Around the house: Sewing studio (again)

I seem to move house a lot. That means I have occasion to share photographs of my sewing space quite often. Today, I bring you the most recent incarnation as photographed by my talented friend and colleague, Mel. She needed pics for a photography class she's doing and I hadn't taken any of my new studio just yet so it was a win-win.

Over the years my sewing spaces have varied: a walk-in closet, a mere bedside table, an entire bedroom, a small space masquerading as a bedroom and now, my very own sleep-out. For those of you not familiar with the term, a sleep-out is a detached room separate from the main house. They're fairly common around these parts and usually they house guests, are used for storage or may be rented out as a bedroom. Mine is just for sewing and I love every bit of it...except for the complete lack of insulation and the 1-inch gap under the door that lets in a wicked draft...that, I could do without.

Can we all appreciate for a moment that these next pics shows that I do indeed own and iron...I know how to use it even...yet I am wearing the wrinkliest shirt known to man. Sigh. My mother is cringing as she see these pics, I can assure you.

The last time I posted pictures of my sewing room, people on Pinterest were quick to say that there were probably piles of crap hidden away in other rooms for the photo shoot, or that there's no way my room can stay this neat all the time. Neither is true. The only thing I took out of this room before Mel showed up were a few empty beer bottles and all the cut pattern pieces leftover from Selfish Sewing Week. I have yet to find the perfect storage solution for that sort of thing so, for now, they do usually lay out on the floor. But, yes, most of the time, my space stays this neat and tidy. The pegboard helps, as does being just a little bit OCD. Ahem.

Let me just point out that wee little cross-stitch hanging on the wall in this last pic. It says, "Kim's Room" and I've had it since forever. It used to hang on my bedroom door as a little girl and now I put it up wherever I have my sewing space because it's a space just for me! Say it with me now, "awwww!"

Big thanks to Mel for taking such lovely photos and letting me put them up on the blog!

The one with the stylish firewood carrier

While the rest of you up in the Northern Hemisphere are all "Ooooh, look at the pretty blossoms!" and "I finally got to spend the day in the garden." and "See ya later snow!" the rest of us down here in at the bottom of the world are gearing up for winter. At least, those of us in Dunedin - the land of very little insulation and no such thing as central heating - are.

With the wood burner in our new house, we've got ourselves a load of macrocarpa to get us at least part way through the winter. We've got a few stacks going on in the backyard and had been hauling it into the house by hand as needed until this past weekend when I made this - the most stylish firewood carrier you ever will see.

I grabbed a classic denim for the main body of the carrier and used hot pink polka dot and gingham for the sides and trim. I even managed to find some matching neon pink thread....like 3000 meters of it (you're going to be seeing a lot of hot pink on this blog from here on out!)

I opted for sides even though most carriers don't include them; I wanted to make sure logs weren't going to shift out of the carrier and onto my toes!

Considering I made this whole thing up as I went, I'm pretty damn pleased with the result. It's cute, it's durable and it actually works. A complete success!

In other news, I got myself a smartphone a few weeks back and I've now joined the rest of the world on Instagram. Look me up over there, or follow along on good ol' Facebook.

Around the house: the sewing studio

Continuing our tour around our little home in Dunedin, today's stop is my sewing studio. Calling it a studio is perhaps a bit grand for it's diminutive size, but compared to the closet I was sewing in back in Burnaby, this room is a palace. I have enough space to do all of my work in here and it's also the easiest room in the house to heat, so it's a very cozy space as well.

Around the house: the lounge

It dawned on me the other day that we've been living in this little villa of ours for over three months and I have yet to share any pictures of the interior. Shame on me. Why don't I kick off a wee house tour with a look at the coziest room in the house: the lounge.

Part of me is sad that the landlords blocked up the original fire place. It would be so nice to cuddle up in front of a roaring fire on these chilly evenings. They thoughtfully picked out a lovely faux fire electric heater for us though, so it does sort of feel like a real fire (if I really use my imagination).

