Customizing Matilda; Part 1

I have needed a dress form for a long time. Years ago I made one of those duct tape forms, but I had no way to actually use it. I had no stand to put it on so it hung on a hanger for years, unused, before it was eventually thrown out when my mother sold her house.

I had been hoping and saying someday for my own dress form since I started making my own clothes again, especially after taking some classes in Apparel Construction and Tailoring at Johnson County Community College. They have a fabulous Fashion Design and Merchandising Dept. So then this year for my birthday my fiancé got me one. It's an adjustable form. Fine. Only problem is, it doesn't go up large enough for me. *sigh* So I need to pad it to fit me. 

Before I get to far, I need to name my dress form. She came with a sticker which had the name Celine, but I think that was just a brand name. I've decided to name her Matilda because I like the name. It seems to fit.

So how do I make Matilda a second me. I kind of had an idea, but couldn't quite figure out something that would work.  Luckily for me the crafting class website, Craftsy.com (I'm a member, it's a free site and they have some free classes) has a class on making a dress form fit you called "Customize Your Dress Form." It's a great resource. 

To start I opened all the dials on Matilda to their maximum and then I measured and compared them to my measurements. One thing I need to figure out is how to lengthen her torso. Her center back measurement is 1 inch shorter than me, and her center front is 3 inches shorter. Hummm, this is going to take some figuring. More on that later.

So I watched the classes and went to work. I covered the openings with craft paper. The video recommends using oak tag or cut up file folders (same.thing). But I didn't have any and, being the impatient type when I want to start something, I went with what I had to hand, craft paper, the kind used for scrapbooking. I had it so I used it. The video also recommends using duct tape to attach the paper, something I can totally recommend. I used painters tape. Mistake! Painters tape is meant to be peeled off of the surface to which it is attached. Every time I brushed against it with my hand it kept wanting to peel off. I had already planned to put a knit fabric cover over Matilda before covering with padding, and now it turns out the cover was a good idea. It helps keep the tape from peeling off while I cover Matilda with the padding. The picture on the right of Matilda covered with the knit fabric was taken before I put the craft paper over the open spaces.

Now to make the outer cover for Matilda. It's recommend in the video that you use poplin for a cover. I like to go inexpensive and you can't get any more inexpensive than muslin. I suggest a middleweight quality muslin, not too flimsy yet not too stiff. You also don't want to pick a fabric color that will be too different. You want one that will look nice when the form is just standing in your workroom but won't clash with whatever fabric you might work on. That's another reason to use the muslin, specifically unbleached muslin. The natural ecru color is a nice neutral color.  If you wanted another type of fabric, broadcloth would be good, too. Most broadcloth comes in solid colors so you could go with a nice light gray or another color in a pale tone. Prints are not advised.

And then there's the pattern to use. It's suggested that you use a pattern with princess seams that go up to the shoulders both front and back. The video recommends a Vogue pattern, V8828, and three McCall's patterns, M6076, M6887, and M5847. Though the last one is out of print and may not be available at your fabric store. It is, however, still available on the McCall's website. I'm using a Connie Crawford design sold by Butterick, B5538. It's a blouse, but it fits me, I know because I've made it before, and it has the proper princess seams. Connie Crawford designs mostly for curvy, plus size ladies, however she does have sizes for Misses sizes, 3 to 20w. The pattern would have to be lengthened, but it's workable.

Among the other pattern companies, the only other pattern I found that has the correct princess seams is from New Look patterns. They are part of the Simplicity pattern company. The pattern is New Look 6299. It has a flared skirt which isn't necessary for the form cover. But that will be taken care of in the fitting process. 

Okay, so now what! Cut out the pattern. Because I'm using a pattern I've used before I didn't have to do any adjusting to my pattern other than adding to the seam allowances. All commercial patterns produced for home use have a 5/8" seam allowance already added to them. The video tells to add another 3/8" around each pattern piece so that you have a full inch of seam allowance. This is to make fitting easier. I didn't really pay attention to that part and added a full inch to the 5/8" and ended up with 1 5/8" seam allowance. OOPS!!! Oh well, at least I know I have enough room.

