sewing room – Fashion Through Herstory

sorting patterns & fabric

Published on April 21, 2014 by fashionthrougherstory3 Comments

I must confess I’m really bad at keeping order amongst my sewing stuff.

I know it is impotant to be organized if you want to be efficient in your sewing, but sometimes it is so much more tempting to start that new project, then to clean and categorize the previous ones.

This habbit of putting stuff in piles, make it inevitable to once in a while do some serious sorting and cleaning in my sewing room.

And so I have.

I started with my patterns. Since I drafted most of my patterns on my own, they don’t come nicely folded and paced in plastic bags. Instead I needed to do all this categorizing myself.

I putt the patterns in different piles (historic, to use again, trash ect.) and tried my best to mach up all those lose pattern pieces.

When finished I’ve tossed about half of them, and sorted the other ones in paper boxes and binders, nicely labeled with year, measurments, and a quick sketch.

Then it was time to deal with my somehow ever growing fabric stash.

I carried all the fabric boxes and bags into our living rom.

Then I started sorting the fabric in different piles (syntetic, linings, smal scraps, historic ect.)

Some of the piles got quite big. (You might recognize the pink cotton on top (HSF Pink), and the brown flowery cotton print (Sport Anglaise).)The pile for “to make historic costumes of”.

I also found some new fabrics that I’ve forgotten about.A golden patterned syntetic, the striped pistage green “leftover” from my regency gown, and a white striped curtain voile.

Then I packed all the fabrics in different boxes.This is the ones containing syntetics and are going down to the storage in our basement.

And my historic apropirate fabrics, got packed and stored close to hand in my sewing room wardrobe.

I also decided it was time to clean my iron.This cleaning method is the best I’ve ever tried (If you haven’t yet, you really should). You just rubb the white paste to the hot iron and then wipe it of with a cloth. The heat melts the paste and takes the burnt dirt from the iron with it when wiped clean.

How organized are you in your sewing?

Past Sewing “Rooms”

Published on January 21, 2014 by fashionthrougherstory3 Comments

Last time I told you about my favourite room in our new apartment, and I think most of you are in total understanding about how great it feels to have a place dedicated only for sewing (and drawing). But for you how don’t know, I will show you some of my past sewing “rooms”.

But first I think I will tell you about my machines and favourite tools.

This is my sewing machine (Husqvarna Emerald 122), and she’s been faitful (and I to her) for the past 8 years. And hopefully she will stay true for a couple more years, even though the noises she makes make me think she soon will need to slow down and retire.

And this is my overlock/coverlock (Singer Quantum ?) which I bough 5 years ago with my sewing ernings. I’m not as in love with her as I should be, but I guess I never really taken the time to get to know her poperly. She works just fine (even though she sometimes refuses to sew over thick and bulky fabrics). But latley I’ve been abandon her more and more thue to my historical sewing.

This is one of my best buy ever – A steaming iron (Tefal turbo pro). I can have her working all day, and only have to refil her once or twice (without turning her of), and she still never complain or overheat.Sadly she did die the “never stop steaming” death 6 months ago, when something broke inside and she just flooded the room with steam and coulden’t be stopped. So I replaced her with a cousin (which I hate, and dont have any picture of).

I bought this pin-cusion in a dollarstore and she’s been living on my sewing table ever since. Both pretty and useful.

On thing every seamstres needs is some good pressing tools. I love this “tailors ham” and uses it as often as I can. I also just got a “sleeve board” and that’s great working with pants, shirts and shorter straight seams.

I keep my threads in a handy box sorted by collour and type (buttonhole thread, extra strong ect). This photo is old, and I think I will need one more of these boxes now.

Extra points for guessing the use of this cushion. Hint: It’s a floor cusihon… …I use it when cuting fabric on the floor, saves my knees a lot of pain. I acctualy bought this a H&Ms “Home” department 5 years ago, and it’s been great.

***

And now onto my past workspaces.

When I was young, and still lived at my parents house, I use to take the sewing machine (a borrowed one from an aunt) and set it up on the kitchen table. This proved a bit tedious since at every meal I needed to clean it away, and then reset everything once the meal was over.

