad from the bronchitis.  He's had a z-pack and is better...but not completely back to normal.

So, anyway, he didn't go on his camping trip.   And I didn't get to the sewing nook.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to just piecemeal the cleaning or wait for another clear weekend.  Problem is, I want to haul everything out of the room into the den, which is a bad idea if there are other people around.

The kids have been hosting a movie night every Sunday, watching all the Marvel movies in order to prepare for the premier happening at the end of next month.  So I don't think I can spread out the sewing room contents for an extended period.  At least not until the end of April.

So maybe I'll just suck it up and keep sewing in the chaos a bit longer.  You can see just a wee bit of it in the background of that photo...We'll see.  I still need a long black top to wear with those Tigger leggings...

Meantime, the bottom of the stairs looks SO MUCH BETTER....

Steeling my nerve....It's Time...

After a  crazy couple of months getting ourselves moved into a facility-in-renovation and getting enough of it functional to hold Sunday and Wednesday services, our leadership has done an amazing thing:  Everybody on staff is getting a week off.  Not all at once; we've been split into 4 groups, with  1/4 getting a break so 3/4 of the staff is on hand over 4 weeks.

My turn is next week; I've got enough hours in this week that I can leave around noon tomorrow; offices are always closed on Friday.

And my hubby has a camping event this weekend.

So.

This is the weekend I tackle the sewing room.

I'm ready for some order.

I can do this.

Um.  Yeah.

I'll post before and after when it's done, lol.

Choir Wardrobe - 04.30.17

The last day of the month.  Went with a 'column' and a jacket in the more-or-less appropriate mauvish color.  Loes Hinse Oxfords in pinstripe tropical wool, a Jalie 2566 T in black rayon?  Cotton?  I don't remember!  And the as-yet unreviewed New Look linen jacket.  Which would be perfect if I could figure out way to put some small pockets in it.    The dark flecks in it are actually navy blue, but they read 'black' so it's ok.

Next month is a range of blues...from a periwinkle to a medium royal.  With black and white.  I probably have enough to get by, but I take advantage of a sale to get some jersey for a t shirt.  I don't have a suitable solid blue t shirt... :-)

In other news, I pushed hard all weekend and submitted the last assignment for the Master's degree last night.  Just waiting now for the final grade...and instructions on what to do to get the diploma.

My immediate goal is housecleaning...and I honestly think it's going to take a while to get it back in shape.  It's been neglected far too long by far too many...sigh.

So I'll sew a bit here and there but I want to be able to have drop in guests without feeling completely humiliated. 

All my domestic talent landed in sewing, I'm afraid....

Blogging break

I just can't seem to get to the 'new post' window...this home renovation stuff is nutso.  We're redoing two rooms...all that stuff is crammed, stacked, wedged and piled around the rest of the house.

It's nearly claustrophobic.

So I'm just going to holler 'UNCLE' here and take a blogging break until we can get some sort of order re established.

Hopefully  we'll be ALL done by Thanksgiving...

Organizing, organizing....

Taking advantage of the long weekend to get myself back into sewing...not that I'm actually DOING any to speak of, although I have worked a bit on the mauve New Look blouse I cut out in... September?  I have decided I'm going to put the second sleeve on it and then bag it until spring.  I mean, you never know, I might get serious after Christmas and lose some weight (or, God Forbid!  Go wild at Christmas and gain some that takes up permanent residence) and the thing not even fit when the weather warms up and it's suitable to wear.  So I'll hold off on the hems and the buttons and change the thread and get on with other stuff.

As I've lamented of late, part of the reason I'm not sewing is that there is just too much unorganized chaos around me. (or, for the SHEs and FLYbabies, C.H.A.O.S.). Chaos and clutter are something that this Tigger can completely ignore...up to a point.  I hit the 'Oh, that's bad!' point back in the summer, I think, and it's been bugging me, but it took the approaching holiday season to make it hit the Unbearable Point.  So.  Yes.  I'm working at it.

