Project Bedroom

Lately I feel as though my life is a continuous loop of projects. With the staple gun handy after recovering the sewing bench, I decided to take on my headboard. This has been on my mind for a few months now. When I hung the headboard, I covered quite a few screw holes in the wall that I opted to fix at a later date. They weren't going to be visible, and I was in a rush to get my bedroom together. Now I've decided to hang the headboard lower on the wall, so I have additional wall damage to address. With that revelation, it seemed like a good time for me to suck it up and pull out the Spackle. Can you see where I'm going here? Since I'm going through the trouble to properly patch my wall, a couple coats of fresh paint are in line. Finally, I needed to come up with a plan to remedy the lack of matching bedding for my newly recovered headboard.

Working within a minuscule budget, here's what I have so far:

Summer Quilt Cover

Pillow Cases or Shams

The Headboard

Not Too Matchy Matchy

Existing Ikea Wardrobe

Maybe

Detail

Maybe

Inspiration

Stay tuned...

Finito Benito

Chipping away at the perpetual to do list...

Secrets from a Stylist via the Internet

I gave up my Direct TV service months ago, figuring that I could better spend the money elsewhere. There are things I miss about satellite/cable television, but I'm doing fine with the cheapest Netflix subscription and Hulu. One program that I really regretted not being able to view is Emily Henderson's Secret from a Stylist. It airs Saturday evenings on HGTV. I still had the dish when Emily won Design Star, and I felt that eventually there would be a way for me to catch up on her new show sans the monthly satellite bill. So I was thrilled to find through reading her blog, Emily's show is available for viewing here on HGTV's website. Actually, there's a whole bunch of shows to check out on HGTV's website. Gotta love the internet!

Sewing Bench

I've had this bench and the matching sewing machine cabinet for quite some time. The spindly legs of the set give it a lot of character. I purchased a Singer 301 sewing machine, found on craigslist, and the cabinet and bench were included. I don't have room for the cabinet, but decided there had to be somewhere that I could use the bench. So here it is after spending way too much time in the process of being sanded. Painting is going to be no less time consuming. I could tell already at the early stage in which these pictures were taken. It will take three coats to cover it. The paint is Rustoleum's Safety Yellow oil paint, leftover from this project. As oil paint is being used, each coat will have to be spaced out to allow for drying time. It may be optimistic of me to promise after pictures within the next week, but I'm setting goals.

The top of the bench will get reupholstered in a durable commercial grade upholstery fabric that I found at Walmart. The fabric is in medium gray with a woven honeycomb texture. I am super excited about how cute it's going to be when I get done.

In other news, my sewing time took a hit when I embarked upon the above mentioned project. I did, however, find time to hit up Hobby Lobby on Saturday and take advantage of their Simplicity Pattern sale. Then yesterday I took advantage of the fine weather and scrubbed my front porch and porch furniture. Doing so made me feel a little less guilty about spending hours sanding a silly little stool.

The Weekend Blouse Muslin

I cut the medium as printed. The construction is pretty simple. I did some research beforehand so I expected the sleeves to be long, the neck opening to be low cut, and the overall length to be short-ish. All of these issues were present on my muslin. None of these issues will be difficult to remedy.

The last two pictures show how I used stitch witchery for the bias binding, to set it in place before the final row of stitching. A very narrow strip pressed into the seam allowance does the trick. It does take a little extra time, but the effort pays off with a very neat finish.

You'll be seeing more versions of this blouse being made, soon.

Weekend Sewing

 

Finally, I'm feeling some sewing mojo coming on. The Weekend Blouse in Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing looks like the perfect project. I'm going to start with a muslin and take it from there. Walmart's fabric department has been good to me lately and I have all kinds of goodies to play with.