So now to sew it together. Using a basting stitch, which for me is the longest stitch on my machine, and a 1" seam, I sewed the cover together. Since it was late at night and I needed to get a zipper because the one I had was way too short. You'd think a 30 inch zipper would be long enough. Nope. So I just draped it on Matilda. Oh Boy, was she going to need padding out. So when I want and got the correct size zipper (a 36" upholstery zipper that was the last they had in stock) I also picked up another roll of high-loft quilt batting, just in case I needed more. If not, then I can use it on a future quilting project.

This is a work in progress, and as such will be a multi-part blog. Next time I will tell of the zipper installation, my darling fiancé helping me with fitting process, and possibly the padding of Matilda. Stay tuned for all the riveting details. Or as my favorite news commentator Rachel Maddow says with some of her stories, Watch this space. Ta-ta for now.

Cela

I've been neglectful!

I have been terribly neglectful of my blog over the years and it's high time I rectify that. Sporadic posts to not a faithful following make. Part of the problem is that we have moved 3 times in less than a year and trying to get any continuity in my life, let alone my writing has been difficult.

Add to that the fact I have had little to no room to adequately sew. I went from having a good sized sewing room to a sewing corner in our living room while still in Kansas, to a corner of a dining room when we were staying with a friend after moving back to NY State, to a 21 square foot walk-in closet in the apartment we had, to a nice sized sewing room again that I will share with my girlfriend. She spins yarn, knits, and crochets. And she does her spinning in the living room. So for now, at least, the room will be mostly mine.

I'm still trying to organize everything, but I will probably be ready to start sewing sometime next week, fingers crossed.

So what will this blog be about? My sewing, of course. Anything and everything I sew I will post. And if I remember I will post progress pictures, not just pictures of the finished products.

So stay tuned.
Cela

I'm Sewing Again!!

It's about freaking time!! It may be January, there may still be snow on the ground, but every fiber of my being knows that Spring is coming. And with Spring come new projects.

I've already made 6 little change purses and posted them in my Etsy shop. Check them out.

I've been trying to figure out what to do next. I have plenty of patterns to choose from, it's just making a decision and running with it. I also have a bunch of fabric and scraps so finding the right color combination.

So I guess it's time to stop procrastinating and just go sew, so off I go!

My sewing life

Remember last year when I was complaining how I lost my sewing room? Well, we moved this year. (Twice, actually.) And now I have a sewing room.... sort of. We are now living in a 2 bedroom apartment. That's right, 4 adults and a dog living in just under 1000 square feet. It works for us.... sort of. So D took over the dining area for her tea table. She originally thought I would use it for my sewing area, but seeing as the stove is right next to the sewing area I really didn't want cooking grease and a myriad of smells compromising the fabric I'd be using. And if any of it was fine fabric like, say, silk, I didn't want to take the chance that something would happen that would cause it to be ruined. So I opted to take the walk-in closet that's right next to the front door. Well... it works... after a fashion.
So I have a sewing closet. Now, to be honest, I thought I'd have more room in there than I do. I'm pretty good with spacial relationships and figuring out what can go where, but I was really off with this closet. Probably due to the fact that I have a lot more sewing stuff than I thought I did. I'm at the point that if I get any more fabric for my stash that the rest of the household will disown me. I have a meme on one of my Pintrest boards that says it all.

Or then there is this one.



I discovered recently how much hassle it's going to be to cut out large things in my closet. I sing in a local community choir and needed to make myself a new black skirt for performances. (The one I originally had disappered so I needed to make something quick.) And typical me, I waited until the afternoon of the concert to actually make this skirt. The only black fabric I had was a queen size flat sheet made out of a slippery fabric so getting it lay flat in a very confined space on a plastic tabletop was a disaster waiting to happen. I managed to do it (I'm not really sure how) and I now have a black concert skirt. And oddly enough, I managed to make it too big. A rare occurrence, to be sure. And I did it totally without a pattern. The hows and whys of that are for another blog.