Slowly but surely, we've been collecting artwork to put on our walls. I've arranged and rearranged the collection we have thus far, but it doesn't seem quite right for hanging just yet. Just need one or two more pieces and then I can finally clear off the sideboard and admire all that lovely art up on the wall - where it should be. The two pieces on the left in the picture below were done by our neighbour in Regina. The colourful one is done in a technique called crosshatching which blows my mind every time I look at it...thousands of hand-drawn lines done oh so straight without any rulers! Crazy. Beautiful.

This little built-in cabinet has become our little work station. There is a spare room we'd intended to use as an office, but at the moment, the temperature doesn't rise above 10 degrees in that room so we don't really go in there too often. Most days, the laptop sits on this cabinet or in the kitchen...whichever is warmer. The painting was done by the daughter of TDSH's host family in Suriname - way back in 2000! I can't believe it's been that long since he lived there! It's nice to have this little reminder of that time in our house.

When you look at the view out the lounge window, you'd never guess that we live in the middle of a very dense residential area of Dunedin. Sheep graze on that hillside and there are horses just at the base of that hill. We also hear the occasional rooster in the mornings but I have yet to see one. Plenty of people keep chickens around here (one day we will too, I hope). It's hard to believe, but there's another subdivision just on the top of that hill as well...it's the ultimate farm folk/city folk town. Love it!

I'm almost embarrassed to show this corner of the room. A big, beautiful blank wall and not even a stitch of art on it. Shame on me. I MUST get something up there. One day soon...I promise.

Every room in our house can be closed off with doors. So much for open-plan living! To get from our bedroom to the toilet, you have to go through FIVE sets of doors. When it's this hard to heat a home, you really want to be able to close off rooms and heat only what you need. We've turned the doorway from the lounge to the kitchen into an art wall for Abner. When I first showed her the string and pegs and told her she could put up her artwork, she beamed! She feels so proud to have her art on display for everyone to see. I love having it up and seeing what she adds (I don't think she's taken anything down yet, so it's getting kind of full at the moment).

That's about it for the lounge. What room do you want to see next?

One more thing to move

The moving truck arrives in less than three weeks - the perfect time to get a new cutting table, right? Did I mention it's gotta be one of the heaviest tables I've ever seen? Yeah...I might be crazy. What can I say, it was free, it's bright orange and The Dear Sweet Husband didn't stop me. How could I say no?

Around the house: Abner's room

One more stop on our tour around the house: Abner's room. Apart from my sewing room, I think this is my favourite room in our little house on the prairie. We've tried to keep most of the toys and such out of the bedroom and down in the playroom so that it doesn't get too cluttered, but you can always find books and puzzles aplenty in here.

The Dear Sweet Husband's boyhood stuffie, BoJo, holds a place of honour atop the bookcase. He's seen better days so Abner's pretty good about being gentle with him. The family friends who originally gave BoJo to TDSH also gave Abner her own stuffed monkey when she was born. BoJo Jr. sees a lot of play time and is, according to Abner, her "best monkey."

You may have spotted a rather odd item on the bookcase. Yup, that's a picture of Terry and Betty Fox right there. My dad has organized the annual Terry Fox run back home for the past few years. When he and mom came to visit back in October, they brought along this card for Abner as a memento of her first Terry Fox run. Doesn't every three-year-old have a picture of Terry Fox in their room?

Putting things up on the wall was so much fun since I finally had a chance to put up a bunch of pieces that never made it up in our old place. I believe this cross stitch was done by my grandma back in the day. The silhouette was a project I did when Abner was about nine months old. Abner herself took the picture of the trees...it was the very first photo she ever took. All together this wall of pictures makes me very happy!

My grandparents' rocker also made it into the room. The cushion cover I made is looking a little saggy these days, but I still love the colour. So cheery! Abner chose her own bedroom when we moved in and thanks to a giant blue spruce in the front yard, it happens to be the darkest room on the main floor. The bright chair really perks you up in an otherwise dim room.

For now Abner is still in her little toddler bed. I kind of wish she could stay in it a while longer because this room is going to get very crowded when she moves up to a twin!

