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Am I the only one who thinks of Red Dwarf when I see one of these?

The @#$%@#!! Living Room Ceiling

Well, guys, I finally did it.  I painted the goddamned living room ceiling.

I started the ceiling project in 2012 - three years ago - with my then-master bedroom, followed by the dining room, kitchen, hallways, and eventually the guest bath and two small bedrooms as I re-made them a year ago when Sylvan moved in.  By the time that I got to the living room, I was out of steam, out of paint, out of time in which to work, and injured, to boot.  (I'm still injured, but fuck it).

The holiday weekend past gave me a much-needed break from working two jobs and filling every spare second of time with sleep, depression, and sewing projects (my Very Last Commission Ever is going up on the SCA blog shortly - it's a doozy).  What'd I do for Thanksgiving?  I painted the goddamned living room ceiling!  Yay!

Halfway there. Bye-bye, stupid blue ceiling that turned the whole house
into a cave. The paint is [two coats of] a self-priming latex interior which
I mixed to match the other ceilings in the house ("White Clay" by Behr).
The kitchen cabinets are the same color).

The "clean end" of the room (the other end still had paint stuff
all over it).  I love the feeling of height this gives the room.

And I adore this little corner.  Corner windows: check. 
Table fulla plants: check. Dog sleeping under the table:
heehee. 

YAY!

Okay, so, technically there IS still one room I haven't gotten around to yet, ceiling-wise: the master bath.  But I have plans for the entire master suite (which is now a gigantic craft room), and I'm not touching ANYTHING in there until I'm ready to do the whole room (and have time, and money, and my arm's not trying to fall off, and I'm no longer working two jobs, which I still am at present. Ugh).  

Shelly, the Biggest Derp.

P.S.:  Oh!  Idk if you noticed (does anybody even read this horrible blog? Probably not, but it's still fun to do), but I also rearranged all the furniture.  Pics of all very soon, I promise.

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Something I Want Out of Something I Don't Want

I loved my dining room table.  I really did.  Thing is, I never used it as a dining table.  It was too small to seat more than 2-3 people comfortably, and since when do I have dinner parties?  It was mostly a flat surface that accreted random detritus, and it was wasting space.  Meanwhile, I've been wanting a round coffee table for some time.  So I took the dining table apart, cut about a foot and a half out of the pedestal, and reassembled the whole thing: 

Before:

2013

After: 

And then...

I made myself a little time-out corner in the dining room, instead.  A couple of extra tub chairs that didn't fit in the living room, and the [antique?] plant stand/table that a friend gave me a few years ago.  I needed a comfy place to sit and use my asthma nebulizer machine, and now I have one.  Yay!

Ta-da!

A "New" China Cabinet For the Dining Room

After I re-purposed my old china cabinet into the living room as a bookcase, I was given another one by a friend about a year ago.  It was really big, and wasn't really my style; but I had another friend who was interested in trading her china cabinet for it.  It took us a while to coordinate the swap (she lives on the opposite side of town, and we're both pretty busy), but we finally did it last weekend.  The new cabinet is an Ikea LEKSVIK cabinet (discontinued):

The bottom half  is full of Sylvan's and my cookbooks; and the top houses some of my rock and mineral collection, which hasn't been on display for the past couple of years since I moved the other china cabinet.  Yay, rocks!

Top: shells in the back left corner; naturally-formed crystal points and clusters
Middle: carved spheres and points, a jar of tumbled stones, and a fluorite plate
Bottom: mostly fluorite, with a couple of decorated rocks from the garden

Somewhere I have a box full of fossils, and another box containing my sulfurs, chalcanthite, and a few other things; but I have NO idea what I've done with the boxes.  I'm so organized.  (x_x)



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"New" Furniture For the Craft Room

Playing the sliding-tiles game with furniture in my house again:  

Problem: 

• a giant armoire full of towels and sheets in my bedroom, which was in my way, and was also inaccessible to my roommate when I was asleep in there
• a mostly-empty hall closet
• some slapdash shelves on a corner wall in my craft room, full of boxes of fabric and supplies, and  surrounded by piles of same on the floor

Solution: 

1. I removed the shelves in the craft room and put them up in the hall closet, and moved all the linens into the hall closet where they're accessible to everyone
2. I moved the armoire to that corner of the craft room, and re-organized the boxes and supplies into it

(I don't have pics of the hall closet - there's so little light in that hallway that I can't get a decent one.  It's basically just shelves in a closet, though). 

