I've broken all my rules.
I know fine well that I should stick to making one thing at a time and that I should give myself a deadline to aim for or procrastination will set in.......
But.....
I seem to be working on several things at once, finishing nothing quickly and getting very easily distrac.............oh look a fluffy kitty......
Despite my list of which rooms in the house were going to get decorated first, we also seem to have started on the dining room. Admittedly this is my least favourite room in the house at the moment, but it was at best fourth or fifth on the list until now.
So the boxy boring brown room has pushed it's way, clamouring for first attention.
Other than it being a boring brown box with no character and no natural light, it lacked furniture.
Coming from a British terraced cottage with a floor plan just around 1000 sq foot to a house nearly 3 times that (they have lots of space in the desert so they build houses BIG), we've had to invest in a lot more furniture.
So we made a start at the weekend with a dresser. Of course it came from our favourite shop IKEA. I honestly don't know how we'd have coped in the USA for the first few years without IKEA....it's been pretty difficult having to stock a house, and lots of traditional Arizona furniture just isn't our style, it's big, bulky and brown......and you KNOW how much I like brown (not).
So this distracted us at the weekend.....whilst Melchett tried to distract us with teddy bear bungee jumping (yes, I know it looks more sinister than that):
Still to do in the dining room - putting up ceiling coving (translation for Americans: mouldings), possibly painting this white, painting the room in some deep, rich colour (not brown), sorting out the wall opposite the front door of the house to be more welcoming, rearranging (and possibly unifying by painting silver) the current wall pictures and photo frames, finding suitable china to display in the dresser (I have very little posh china, nearly everything we have is everyday use) and doing something with the yukky ceing chandelier.
But all this to come in later posts.
Meanwhile, this is the state of the Sewing Lair....please excuse the mess. My name is Tempest and I'm a distracted sewist.
Still working on this green velvet and plaid dress...and after seeing some of the dresses Joanna Coles especially has been sporting on Project Runway Allstars, I'm thinking of trying some knitted sleeves on the dress, from a green chenille sweater I bought a while back at a charity shop. They're on top of my fabric TARDIS here on the right:
And on the left there you'll see project no. 2 I'm working on, which should be a priority with temperatures each morning this week being around 20F/-6C, a faux fur giraffe print hoodie to fill a huge "I don't have a coat except for the Sherlock inverness cape I made last year" gap.
Then there's Melchett's curtains, complicated by the fact that when I bought the fabric about 2 years ago, I didn't know how to measure up properly and bought too little material at Hobby Lobby and I can't go back to buy anymore now because they're yet another shop I won't be buying from because of their stance on proper healthcare for all. And I'm not the only one.
So I'm going to have to be creative, making the main fabric centre of the panels, surrounded by a purple frame.....and Melchett then wants a blue tulle 'tutu' sewing around this. However, as you can see, they're half finished too and messing up the room:
And currently on my cutting table?
Another project, albeit a mini one I might finish today (though I have Melchett home from school after YET ANOTHER trampoling lesson injury.....a little kid ran across her track whilst she was running up to the trampete, and to stop herself hitting him she fell and slid, ending up with two badly rammed feet underneath the trampete itself....and this morning it hurts too much to walk on them), I 'need' a cushion for my Sewing Lair reading chair.
Look how bare it looks without it's Christmas cushion:
So I'm making it a cushion from some Cath Kidson tea towels I got for Christmas and filling it with fabric scraps I've been saving from last year's projects:
OK, I need to get a move on. I think I'd better decide which projects are going to be done in which order and stick to one at a time....and set some deadlines. Why not drop back in next week and I'll show you how I've gotten on? I'll make a pot of tea if you bring the biscuits.
Oh, two last things, this is for Loran.....look woman, you've become my muse/mentor next to Tim:
And this is for all you nosey parkers wanting to know my inspirations for coming projects during the year....my mood board.....what a lot of emerald green:
OK, back to work/running up and downstairs taking Melchett snacks and drinks.
Stay warm people (well, obviously not those burning up in the heat in Australia, New Zealand etc).
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