Presenting My New Sewing Room

Finally it's finished! We still need to take my very heavy cutting table down but, I wanted to take pictures before we did.

In this post, I'll show you the pics with  a little info. On my other blog. I'll give more details on the organizing of all my stuff so if you're interested, visit Diana's Sewing Lessons in a couple of days and I'll have some details.

Before I get into it I have to give my husband Bob a lot of credit. He ended up having to assemble 11 different units to make my dream room a reality!

One of the  longest wall holds most of my fabrics and other important components for my sewing . It consists of six units which are really closet organizers. They were made by Sauder and bought at Canadian Tire.

The drawers hold my silks ,interfacings, and pattern alteration stuff. The pattern boxes were shoe boxes covered with fabric from my Home Dec stash. All the baskets came from other parts of my house. I didn't have to buy even one as I have a huge collection of all types of baskets.

We used one more unit by the door and I decided not to add a top unit here.Iwanted a space to hold my pressing tools. After sewing a little today, I can attest to how convenient this placement is..Also,I want to put an inspiration board on the wall here.

The other long wall holds my self- designed work station.I wanted to be able to roll my chair from one machine to another without any obstruction so we used two tall bedside chests (yes, Bob had to put those together too.) at each end. My carpenter added side ends as well.

Over the workstation are these wall hutches bought  at Home Depot. I love these little beauties! In the various baskets/ boxes are found all my supplies like serger threads, buttons, trims, zippers, elastics, etc.

 I made sure that there would be enough room for both my dress forms in my new sewing room.

 Originally, I had asked for a 16' by 16' room. Because of things being in the way, I ended up with 13.5' by 15'. Close enough.

I didn't want any clutter and there had to be a place for everything. So far, I think I managed to make that happen. Bob and my carpenter were constantly asking me if such and such were in my "dream". Poor guys. They were awfully glad to finish on Thursday! The grommets for the cords of my machines still have to be drilled and installed but other than that and getting someone to help carry my extremely heavy cutting table downstairs, my Dream Sewing Room is finished.

I feel so terribly lucky tonight as I type this post! To have such a wonderful husband . healthy children, and grandchildren and a beautiful sewing room  is really amazing. Never a day goes by that I don't thank God for my many blessings!

Hope you're having a wonderful week of sewing!

More later from

A Jean Jacket for Jesicca

Jessica was my first grandchild. The moment I held her after she was born, she owned a big part of my heart. Jessie turned 17 yesterday! She's not our little girl anymore but an amazing young lady.She's a competitive skater and holds the title of Provincial Junior 

Champion. Needless to say , we are very proud of her!

From the time Jessica was three, I made all her dresses for her and she use to say"My Nana makes the prettiest dresses in the whole world" Then at the age of 11, when I asked her if she wanted a new dress she said "No Nana. I wouldn't want you to waste your time because I'm not going to wear dresses anymore."And that was that. 

Two years ago, she asked for a trench jacket and of course, I was happy to oblige. See it here if, you'd like.

Then late last fall, she asked if I'd make her a jean jacket. I decided to make it for her birthday. She picked out V 7610   , the Sandra Betzina pattern. I tried mine which is size B on her, took her measurements and guessed I'd have to scale down the smallest size (A) by one size. Of course I worried it wouldn't fit but it did! Perfectly!

I used a non stretch 10 ounce cotton denim in a dark wash to make it as authentic looking as possible. I used Gutterman top stitching (also called extra strong) thread in colour 511 and dull silver metal buttons (I don't do snaps). I used no interfacing as the denim was just the right hand for a jacket.

On the inside I finished the facings with purchased cotton bias tape in the Hong Kong method.

I ran out of fabric and used a striped denim left over from an outfit made for Jessie for her 6th birthday , for the back facing.

I  used the serger  to finish the rest  of the seams.

Jessica was delighted with her jacket and said it was exactly as she wished it!

Just look at that gorgeous hair!!!