So my sewing closet needs more room. I really wish I could use either one of the bedrooms or even the living room for my sewing room, but that's not going to happen. I'd love that, but only we were to move out of Fairport. And I love living in Fairport!! Electrical rates are Cheap!!!! Our electric bill for the whole month of November is a whopping $30.76. And that's with an electric stove. But I digress. What was I saying?

Oh yes, my sewing closet. It's small, cozy in a jail cell kind of way. It's a whole whopping 21 square feet. Maybe if I finish the projects I've started I might just see some progress and find another square inch of space. Yeah, a whole bunch of small projects for my Etsy store. I can do that! Though right that is all on hold. The light bulb blew the other night and now I can't sew unless I move my lamp in the living room. And that's not going to happen because the cord would have to be draped across a pathway from the front door into the living room proper and cause a safety hazard. We will just have to call maintenance and have one of the guys replace the closet light bulb, as well as all the other light bulbs that have blown out since we moved in. Including my closet light, we have 6 light bulbs that need replacing. As soon as the bulb is replaced I'm going to take some pictures of my sewing closet so you all can see my creative space, such as it is.

Every once in a while I go surfing for ideas for my sewing room and I look at some of the pictures others have put up of their sewing rooms, especially ones that their owners consider "tiny", and I'd wish I had that much space. These "tiny" rooms look so huge!

I've sewn in various spaces in my life. My mom had her old Kenmore console sewing machine in the living room and used the dining table to cut out the patterns. It was there she taught me some of the basics of sewing. In junior high, what is now called Middle School, and in high school I took Home Economics and I had the luxury of using good sized cutting tables and good Singer console sewing machines. I learned a lot then including how to start adjust patterns to my size because there was no such thing as "Plus Size" patterns in the late 60s. We were lucky to find patterns that went to size 22. After high school I did occasional sewing whenever I needed something special, but often something didn't turn out right and I'd have to go to a back up outfit.

After a while I got interested in Costuming. I love costumes and once had a Costume Party for my birthday. I've gone to college several times in my life, and it wasn't until I got to the college I from which eventually graduated that I finally decided to do costuming seriously. I started designing some things despite my inability to draw human figures. Also about this time I got a book that helped people design their own clothes based on specific measurements. There are several systems now like that one I use to have: The Lutterloh System and SURE-FIT DESIGNS™ are the only systems like that now, and of the two the Lutterloh comes closest to what I had way back when. There were several basic pattern shapes with lines radiating from a central point on a shape. One would pick the basic they wanted for shirts, pants, dresses, skirts, etc. The one would take a special ruler that come with the book and the shapes, and line up with one of the several lines. Each line has a number next to it and you make a dot next to the same number on the ruler.

When I went to college I started to get interested in costuming and in my senior year designed and built the costumes for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We had 21 in the cast and a total of 25 costumes. And all the patterns for the costumes were made with the pattern system I mentioned before. I learned a lot about patternmaking and knew I needed to learn more. Most of the costumes were built at the college so I had tables to cut out fabric and a decent sewing machine. 

When I was sewing at home at that time I was still young and limber enough to sit cross-legged on the floor with a cardboard cutting board and spread out fabric, pin patterns, and cut out the pattern pieces. I then pulled my sewing machine along side me an stitched them together. Since I was sitting on the floor I used my knee instead of my foot on the foot pedal. That was how I sewed my maid-of-honor dress and the bride's maid dresses for two girlfriends when another girlfriend got married. I also sewed a flower girl dress for another friend's daughter for another wedding. Oh, those days. Now I cannot and dare not get down on the floor for fear I'd never get up on my feet again. Between of my excess weight and my arthritic knees floor sitting is a thing of the past for me.