One of the organizing things that needed doing was putting away the fabric that had meandered into the house in the past few months.  As always, there was more than I realized, so putting it away also involved some redistribution among the storage boxes.

And, as I was doing that, I pulled six pieces of fabric that I really, really am going to try to turn into garments before long. I need the clothes, the black and the gray (actually a black-and-white mini-houndstooth) are wool, with moth damage, and need to be made up and worn; the bin the cotton blend black-and-white suiting should go in is full so there was nowhere to put it and the knits are colors for choir in the next two months.

And the budget needs me to sew some so that I can move money from the 'clothing' envelope to the 'fabrics and notions' envelope, if you get my drift.


I already feel my my familiar 'Oh, which pattern?' infinite loop trying to kick in but I am determined to get these sewn so hopefully when the time comes that I can actually cut them out I'll have the intestinal fortitude to just pick a pattern and go with it. ;-)


 But, as I was putting the fabric away it came to my attention that I had been neglecting the stash documentation, so I whacked some swatches as I was binning, then came down and spent a couple of hours matching what was in the swatch box with what is in the Access file.  It's not done yet, and I missed some swatches, but I've made some good progress and weeded out all the records of stuff I'd sewn but not pulled. Even with that, though, the stash is outgrowing my box.  Another reason to sew some stuff.

Finally, I went through my nearly 5-years-worth of Burda pattern magazines and pulled the instruction booklets out to put in the zipper bag with the pattern sheets and reboxed the zipper bags, so they're in a bankers box with a lid that kinda sorta fits (I think I'm going to get a plastic file bin so the lid WILL close...)  I've decided not to renew this year; I have plenty of patterns to keep me busy and I'm beginning to think I need to concentrate on basics for a while.  I may come back 'round to trendy at some point in the future, but right now trendy is just distracting.

So there's $90 that won't be leaving the bank account. ;-)

The next area on the declutter list is the computer room/office area.  I'm not really sure when I'll get around to actually straightening out the sewing cave.  But that's not terribly public, so I can grit my teeth and deal with it for a while.   I gotta get some order around the desks...

Being a "Little Bitter'...

As in, resigning myself to the notion that the only way anything is going to get done in my house is to do it a little bit at at time. Gone are the days when I send the family off to work and school and have the entire day to work on a project...whether it be as sewing project or a home project.

I'm really just now beginning to get my head around that...and it's been over a year since I went back to work.

But, having said that, I am working bit by bit on some things.

-The HMC mantles are done to the handsewing. Obviously, that has priority for today, since the graduation service is tomorrow night.

- I marked my striped 'Gorgeous Fabrics project' Jalie pants as finished and hung them in the closet, but, when I put them on earlier in the week to wear them, I realized that there really is too much gappage going on at the back waist. So I put them back in the sewing room; gonna do an adjustment on that as soon as the mantles are done.

- I bought bodacious amounts of interfacing from the online sales last week, so now I'm well stocked and should be able to start working on some much-needed jackets.

But...

- I need to Cease All Sewing for a time to get my sewing nook cleaned out. It really has gotten to the stage that I can barely move in there. But doing it a Little Bit At A Time...yeesh.

- We recently had some work done on the house that involved the attic; unfortunately it involved the portion of the attic in which my Stash was neatly organized. Things got pulled out, shifted around, and put back willy-nilly; now I know where NOTHING is. Any available time this weekend will likely be spent In The Attic....since that needs to be in order before I can relocate the stacks of fabric clogging up my sewing nook to their appointed place in the attic.

Did I mention we've got out of town company in two weeks? Maybe I'd better work on the 'I've been sorely neglecting housework' situation a bit, too.