My Sewing Room is still at the same state as it was last week. Nothing went on this week. A delay in material for my work station. But I'm assured it will only be a couple more days!! Stay tuned and I'll give you a detailed post.

As for my next project,it will be a new spring coat for Tamara so it will be a couple weeks at least before it's finished.

As for the  Burda Webinar , I've asked to postpone a couple of months and they've agreed .More about that in the next while.

Happy Sewing from

A Burds Style Webinar, A New Sewing Room, etc

It's been an eventful week.  Besides being in the middle of having a new sewing room built, and cleaning out my old one  ( WOW! I've got a lot of stuff! ), I received an email form Burda Style wanting to know if I'd be interested in doing a webinar. I was astonished, flattered, astonished, overwhelmed, amazed and scared, all at once!

It's a really busy time here at my house so I have to think it through carefully. I'll let you know what comes of it!

I also realized I forgot to show you the inside of my coat last week and since it's really pretty , I'll post a couple of picks.

This is the first time I've actually used one of the labels I made last year!

Of course, I didn't sew a stitch this week  but here's a peek at my new SR. Not quite finished yet but almost.
Just the baseboards and the countertop for my work station left to do!. I'm gradually moving some my things in as you see here.

I covered some Coldwater Creek shoe boxes to store my patterns for easy access (top shelves). I already had all those baskets you see on the other shelves.  On the bottom ,the two baskets hold fabrics for coats and suits/jackets. On the second shelves,one basket holds lining fabrics and the other is for UFO's. The drawers hold interfacings and silks.

My Dh thinks I should have one more of these units but I want to wait and see. I have another unit given to me by Fabricville when I worked there which will be placed on another wall and I don't want another crowded sewing room.

I'll show you more next week.

Hope to sew something this week.

More later from

A Coat That is also A Muslin (S2311)

My big plan for February was to make a coat using a piece of wool bought in Paris three years ago. I wanted to make a muslin first followed  by the real thing. The pattern is S2311.

Well, with renos going on around here ,my plan sort of fizzled out. I did ,however make the "sample coat" . I think you'll agree that I can hardly call what resulted a muslin.

Now ,I have to say that I  had a very unusual experience in sewing this garment, For the very first time ever, I created a garment without pressing one single seam! Can you believe it?  


Let me explain. After cutting out the pieces of this coat, I was auditioning, fusible interfacings to see which I would use and this is what resulted!.

This is what the fabric looks like to begin with.

 I was astounded! The fabric does have texture but not puckers!

I had no real idea of the content of this leather look fabric and I assumed it was polyester but I've interfaced poly faux leather before without any problem. I tried pressing open a sample seam without steam this time but the same thing occurred. Now you're probably thinking why didn't I dump the whole thing in the trash but anyone who knows me well knows that I I'm not a quitter so..... I top stitched every seam in the whole coat except the sleeve caps and the hems, which I just left alone.

And there was an awful lot of hand basting including interfacings and edges but I enjoy hand sewing.

Early on , I had decided to change the pockets from patch to welt with a flap and to  use brown faux leather for the  flaps and as a binding on the collar. I decided against the binding as quite frankly I was tired of working on this thing. So the only focal point the coat is left with are those leather pocket flaps , but that's OK with me.

I reviewed this patterns at Pattern Review so I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say that this is a really great pattern and it will be used for my Paris wool next winter. I made my usual  FBA, narrow, sloping shoulder and narrow back alterations, of couse but this is a very well drafted pattern.

So what do you think? I wore my new coat to a funeral today and got loads of compliments. I just have to learn to not point out to anyone who will listen that some of the seams are a little puckery and the hems are not up to standard!!

                                                       ( I really love the collar ) 

Oh , by the way, my new sewing room is in it's third day of construction and coming along very nicely. I'm so excited!! See!!
                           
                        Day 1                                            Day 2                                       Day 3

Thanks for stopping by. More later from