At one point my mother set up a sewing area in her closet, also a walk-in, and I made my Bat Mitzveh dress in there. 

After college I got an internship with a summer theatre company in Oklahoma and had a wonderful costume shop. I learned a lot from the other designers and realized I didn't know squat about designing costumes. I needed to learn a whole lot before I could call myself a designer again.

After that I went to another internship in Buffalo, NY and learned even more. It was a small but efficient costume shop that had professional sewing machines. It was the first time I had ever worked with them, and they included an overlock machine that scared the bejesus out of me. Press the foot pedal too far and you could easily take a finger off. The regular sewing machines weren't much better. Taught me that any sort of horsing around would not take place during work hours. 

Then I took time off from sewing for a while because I wasn't able to get another theatre job. So I had to go into the real job force. Oh I did sew occasionally, it was not to the great extent I had done during and shortly after college. 

After I moved to Kansas my girlfriend wanted me to sew some outfits for her, and that got me back into sewing. I made a robe for her and sewed a couple of skirts for myself, then we all got the bright idea to go to the KC Ren Fest. I was going to make costumes for me, my girlfriend, our husbands and her daughter. I ran out of time and only got her's, her daughter's and her husband's done. And even those weren't compleatly finish. Still had some last minute tweaking to do on the way to the Ren Fest. My sewing area then was the dining room of the trailer they had. The space was great and I've been wishing for something similar ever since.

But I still wasn't into full fledged sewing again. Not until I got involved with a local choir. They decided they were going to do a Cabaret style concert and we wouldn't have to wear the usual choir uniform of long black dress for the ladies and tuxes with black tie for the guys. We could be bright and colorful as we wanted. So I decided in a long sleeveless dress in purple with an ivory lace, short sleeve coat that had sparkles. Well by this time I had bought myself a four-stitch overlock machine, more commonly known as a serger, which was good because the purple was satin which ravels as soon as you cut it and I needed to finish the edges so there would be no raveling. My fiance and I had moved into a 2 bedroom apartment about the same time and so I used the second bedroom as my sewing room. A great bonus! So I was able to make a great sewing mess and then close the door when I was done for the day. The only part of the outfit that didn't get finished was the hem of the coat because I didn't have someone who could come over and help me figure out how long to make it. No one really noticed the hem, which was good. 

We moved again to a 4 bedroom house and I didn't really have a sewing area. When I wanted to sew I just set up out into the main living room, which was mostly being used for storage at the time, and then had to put everything away when I was done or the cats would sprawl all over my project. The extra bedroom had been taken over by my girlfriend, but she had a problem with the sun beating in the room she moved out to the main living room and I got the bedroom. So another actual room that I could just shut the door on when I was through for the day. Yay! In that room I made a few things, including a gown from the Cavalier Period for a Basic Costuming class I was taking at the local community college. Then my girlfriend's 1st husband and their daughter moved in because of financial difficulties, and there went my sewing room. See the post from last 2012. 

So then I'm regulated to a corner of the main living room where I again have to make sure I put things away when I done for the day because of cats. By this time I had decided to take some classes on Apparel Construction. I started with the first level class even though I could have started with the second level. I knew there were things I could learn that I didn't already know, and I was right. I had to make 3 garments for the class, and I learned something with each one. The last garment was a pair of slacks which I didn't finish. So I didn't get full marks on that one. But the other garments I made plus all my skill samples pushed me up to an A. I was so proud of myself! 

So then I took the second level of Apparel Construction with a different teacher, Gigi. I Love that Woman!! She taught me so much! And the Sewing Lab at school was really great. I wish I had the space to make a sewing room like that. There were 4 cutting tables, 9 sewing machines, 6 sergers, 3 ironing boards each with a professional, gravity feed steam iron. There were also 2 professional sewing sewing machines, a professional blind hem machine and another professional machine we never talked about. And we had 2 embroidery machines. I really loved going to class.

