A real, useable garment

This weekend I still spent time decorating and remaking my sewing room.

I painted the legs of my ironing board white. This is a very old, very sturdy ironing board – which I inherited from my mother in law. Few ironing boards I have used are so heavy that they do not wobble when moving around the piece to be ironed. This one doesn’t budge. But the legs were ugly with stained, pox-marked and slightly pee-yellow paint and the board it self covered with a likewise stained and ugly cover I bought years ago from IKEA. So the board is practical but ugly. Now I am giving it a make-over and look forward to having a pretty ironing board to take its place in a corner of my sewing room. I love that I will easily be able to access it and do my seam pressing and final ironing – as well as doing my daily ironing in my pretty room. Previously the ugly board – and I along with it – were standing in the basement just besides the shoe shelves. Not a cosy spot to iron.

I have also painted the seats and backs of the two chairs I have in my room. I find it very practical to have two chairs at my sewing station – one for the sewing machine and one for the serger. This way I don’t need to move those around when I move between the machines.

The chairs are thrifted from my husbands work place where they were actually used in the sewing room there (he works as a stage technician at the Royal Danish Theatre where their costume design department is huge and goes through chairs very fast. There is still a lot of life in them for private use however and I am grateful to have 2 good chairs infused with professional creativity).

But sewing, well I haven’t really done much yet. One thing I have finished however and I am pleased with that – even if I am not too pleased with the actual making of the garment. I used a pattern from Stof og Stil (24022) making the shrug (the pattern envelope also includes a pattern for a coat). The style is cosy and as I have made it in bubble wool it is warm and fluffy. I lined all the edges with gros grain so the inside is looking nice.

But honestly it didn’t really feel like making a garment. I mean – I sewed two sides together from an H-shaped piece of fabric and that was it. No fitting, no construction, no matching pieces together (though I did manage to sew together the wrong sides of the H-shape – so maybe I am not really ready to take on something more complex!). But I like the shrug itself – it is easy to wear and I am sure I’ll use it a lot. And at least I have finished a project and put the sewing room to its proper use.