Busy Week

The events of my busy week have continued. I have certainly been kept busy and with my holiday coming up I am trying to keep in front.

My workroom is finished, well almost. Tony and I went shopping to Ikea and bought another cupboard to match the others and I also got two large chest of drawers. My aim is not to have anything on the floor. At the moment everything is still in the spare bedroom, but daily I am bringing things down. I will be very brave and sort through and have a keep, sell, give away and bin pile. I know the keep pile will be the biggest.

To keep me organised I have numerous books. I have a book that stays on my sewing table. In this I write the date, the project I want to start with notes of pattern and material and there is a column for finished date. All the projects in this book are bagged and put into shopping bags. I have many Tesco Orla Kiely bags and they go in there. It is these bags I want to get rid of, they are filled with lots of delicious material and patterns, which is the reason for keeping my project book on my sewing table, hoping I will get the projects done. I have my general shorthand book; I make notes in this, of things I make and shopping lists. The designs from this book then go into my design book. Written in long hand and with notes, diagrams and photos. These are then typed up when needed. My latest one is the Denim Tote Bag. My favourite one is my journal. It is very tatted now and not the pristine white it was when I bought it. I stated this way back in 2010, as a way of looking back on my creativeness. I was finding that I couldn’t remember what I had made, or even knew how much I had made, so I started my journal. At the time of writing this I have completed 185 sewing projects and had their creation written in my journal. I have now added a fifth to my collection. This one goes with me everywhere, and I will make it a cover. This has become necessary as I have lots of ideas when I am out and I scribble them on bits of paper. Surfing the web in Costa Coffee during my meal break is a very creative time for me and their napkins aren’t very strong!

In the photo of me in the Chronicle, you will see me “sewing” something. This is a commission for some cushion covers. I really underestimated how long it would take me to make them. I needed to make 30 yards of piping and that took the 3 hours I had assigned for their making. My trusty overlocker was great and did the job perfectly, but it took me over 12 hours to make them. They were huge. But the client loved them and I have learned a valuable lesson or two or three.

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Today I will mainly be making up the Tote Bag kits for my lesson in three weeks. I am working my day job this week, teaching Tuesday night and then off skiing on Sunday. So today is the day for forward planning – who would have believed it?

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