Around the house: The living room

Continuing our tour around the house, today we're taking a look at the living room. This space really gets a lot of use. Abner loves to climb all over the couch and watch the goings of the neighbourhood. It's the perfect spot to sit and wave to TDSH as he bikes off to work each morning too. Sadly, even after six weeks in the house, we haven't put up any artwork in this room so we are still living with plain off-white walls. Sigh.

Even so, this room has some interesting features like these built-in book cases/room dividers which separate the living room from the entry and hallway. I love the retro feel they give the room and having the built-in shelf space means we've been spared having to replace the wall unit we got rid of in Burnaby.

Nestled in next to one of the bookcase is this fabulous vintage rocker we scored a couple of weeks ago up at the antique shop in Lumsden. The only thing wrong with it was a threadbare seat, so I used a vintage needlepoint pillowcase lined with batting as a little cushion, and voila, it's even cuter than before!

We've all taken a liking to this particular spot in the room. TDSH loves to sit and read, with a little music and a scotch in hand (as I knew he would). Abner likes to rock herself and was found curled up thumbing through Nelson Mandela's Long Walk To Freedom in there last night! [We actually got her the kids' version of that book a few months ago from the library, so at least she knows the gist of the story. This was during her Important Leaders in History phase which also included reading about Martin Luther King and Ghandi. Seriously.]

Another retro feature of the room...genuine wood panelling. Yes, yes, we are lucky indeed! Actually, I kind of like it. Real wood panelling is soooo much nicer than the fake stuff (which, don't you worry, we have plenty of in the basement!) I can't bring myself to drill into the panelling, so this wall will remain naked. For now, I've got my latest garage sale find set up in the living room to display my quilts and other projects.

The room divider screen came with dingy grey fabric (which I suspect may have been white at some point) stapled on. Once that was torn off, it's become the perfect rack for displaying quilts! If I'd tried to design a rack myself, I don't think I could have done a better job...and certainly not for the $7 I paid for the thing! I already have two quilts on the go, but now I want to sew up a few more just to fill it up a bit more. I figure it can hold up to 15 baby quilts!

That box on the floor is another garage sale find. It's made out of an old Gold Seal canned salmon crate and it's perfect for displaying the fabric boxes I've been working on. I used some remnant scrapbooking paper to line the insides since it was rather slivery (that's a word...right?). Actually, now that I look at this picture, I just remembered I still need to staple the paper down! Oh well, you get the idea.

In case you're wondering, I'm planning to use both display pieces if/when I ever sign up for a craft sale. For now, I am sewing like mad to build up a bit of stock. I am in sewing heaven!

Around the house: My sewing room

Now that we're settled in the house, my friends and family have been asking to see what it looks like, so over the next few weeks, I'll do a series of "Around the house" posts to show off some of the corners of our home. Today's post is about my favourite room in the house: my sewing room. My wildest dreams have come true! I have my very own sewing room! It makes me happy...very, very happy to be able to say that.

The floors are beautiful hardwood - perfect for my cutting mat - and the closet is the perfect space to hide away some of my stash. Probably my favourite part of the room is my new pegboard. Yeah, I'm an organizing geek. But look how pretty - and useful - it is!

I made and painted the pegboard myself and hung it with a little help from The Dear Sweet Husband. I've already tackled a few projects since putting it up, and I love being able to see all of my tools at a glance and how easy it is to grab exactly what I need whether it's scissors, rulers or my staple gun.

There was even a bit of space left for some cute art pieces!

I love the bright colours of the thread against the pretty blue of the pegboard. (The paint was left over from painting Abner's dresser.) I figure it will be nice to look at such a cheery colour in the dead of winter in Regina.

To organize some of my smaller fabric pieces, I held on to an unused IKEA CD tower and sorted the fabric by colour...the effect is beautiful and it makes pulling fabrics so easy.

What you can't see from these photos is that there is one giant blank wall that I've purposely left blank. My plan is to pick up some rigid foam insulation and make myself a design board. First, I need to make friends with someone with a vehicle large enough to fit the insulation!

I love, love, love my new sewing room. I love it so much, I sometimes stand in the middle of it and just smile (I even ate my cereal in there the other morning - just because).