Hey Ho, Let's Sew - My Creative Corner

I've got a plan, I announced to Jon on Sunday, thereby scuppering his plan for spending the morning recovering from a boozy late night involving a home-made (by him) Indian feast, footie-lovin' visitors, beer, the England match and an in-depth post match analysis.

My plan? To move Jon's wardrobe from the spare room into our bedroom, shift mine over and create a sewing area within the cleared space. For the past few years I've sewn in the stockroom, having to move rails to use the machine, climbing precariously over vintage clothing to get to patterns & sewing notions stored in boxes on a high shelf inevitably with most of it falling on my head, sending a shower of buttons scattering along the cracks in the floorboards. To pin and cut out a pattern meant moving furniture in the lounge to get floor space large enough (tricky when you mostly make maxi dresses).

The task isn't all for my benefit. With the super duper Kinky Melon storage shed arriving next Monday we'll able to transfer the stock from the house, freeing up the room we stored it in (once the garage) into a music room for Jon. After eleven years he'll finally be able to move his guitars from the bedroom and have space for all the weird and wonderful technical stuff piled up around the house.

Ta-dah! After a few hours of hard labour (Jon's, not mine. I'm under strict take-it-easy orders) we have a sewing corner. I say we as you well know, Jon's a bit of a sewist, too.

Look there's space for a mannequin (from a jumble sale) and everything! Now I can just flick the switch on the machine, plonk myself down on my seat and sew. No more moving rails and boxes out of the way or risking life and limb scaling ladders to reach things and with enough natural light to thread the machine needle without resorting to a torch, reading glasses and a magnifying glass. There's a large enough floor area to pin and cut out patterns, too. 

My stash of buttons, elastic, trims and notions are now all within easy reach of my seat. The Mid-Century glazed cupboard was £2 from a jumble sale, livened up by a coat of sunshine yellow paint from a Wilko tester pot.

The seat was one of fifty vintage lab stools we rescued from a skip outside the local boys' grammar school a few years ago. Although he said we could take them, we insisted on giving the school caretaker some beer money and sold all but two of them to an antique dealer for a decent profit. Jon's sawed a few inches off the height of this one so that I can sit comfortably without putting too much strain on my hip.

I bought this 1970s New Home machine from a jumble sale for a fiver a couple of years ago but initially couldn't get the hang of it. Liz serviced it for me the other day, I've read the instruction manual properly and now I absolutely love it (hence two photos of it in one blog post). The 1950s red Formica drop leaf table was £1.50 from a jumble sale.

We've managed to find space for the fabric stash, too. No more scrabbling under the menswear rail to get at it. Its stored in a Lloyd Loom blanket box, another jumble sale find, which we've reupholstered with a 1940s ticking pillow case (from the same source as the vintage linen, seen HERE.)

After a bit of a cull all my patterns now fit into a couple of vanity cases.

The 1950s bin came from a jumble sale (where else?) and featured a grannified rose design , I scanned a few vintage pattern sleeves from my stash, printed them off , glued them to the bin and trimmed it with pom-poms to Vixify it up a bit.

Bias binding and my ever increasing supply of blingy trims (they keep appearing at the car boot sale and it would be rude to snap them up).

The only coloured threads I have to buy new are white & black, all the rest are found second-hand for pennies.

I've never bought a new zip in my life. Some are found in charity shops & car boots and the rest I salvage from vintage clothes too tatty to sell.

As a vintage seller I need an endless supply of buttons. You'd be amazed how many potential buyers can't sew. Spot a missing button and they'll expect a huge discount to get it professionally replaced. Again, none are bought new, either bought in bulk at car boot sales (usually found stashed away in vintage tins on the house clearance stalls) or salvaged from clapped-out clothing.

I've hung some of my favourite fabric to inspire me. I used the soldier print HERE and the Marimekko HERE. I snapped up the super bold 1960s floral curtain for £2 from a car boot sale a couple of weeks ago, I'm thinking it might be reborn as a high waisted maxi skirt.

WEARING: Phool maxi (belonged to blog reader, Sabine's mum in the 1960s), 1970s framed print (from the lovely Dee, see HERE)

In case you're wondering, this bell sleeve lace maxi was a charity shopped Mexican-made tablecloth a few hours ago!

See you soon.


Linking to Patti and the gang for Visible Monday.