When I grew older me and my boyfriend’s first apartment was a 2-room, with a fairly big livingroom, where I used one of the corners for my sewing space. Looking at it now it look so messy.

But I did had a big table to set the machine on.

Back then I had this “great” way of storing my up-coming projects – in plastic bags on the floor next to the dressform. Omg, and my boyfriend didn’t leave me. At least I did have a bookshelf for my sewing books.

Only at this time I only had this many sewing/fashion books (half a shell).

“The messy creative process”. But I do remember that chair – It was so old and uncomfortable, having spikes from the seat almost coming through the fabric. You didn’t have those massive sewing spurs that goes on for hours and hours on that chair, I tell you.

Then we moved to a smal 1-room flat, and I needed to choose wisely on which of my sewing things to take to our new home.

Here I got a smal corner behind the beed and the bureau. And do notice the newspaper suffed under the leg to keep the dreadful table somewhat stable.

Doing my pattern drafting at our coffé table.

And the ironing at the window, beside the kitchen bar-table.This was insane, and I missed my dressform a great deal, but it only lasted about 1,5 years.

Then we moved again – and once more we setteled for a 1-room apartment.

Sadly I couldn’t find any pictures of my workspace, which lasted for about 2 years. But I can tell you this 1-room apartments had suprisingly many rooms, like kitchen/sewing room and living room/beed room/saloon/dining room/sewing-in-front-of-the-Tv-room. I basacly had my stuff everywhere.

And now we are living in our 5th apartment – and I finaly got my very own sewing room.

And you know – the smaler your space are, the bigger the dresses will be.

Me (5 years ago) working from under a pile of tuille.

A Room of my Own

Published on January 19, 2014 by fashionthrougherstory5 Comments

My sewing have been on hold for about two weeks because we have been moving.

It is quite frustrating getting this crazy urge to sew and then realising everything you need is un-optanable in the bottom of some box, somewear.

But the move is not all bad, in fact it is great (once we got everything in order). We are up-grading from the various 1-room apartments me and my boyfriend use to live in to a 4-room, and you all know what that means – A sewing room for me!

I think that’s the thing I’m most exited about. And I need to force myself to split my time to get the other rooms in order too – not just “my” room. But it is fun to try to figur out the best way of putting the furniture to get the most out of the (smal) room.

So lets take a look at what I got so far. A cheap bookshell for varyous sewing tings, and boxes of tooles and fabric. All within close reach.

Yesterday I picked this up at a hardwear store. It’s ment for carpenters to keep their nails and such. But it is also perfect for buttons, snaps, ribbons, zippers and everything else you will need.

I also got a sewing table (were both my machine and overlook will live), only to be used for that purpose. (Ignor the bags under it and sthe plastic bag keeping it somewhat stale.)

One of my demands for this room was a wardrobe. And as you can se I’ve stuffed it full. The bags and big boxes conains fabric and will be sorted and stored in our basement.

And I need at least one shell for my historical shoes.

The rest of my costumes are stored in lovely boxes like these ones, sorted by decades or style, (undergarmnents, headwear, 18th century dresses, ect.)

This next thing is something I’ve been dreaming about for a long time.

To get all my fashion and sewing books gathered at on place.And now I have it. One hole bookshell for my sewing literature (there are also some books about art, design, textiles and historical people).

These two shells are reseved for my historical costuming. I think I will need some more books, to cover the holes in the ranks.

And trying to be a bit more organized this year, I got a whiteboard to write all the necessary “keep in minds” on. Like HSF challenges, costumers info, up-coming events and what I will wear (and need to make) for it.

And as my cuting/drawing table I got this arcitects table from my boyfriend (It has a glas insertion, which can be lit from beneath, to help copying drawings). Sorry for the mess.

(Last week I was busy polishing up my portfolio for aplications to a school).

And the best way to get a overview of yor work is to trow them all on the floor (ehm, no).

And this week my room has changed again.Now the focus lies on the 1880s opera gown, and trying to keep track of both time and money spent on the dress.

The dressform also fits into the room (barely).

But I will continue to do most of the handsewing in the couch watching movies.

I’m really happy about my sewing room, but I guess it will take a while to figur out exactly how to keep everything in the best way.