I also took the Tailoring class with Gigi. I had once made a tuxedo and never really finished the jacket inside because the instructions made the whole process difficult and confusing, and I was afraid to ever try to make another tailored jacket. But after making the Tailoring class with Gigi I will never be afraid again. I am so grateful to her for teaching me her way of doing things.

So now I'm here in New York and I'm stuck in a closet. This too shall pass and I will once again have a decent sewing Room!

My Jean Jacket

I've wanted jean jacket for years, but they never, ever, EVER came in my size. (Don't ask what it is cause I'm not gonna tell.) Then finally I find a pattern company that has patterns for really nice clothes in my size and, lo and behold, they have a pattern for a jean jacket!! PSYCH!!! And one of the great things about making clothes for myself, I get to pick the fabric AND I get to add design elements that I want. So I picked a nice stretch denim in a small stripe pattern. It's charcoal, jade green, and burgundy stripes.

I'm making this jacket for an Apparel Construction class I'm taking.

I was a good girl and I bought 5 yards which was more than I needed. Then I washed fabric because one should always prepare a fabric in the way it will be cleaned when the garment is made. (Jean Jacket, denim, wash in hot.) I knew it would shrink because it's mostly cotton, but I thought it would only shrink in the length. Wrong!! The width shrank, too, and a 60 inch width ended up a 55 inch width. I ended up with not quite enough to get all the pieces cut out. So I thought I'd order more, but when I went to order it they were sold out. Bummer!!

In the meantime I decided I wanted to line the jacket even though it didn't call for a lining. I wanted to have a fabric that was slick enough that the jacket would slide on easily over clothes that weren't so slick, and that could add a little extra warmth. I expect to wear this jacket in the winter. So GG, my instructor,  suggested something she's used before: flannel backed satin. Really?? Never heard of it before. It's a blend of 80% polyester and 20% cotton. I ended having to go to Topeka to get it, though.  I wanted purple, or even lavender, but they didn't have enough on the bolts, so I settled for fuchsia. Fuchsia?????? Yes, fuchsia! I thought it would look great. Besides, it's only a lining. It's not like people are intentionally going to see it.

In the meantime, I asked GG for a suggestions concerning my problem with the main fabric. She didn't have one right away, but thought about it throughout class. Later, when I was at the ironing board, she came over and handed me a piece of fabric to see if it would go with the denim. It did! Cool! But was there any more, that was the question. It ended up that the piece of fabric was a scrap another student had thrown into one of the many scrap drawers we have in the classroom and there wasn't any more. What there was of it was not enough for my needs. Hmmm, back to the drawing board, so to speak.

Since my class only meets on Fridays for about 6 hours, I had a lot of time to consider my options. I thought that the piece GG had found would have been great. It was a sueded micro-fiber fabric and I loved the feel of it. It was a napped fabric that didn't seem to have a direction to the nap. Perfect!! I knew I wouldn't find anything on the internet that would get to me in time for class. So I decided to go over to Hancock Fabrics to see what they had and I dragged my fiance with me for a second opinion. I found this really nice eggplant colored micro-fiber suede and it went really well with the denim fabric.

So I used the suede for the collar, the cuffs, the yoke across the back, the belted waist, and the pocket flaps. A couple of things I wanted that the pattern doesn't have are tabs at the waistband to adjust the length of the waistband, and lower pockets. In the lining I added a pocket inside the left side so I have someplace to put my phone, and whatever.

I don't have progress pics because I'm mostly making the jacket at school. It would be kind of awkward to take pics every time I finished a step in the process. That and everyone in class would keep asking what I was doing.  So I will post a pic of the finished product as soon as I'm done. It's due Friday, 16 Nov so, luckily, you won't have to wait long.

Wedding Costumes, Part 2

Okay, so in our last segment I just needed to serge the Şalvar pieces and put them together. The serging was pretty straightforward. No curves, no odd angles, just straight edges to sew. Excellent!