I'll blog when I can. ;-)

Choir Sundays '09 #3

Sigh. This looked so cute in the mirror...but the photo looks like my grandmother. I think I need to speak to my photographer about things like flipped up collars and camera angles again....
Anyway, this month's colors are royal blue and black. I'm dressed for winter like an ad for the Wool Producers...the blue sweater is merino wool that is probably 10 years old and had to have a moth hole in pretty close to the center front darned before I could wear it.
The black sweater coat is brand new...one of the few non-jeans clothing purchases I've made in I don't know how long. It's a wool blend from Lands' End, and, to *prove* that it really looks cuter in real life than in the photo, The Princess (who's 23 and quite particular about such things) commented that it was cute and wanted to know where I got it. Stupid camera.

But the pants are my faithful black wool gabardine Loes Hinse Oxford Pants.

And, it's time once again for the quarterly blogging break, so I'm going to be pretty much off the 'net this week. Got some Household Duties to get caught up (once again, the household budget has fallen waaayyy behind...my fault entirely; can't blame it on anything this time...). So, I'll see you for next week's Choir post!

Crying 'Uncle'

I'm looking at the next two weeks and seeing a mountain of stuff to do; so I am going to do something I haven't done in the three years I've been blogging on Sew Random: I'm going to go to sporadic posts for the rest of the month.

I've done straight up blogging breaks, but I've never just said 'I'll post when I have something to say'. But, given the amount of things I have to do (we have FIVE Christmas-related events THIS WEEK) and the scarcity of time in which to do it, something's gotta give.

So, when/if I have somethings sewing-related to post, I will, but in the meantime I'm going to be working hard to get everything done that needs to be done!

Thanks for hanging with me!

Cleanin' the Fridge

Somedays, ya just gotta put life on hold and clean out the refrigerator.

Mine was in a pretty bad way...I'd been meaning to get to it but couldn't seem to get it on the calendar.

But...somehow, a can of Coke (caffeine-free) migrated from the front of the shelf to the very back of the shelf, where it sat unnoticed until it froze.

When it froze, the can ruptured and...well, let's just say cleaning the refrigerator moved WAY up the priority list.

I discovered pieces in my fridge were removable that I had no idea could even budge.

Took all day. shriveled my fingers.

But...the fridge is clean and I rearranged the shelves so *hopefully* we will not have a repeat of the forgotten Coke incident.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, too...how convenient...

The Project of the Year

Unfortunately, it will not be SWAP wardrobe.

When we moved into our house, we discovered that the previous owners had done a cheap and quick face lift on the interior.

Most rooms had been painted over wallpaper. Sigh. We'll have to deal with it eventually, but it doesn't look *too* bad at the moment.

However, the foyer, stairwell, family room, dinette and kitchen apparently had a textured wall paper that couldn't be painted over, so it was pulled down.

But the wall surfaces were not prepped and the walls were painted right over the glue.

With a cheap, outdated paint (we found the cans with Big Lots stickers in a cabinet in the garage). It wasn't even a finish paint...it was a primer.

Well, the primer paint is not sticking well to the wallpaper glue. Shortly after we moved the paint began to bubble, crack and fall off of the walls in the rooms that had been painted over the glue. Let me tell you, to quote my oldest Dear Daughter, 'it's a hot mess.'

And, to be honest, I haven't a clue about how to go about fixing it. But I did realize that the first step has got to be to get all the loose paint scraped off. So, whilst on the blogging break, I found our paint scraper (which needs a new blade) and began in the most accessible spot: the dinette.

I figure if I can manage to scrape for 20 minutes or so 5 - 6 days a week I will get it all scraped down in about three months.

Then what? I'm not sure (any home improvement gurus amongst my blog readers? Any advice would be MOST welcome!), but I know that I really can't do anything until I get the walls scraped. But not only do I have an uneven surface to deal with, but I've got the metallic scrape marks from the blade of the scraper to cover up/get rid of.

So...while I will likely work SOME sewing in around and about this, I'm not going to commit to making a full out wardrobe.

I've put this project off long enough; it's time to get it done.

