Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Whoa. Did you know a year has passed since my last post? Who knew that writing a blog was um, work?

Not that this wasn't a crafty year. In fact, I think 2012 was my most productive year ever, craftwise. I sewed and sewed and sewed to the point of obsession. Seriously. My output of items I actually wear is relatively small for all that sewing time: a skirt, a shirt, and a dress. Besides these, I had a ton of UFOs and FOs that I didn't like well enough in the end to wear.

2013 brings a new year and new sensibilities. I moved my center of operations from the dining room table to the craft room downstairs. While this makes for more order and less chaos in my dining room, it means my craft time has been almost nonexistent. 99% of our family life occurs upstairs, far from the craft room. It is hard to parent while sewing in a different part of the house.

I have a couple of projects lined up:

- upcycled sweater coat for a friend
- flame skirt for a friend
- tribal headdress for myself
- another tribal headdress for myself
- about 60 bajillion other ideas.

The big thing I have been working on has been my craft room itself. One of my holiday gifts was a Norden gateleg table that I am tricking out to be a cutting/craft table. I am attaching three cutting mats with velcro to the top of the table, along with a measuring table. Obviously, this is a popular idea. My husband looked online to see some of the Ikea hacks for this table and came back with "does anyone use this table anywhere other than a craft room???"

Inspired by the new table, I tackled reorganizing everything. Every. Thing. I have 15+ years of accumulated fabric, notions, failed craft attempts, and detritus. I was so impressed by the organization Gertie posted on her sewing blog, that I had to duplicate it. I now have every length of fabric measured, folded, and stored with a card attached to the fabric noting the width and length as well as a card with a swatch held in a baggie outside the storage box. Now I can just feel through the swatches and know exactly what each bin contains. This is HUGE. Also, I have a lot of fabric.

I also have a lot of sewing patterns. 215 to be exact. And all of them are now cataloged by manufacturer, number, and brief description in an Excel file. Eventually I would like to attach a PDF of the envelope backs to each entry, but that will be a bigger project.

So things are quiet, but moving on the craft front. Maybe I will get up the gumption to document my sewing this year. Or not. It is more about the doing than the talking, anyway.