For those that have never seen, much less used a serger machine before, immediately to the right of the presser foot is a very sharp cutting blade that trims off excess fabric and/or threads from the garment pieces to give them a finished edge. Garment pieces can also be sewn together on the serger. Look at the seams of any garment you've bought from the store. Knit garments especially. All the stitching you see on the seam edges is done with an Overlock machine that is known commonly to home sewers as a Serger. These machines have been a Godsend to the home sewer. (I hate that specific Heteronym!) They allow the home sewer to make a garment that looks just as professionally made as anything produce at a fashion couture house. Though you have to be a bit careful when sewing with a serger if you've never done so before. I suggest practicing using some scrap fabric to get the hang of the machine before serging your actual garment pieces. I think one of  the reasons the machine is called a Serger is because it can Surge ahead of you if you aren't paying attention. But I digress.

So then I sewed the Şalvar together. First had to make sure I got the cut edges in the correct order. I separated the pieces and then opened them up. I had cut the pieces on the fold so I now had 2 big garment pieces cut straight along the bottom and top edges, and cut at an odd angle along both sides. If you look back down to Wedding Costumes, Part 1, you'll see what I mean. Putting the Right sides of the fabric together, I stitched both the pieces together along the upper angle cut.

 Then it was time to stitch the legs together. Because of the of angle of the edges, stitching the legs together required a stop in the middle where the crotch came together. I stitched all the way to the middle of the crotch seam, back-stitched a few stitches, made sure the needle was down in the middle of the seam, lifted the presser foot and turned the fabric to the new angle. When I started stitching again I made a few stitches, back-stitched back to the crotch seam, and then continued going forward along the seam to the end. Pretty straightforward, to those of us who sew on a regular basis. Though some are probably asking, "Why the extra backstitching?" Well, crotch seams are notorious for ripping out, especially in those garments not made very well. (I hesitate to use the word Cheap, but inexpensive clothes are made cheaply.) I just don't want DF's backside to come out at the wedding.

So next I stitched up the hem of the pants. All I did was a simple 1/2 inch hem. Because of the angle of the leg seam, I needed to let out the seam a little bit. Because there is a wide enough opening to accommodate DF's foot, I don't need to worry to much about seam coming apart. Also I did some additional back-stitching to insure the seam wouldn't seperate. I then just topstitched the hem in place.

I'm just glad I'm not making this costume for a historical reenactment because I would probably be laughed off the premises.   Historical reenactors are sticklers for accuracy.

The next-to-the-last thing to do on the Şalvar is the waistband. When I was looking at pictures of actual garments of the time period online I noticed that the waistband was just some other bit of fabric added to the top. It didn't have to match the garment fabric. Cool! While I like the fabric I chose, it would been too bulky for a waistband with a drawstring. So I chose a piece of scrap fabric I had that was the right length to fit the waist of the Şalvar. I cut it to a width of 4 inches to allow for seam allowances, serged the edges, and stitched it in place along one side after making sure to fold over the ends 1/2 inch. I did not stitch down the ends which I realize, in hindsight, would have made for a neater edge. But I can always do that by hand.

So with the waistband partially sewed on, time to finish it. Press the waistband so that the seam allowance is up on the waistband. Then fold the waistband down to cover the seam allowance and making sure the waistband edge is at least 1/4 inch past the seam allowance. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when I sew, so I decided to stitch-in-the-ditch, sewing from the right side very closely along the seam line. It's hard to do well and even the most experienced sewer will mess up once in a while.  Good thing this waistband will be under the rest of DF's costume so it doesn't have to be 100% perfect. Thank goodness!

The last thing I need to do is get them on DF again so I can mark the placement of the buttons and loops at the ankles. I'll be making matching buttons and stitching a line of thin elastic loops at the hem of the Şalvar to peg them. It was the fashion of the time, though probably not with elastic button loops.