Playing Hookie

I had the best intentions...really I did.

I had to take DD to school and turn in all those forms (any one else tempted to write in big red letters "See last year's information!!!" ?), pay her fees and get her schedule and locker assignment. The notice said it would be from 10:15 - 11:45, so I thought we would walk through a set of tables to pay, sign, etc, and as long as we did it in that window we were good. I'd hit the school at 10:15, do the parent thing, and then run home and collect my gear and be at church around 12 or shortly after. My good intentions.

Wrong. We paid our fees, had a (large) group meeting with the principal, where we watched a video of 'hall highlights' from last year, then got a couple of information sessions in which the slight change in the school schedule was explained and the new, no-nonsense and strictly enforced cell phone policy was explained (twice). Then we were able to get her locker assignment and schedule. I was there from 10:15 until 11:45.

DD is going to a birthday party tonight...so we had to go procure a gift to take, and, as it's been at least two days since my last trip to the grocery store, we were out of bread and running low on milk, so we had a grocery stop on the way home.

By the time I cooked lunch and we finished eating, it was almost 3.

Not really worth a trip to church to work an hour and a half or so.

Oh, well, I guess I needed a bit of extra time at home anyway....

The quarterly break

Back when I took the blogging break in April, I realized I needed some blog-free time on a sorta regular basis...just to keep things caught up. So, I grabbed the calendar and marked off one week every three months to call the 'At Home week'...my week to work at home, stay off the 'net and hopefully catch up what's behind. I picked the third week of the month for that...and my first regularly scheduled blogging break will be next week. So I'm planning to be Off the 'Net Mon- Saturday of next week; Lord knows I need some focus on stuff time...things got way behind when I was sewing the pirate stuff and only worse when we went home. So I've got to work on my home stuff.

Hopefully, if I do this once a quarter, I won't have to shut down for a whole month again.

But it's good; things have gotten to the point that I really don't even want to sew due to the pressure of all the 'undone' of everything else. Can't have that!!!

So, worry not that I'm not around next week. I'll be busy. ;)

Checkin' In

Thought I'd drop by with an update...

My hiatus is being very productive; I'm not sewing much but I'm getting some other things taken care of. I've done quite a bit of personal growth-type things, and part of that has led to a new blog (Beer Lahai Roi), to talk about some aspects of life that I don't feel are entirely appropriate in this context.

I'm planning to come back to Sew Random (and the other blogs and sewing boards) after next week; next week is going to be a 'no outside the house appointments' week so I can really focus on doing what needs doing in the house. We never really got things situated after we moved in nearly three years ago; there's a LOT that needs doing. Even working on it all week will likely only get a dent made in it.

But I wanted to let everyone know I'm ok and I miss you! And I will be back!

I Need Three of Me

Household duties (ok, trying to keep the budget semi-current) caught me yesterday and I didn't get into the sewing room until about 2:30. With a hefty interruption for cooking supper and eating it (I did get some help w/the dishes), I didn't get as much done as I wanted. I thought I could push it through, but the lame' simply will not be pushed. But I did get the collars on all the silver shirts and the sleeves prepped, so today all I need to do is put on the sleeves, sew up the underarm seams and hem them.

Definitely do-able in a day, if we weren't having a dinner guest tonight. So I need to do some housecleaning and a fair bit of cooking, and I need to make a quick grocery run.

Oh, and the laundry needs some work, too.

It's going to be a busy day.

At Home Day

The cars are going with others, so I don't have to go anywhere...

Finally. The laundry is mountainous, I haven't done budget work yet this week and I'm cringing at the dust and cobwebs in nearly every room. I don't EVEN want to confess the condition of the bathtub/shower. (So much for 'very organized'... ;) )

And I've promised myself to finish the chair covers and get a significant amount done on the Chopin blouse. Do I need a clone?