And then...

A friend and I swapped dressers over the weekend - my small one for her large one (she wanted to use two smaller dressers in her daughter's room instead of one huge one).  And so this came home with me on Saturday: 

Ikea HEMNES

Most of my fabric stash had been stored in sixteen of those white plastic Ikea (SNALIS, discontinued) boxes (like the two on top of this dresser in the pic), stacked in/on top of that long, low, black shelving unit under the window in the pic (it'll be re-homed soon).  The contents of all but those two boxes fit neatly into the four main drawers in this dresser, and I got all of my small scraps into the smaller drawers at the top.  

So, what do I do with fourteen 5-gal plastic boxes?  I'm not sure yet.  They'll probably end up holding craft supplies in the closet in this room, or full of small tools and things in the garage.  



Cross-posted from my SCA sewing blog, clothofstars.blogspot.com

I'm Not Dead

I may feel like it at times, but I'm not. I promise. 

There's not much going on at my house at the moment aside from sewing.  Because of the new job, I got really behind in my costuming work, so I've done almost nothing else since the end of June, trying to get caught up.  I'm just about there - my last commission for the summer should be out the door by the end of this week, and I only have two to get done in August, thank goodness.

I'm embarrassed to admit, since I've been working in the real world and at my costuming thing, I've kinda let the house go to hell.  We all do it, from time to time.  I'm hoping that in August I'll have time to get some long-overdue projects done. 

What I did do, over the past weekend, was repair my stupid dishwasher.  About two weeks ago it decided it just wasn't going to get any of the dishes wet anymore, for whatever reason.  I washed dishes by hand for a while, until I finally got enough spare time (and energy) to crawl around on the floor in the kitchen.  Thankfully, after clearing the drain of various detritus and tightening up a few things that had worked themselves loose, it seems to be working fine again.  *knocks wood*

What's Going On Right Now: 

Not a lot.  I have a huge pile of stuff to take the Goodwill at some point this week - furniture, old electronics, and several bags of old clothes, towels, and blankets - that's all sitting around in my dining room right now, waiting to get shoved out the door.  That'll make a bit of room so that I can start getting some real work done, as soon as I have time. 

Other than that, to be honest, I'm not sure what I'll tackle first.  There are a lot of small maintenance projects around the house that I keep meaning to get to, some things that need painting, and a couple of big things I'd really LOVE to work on but haven't had time for. 

The one project that is coming up, that I'll likely start later this week, is staining a pair of end tables for a friend of mine.  He bought a house last year, and at the time I stained a dining room table for him that he bought at the local unfinished furniture place - these end tables came from the same store.  It'll be a fun, quick little project to take my mind off sewing for a while.  I'll show you pics when I'm done. :)

Til then, my friends.

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Some Sewing!

I have new furniture!!!  And I finally got a job!!!   More on that soon...er...as soon as I get this disaster-zone of a house cleaned up and can get some nice pics.  Meanwhile:

Yesterday I made a dress for a 1950s-themed July 4th garden party for next weekend.  I made the pattern myself, based off of similar dresses from the 50s I've seen online.  I wish I'd been able to make the skirt fuller, but I botched the top  (the entire top is all one piece) and had to re-cut it. I still have accessories to put together and a hat to trim up;  pics of it after the party.

Here's the muslin that I draped up on my mannequin while developing the pattern, pinned together and covered with Sharpie notes. I did this back in March; when I made the dress yesterday, I actually had to bring both dress and mannequin down by two whole sizes, yay!

Earlier this month: 

I needed new clothing for my new workplace:  my last job was jeans-and-t-shirts casual, and after five years, I had NO nice, office-y clothes to wear.  I'd also been thinking for more than a year about making some of my old batik sarongs into cute tops, so I put the two ideas together and made some blouses for work at the beginning of June:

A simple peasant blouse with elastic neck
and cuffs, made with my medieval chemise pattern 

A brown leafy tunic with flutter sleeves, adapted from
Simplicity 2690

A little skirt, using the fringe edge of the
sarong for the hem and patch pockets. 

A drawstring "pillowcase" top (not
for work), made in the same way I made
 the top of this set of PJs back in March, from
a pair of old wrap pants. 