Normally I'd have a picture of the finished garment, but I'm going to wait till I have everything done and DF gets to model. Hope you don't mind the wait.

My sewing room disappeared!

Sometime late last fall we were informed that D's 1st hubby and daughter were going to need a place to live because they were being evicted from their apartment. D & the ex-hubby moved into this apartment 17 years ago and has been the only home their daughter has ever known. Why were they being evicted??  The usual; non-payment or late-payment of rent.

To be fair, this was not entirely ex-hubby's fault.  A year ago, the local cable/internet company he worked for was sold and the new company decided to do away with the local call/help center and either move the employees to their other call centers in North Dakota or Georgia. All the employees were given the option of moving or being let go.  Ex-hubby decided he didn't want to uproot their daughter just as she was entering high school so he was let go. So he was released from work in May of 2011. But this is a College Town and August is the busiest month for landlords and utility providers. In fact almost every lease or rental agreement in town goes from Aug 1st to Jul 31st. So the company did ask him back for the summer to help facilitate the orders for the July move-out and the August move-in! But unfortunately in June he was not employed and didn't have his unemployment fully set-up yet so he got a little behind on his rent. Funny thing, when one gets behind on paying the rent it's very hard to catch-up.  He did start getting unemployment regularly, but it was too little too late. By then the wheels for their eviction were already in motion. The end result was that my sewing room became his bedroom, and my sewing room ended up being one corner of the front room. (In our house the living room is called the front room because we call the family room in the addition the living room.)

NOTE: Our house is a ranch style (very popular here in Kansas) that originally had the usual living room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a bath. Then sometime after it was built a family room, laundry room and a 4th bedroom were added. One of the 3 original bedrooms was my sewing room and the additional 4th was a catchall room. 

So, I lost my sewing room and I have to say that I'm not very pleased. But what am I going to do?  We can't just throw the ex-hubby and daughter out just so I can have my sewing room back. D would have my head on a pike if I so much as thought about kicking them out. So I'll have to live with the situation and make adjustments.

The biggest adjustment I'm having to make is going from a nice 12'x12' room with a closet to hang clothing projects and a door I can close to keep out the 3 cats who would insist on using my worktable as a bed (or worse, having our one UN-neutered male come in and spray). I could just leave a project on my table, close the door, and walk away.

Now I have a 6'x6' space (and that's just a guess on size) in an open room with no closet (except for the front hall closet) and no door to close off said cats. This means I've had to invest in some plastic totes to put the fabric when I'm not working on something. I still need to get smaller bins (with lids.. maybe) to put projects in progress. And I also need shelving to put the bins on, something the cats won't climb up on (yeah, good luck with that). I'm also trying to keep my area organized so I can find things. It doesn't help that in the last 3 months since ex-hubby and daughter moved in the whole house has become even more disorganized than before and my little area has become the favorite dumping ground for a whole bunch of stuff - some mine, some other people's.

I wonder if Shoji screens would work to close off my area a little bit.... don't know if the cats would try to climb them, but it would be worth a try. What's the worst that could happen?? They climb the screen and cause it to fall??? Maybe... But with any luck that would scared them enough that they wouldn't want to do it again. Worth a shot. Maybe if I can find something like this so it could be a multi-tasker. Nah!! It's just take up too much room, and I have so little to spare. I mentioned the screens to D and she thought that because the cover was fabric that the cats would claw their way through, but I don't know. Maybe......... Maybe not... But it's something to look into.

Our local Hobby Lobby store has plain screens with artificial rice paper coverings so they feel more sturdy than if they were made with real rice paper. And they stand directly on the floor - no legs - so it should (notice I said "should?") keep the cats from crawling underneath the bottom.

Oh well, I'll come up with something. In the meantime I'll have to bear with the hassle of not having my sewing room. If we owned this house and had enough money to built something, I'd put up a shed in the back yard and make it into my sewing room.  Now that would be cool!! Something to keep in mind for when we move back to Upstate NY!!