The fabric for the lame' shirts still had not come in yet so last night we cut 7 pairs of pants. 6 of them were from black stretch velvet that had a gold metallic lattice print on it...wow, was it gorgeous. I wanted a jacket from it! But after we were finished, we all looked at our hands and saw that the dye had crocked off...all three of us who were working on that fabric ended up with purply palms.

So maybe I really don't want a jacket out of it...

It was really, really hard to tell which way the nap went on the fabric, because the lattice print was so fine there were only very small places to even detect the nap. We conferred and decided, carefully laid the fabric out...then got sidetracked and put the patterns on the fabric w/the waistband on the wrong end (am I saying 'we'? Um, I was the one who put the patterns down...). We'd cut 1 1/2 pairs of the pants when we realized it. So, to be consistent, we cut the rest of them that way, too. If anyone points out the boo-boo, we will consider them drafted to help sew next year's production. ;)

Multi-tasking mess

Or, how many projects can I have in progress at once?

--cutting out garments
--the eternal pursuit of the bottom of the laundry hamper
--de-decorating the house
--a writing project that's buzzing away
--completing the bedroom shuffle; our kids are kind of moving around in the house so the ones who currently need space have it

And today's an 'errands outside the house' day.

So, nothing's done, everything's wrecked...IOW, life is normal... ;)

Al...most.....There....

You've probably caught the moaning and groaning about budget keeping (actually, the accounting process, not the discipline of Not Spending, although that's certainly moan-worthy, too) during the past year. Last January we switched home accounting programs to a completely revised and updated version of our old one and so had to essentially start over. But we had some compatibility problems and minor bugs that took forEVER to clear out. Result: when we finally got it up and running, the budget was about 5 months behind.

I've worked at it some over the year...a couple of times I got within 6 weeks of being caught up but then life got busy and we fell behind it again.

Now, after about a week of being chained to the computer, all I have to do is check off my December charge receipts against the bill and we're...caught up. Wow.

But, in the interim we've discovered that our budget is rather outdated and needs some pretty major adjustments to better reflect what our needs are. So that means we've got to overhaul our end of it again before we can start with 2008. Hopefully that will happen Really Soon so we won't get way behind again.

Do you see a New Year's Resolution in the making here? As in , "I resolve to sit down and do all budget keeping on a weekly basis?"

Sigh. Still no royal blue anything cut out...

Laundry and PJs

The sheets are done and will be in their place today...it'll be nice to have a set to switch out on laundry day.

And, while I've got white thread in the machine, and the remnants of the flannel out, I think I'll go ahead and make the pajama/lounge pants...once I decide which two of the three of us I'll make them for.

Or...maybe I'll just make a whole set of PJ's for my niece for Christmas....hmm, there's a thought...

But there's laundry to be done today, and white shirts that I can make w/the white thread that's in the machines, and some patterns to adjust.

It won't matter that I won't have a car ;)

Scatter Shot

Ok, I hit the targeted Weekender...but I was using a shotgun, and so I didn't get it hit hard enough (again, I grumble about the behavior of that poly jacquard fabric!!). There's still an hour or so's worth of work to do on it before I can pack it up in the 'Christmas Gifts' bin, change the thread and move on to the burgundy stuff.

But I also hit some laundry and some housecleaning and, oh, prep work for today's ladies' study at church.

None of which were hit hard enough to finish them off....

Dunno if I'll even get to aim again today; it's a run-around-and-do stuff-away kinda day, and I gotta finish my notes for this morning's study.

Taking Aim

...at that Weekender. I'm determined to finish it today; I've got too much sewing breathing down my neck to put it off any longer.

I made some pretty good progress in the attic at least, although it's still a long way from being done.

But the truth is all the 'stuff waiting to be done' is beginning to feel oppressive...and I'm not just talking about sewing. Housework, budget work, church sewing, holiday preparations...and I tend to fret about the stuff I'm *not* doing while I work on any one of the things on that list.

It's going to be a busy week.