In other news: 

I am also a redhead now.  My hair [was] nearly black, naturally, but I started going gray in my TEENS.  It's been many varieties of dark auburn over the years, as well as cherry red, navy blue,  and several purples;  I decided to start growing out my gray - because I've always wanted, since I was a kid, to have loooong, white hair when I'm an old lady (because of the fairy godmother character in the book The Princess and the Goblin).  Since it's easier to maintain root color updates on lighter hair, and also to blend gray/white in with lighter colors, I decided why not go balls-out ginger for a while before finally fading/growing it out?  :) 

My Ikea Hyllis Is On IkeaHackers Today!

IkeaHackers is featuring my Hyllis entertainment console makeover today!  You can see the post

HERE.

And since I've actually finished that wall since I sent them the email, here's a shot of it all put together (until I change it again, you know how I am):

The original blog post about how I did it is here.


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I Made A Thing!

Actually, I made a bunch of things.  I made my bedroom clean. (And re-arranged the furniture).  And then I made my sewing room clean. (And rearranged the shelving).   Pics of all that soon.

For now, though:  my sewing chair reeeeally needed an update.  I re-covered the back of it when I brought it home from the as-is bin at Ikea, waaaaay back in October of 2011.  The back fabric was still okay (aside from a couple of holes), but the seat had never been recovered, and it had definitely seen better days. It was covered with paint and loose threads, and the fabric had been worn shiny in a couple of large, butt-cheek-shaped spots.

Before: 

Oh, also?  It was...beige.  So office-y. 

After: 

Is that not some crazy grandma-riffic fabric?  Hee.  I've had this (printed, drapery-weight, cotton) fabric sitting in a bin for a couple of years, and though it's pretty horrible, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it.  It's BLUE!  Like 90% of my stuff is blue.  And it's fun-horrible, tee-hee.

Both the seat cover and the back are just slip-

covers closed with a drawstring underneath.
Ikea's seat cover was permanently affixed to the
under-side of the seat.  I left the beige cover on
the back, because it was the only thing covering

the bare foam. 

The back also has a discreet zipper on one side

edge. When I made the original beige cover, I had

to slip-stitch the open side closed by hand (because the top of the back is wider than the 

bottom). This time I just happened to have a zipper

that kinda coordinated. :) 

The whole slipcover project only took me about an hour.

That was after an hour of ripping four years' worth of sewing detritus from inside the wheels.  It rolls again! Yay! Ew.

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More Clothing!

What finally got me off my ass and sewing the purple bathrobe I posted the other day?  I'll be driving to Dallas this weekend with friends for a spa day at King Spa & Waterpark. I. CANNOT. WAIT.  I mean, can you imagine a cooler place to hang out?  It's a spa WITH SLIDES.  Seriously, you guys.

So, in addition to the pretty robe, I whipped together a couple of other things for this coming weekend:

Pants To PJs

In my SCA travels, I frequently end up in hotel rooms during and after events - long trips often require a break and a hot shower before the road trip back, and sometimes events are rained (or frozen, or baked) out and a group of us will end up bailing on the camping idea and just hotel it for the event.  And I'm always the dump truck in the ratty old Iron Maiden tshirt and men's boxers, hehe.  So I decided to do something about that for this coming weekend.

This set was made from an old pair of wrap pants I purchased a million years ago and then never wore because they were too short.  I cut the legs off and hemmed the resulting shorts, then made the top out of the pant legs that I had removed, like this: 

(I sewed the rectangular pants legs together at the sides, hemmed the top, and
ran a single drawstring through both front and back at the top, to form straps). 

And Of Course, 

A girl needs a swimsuit at a spa/waterpark (spaterpark?)  While I'm an admitted swimsuit junkie, I currently don't have any that fit me properly AND that I wanted to actually wear.  This weekend is an event:  it requires a new suit, dangit!  Tee-hee.  

After testing out patterns on a couple of old tshirts (and assing them up completely. Three times), I decided to go with an "Infinity Dress" style top to wear with some plain black suit bottoms I already have:  

I used a pattern based on the one in this blog post.  The only changes I made were to shorten the skirt drastically and gather the top edge a bit so it would flare over hips and stomach, omit the waistband entirely, and to shorten the "tube top" section into one that would function AS a waistband and also cover just my bust instead of my entire torso.  The fabric is a slinky, shiny, jersey knit that I've had laying around for years.  The teal-and-purple knotwork design at the bottom is printed directly on the selvage edge of the fabric. 

It's hard to see the upper edge of the back in these pics, since my mannequin, Violet, is wearing a black tshirt at the moment (I really need to make her a proper cover), so I put a red arrow in the second picture so you can see how high the back is.  

I'm doing a great job not sewing for a while, huh?  

FUCK. 

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It Goes "Ding" When There's Stuff!

I wasn't going to sew anything for one month after I got back from SCA Gulf Wars, since I'd been sewing practically nonstop for four months straight; but I did break that rule for this, yesterday:

No kidding, I've had this purple jersey knit fabric sitting in a bag for _over a year_ waiting for me to "just be done with this one project" before I'd start it.  Meanwhile, the knit bathrobe I made for myself in 2008 was literally full of holes (puppy) and falling apart at the seams.  So I made this one to replace it.  The pattern is the same as the Japanese clothing I've made in the past for Sir Takuan's samurai costumes in the SCA, and also the one I used for my short, silk robe/cover-up last year.

SO COMFY WOW.  

I've also been working in the yard - cleaning up, and building new garden beds in the backyard.  This is the year I get back out into the garden, yay!  I'm in the midst of it this weekend; I'll have pics when I'm done.  (More details on my garden blog).  

Don't worry, I'm up to my EYEBALLS in stuff I'm working on in the house, too, and I'll have posts and pics later this week! I also have a spiffy new phone coming in the mail in a couple of days - with a better camera on it!  :D 

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OHAI I forgot.

You know, I was looking over my blog(s) the other day, and realized that I never actually posted finished pics of the new craft room (aka "Room of Requirement")!

Okay, so, you've seen the old version:

Which is now my bedroom:  

And my old bedroom, which in this picture is filled with stuff from the old sewing room, during the room swap.  I haven't been a "hanging out in my room" person since I was a teenager.  Who needs all this room to just sleep?

At first, Sylvan and I thought we'd put our work tables in the center of the room, like this: 

Before she'd even moved in, I realized how very, very much that was NOT going to work.  My sewing machine vibrated both tables so much that she'd never have been able to work like that; and also, since all my sewing stuff was jammed up against the wall behind me, but my cutting table was on the opposite side of the room, I kept having to get up and walk around while I was working.  

So we drew up a new floor plan that worked better for both of us, with each of us with a work table against a wall, storage around, and my cutting table in the center, which is easier for me to get to without having to stand up if I don't need to, and also so that we can BOTH use the cutting table as a large, open work surface if needed: 

(made with Icovia Floor Planner) 

And here is the finished Room of Requirement, and folks, this is about as tidy as it gets.

CAUTION:  WOMEN AT WORK!

It works great.  We both love it, and we're both enjoying spending time in there crafting together.  When she moved in, we put her TV in the living room, and put my [smaller] one in the craft room, so we frequently have a movie on in the background while we work (usually a Disney animated flick; though my go-to when I'm working alone is Pride and Prejudice, in case you're wondering.  When it's just me and just music, I listen to a lot of Chinese flute, for some reason. It's calming).  

Meanwhile, I haven't been doing much around the house at all for the past several months, because I've been going nonstop on the SCA stuff (which is all here at my SCA blog, if you're interested).  And then there was Raven, and some sitting around moping for a while, while I was processing.

Also, looking over this blog recently, I realize that I am utter PANTS and things like: 

• decent photographs of anything
• posting finished pictures and follow-up on previous posts

That's going to change, guys.  I hate looking at this blog and being disgusted with myself.  I had this same issue with my SCA blog back in September, made some serious revisions to my organization and self-management, and it's been working out great - I'm really proud of my SCA work, and my SCA blog.  This one?  Not so much.  It's going to get better.  

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Fück This Shirt

My first foray into customizing clothing with ink and stamps!  

T-shirt:  $3 from my favorite thrift store (Thrift Town, Austin TX) 

Stamps and ink provided by my bff/roommate (StazOn solvent ink, which isn't made for fabric, but it's supposed to be permanent on virtually any surface, so, we'll see). 

Raven

I'm back three days early from my SCA trip.  While my allergies virtually disappear every time I leave central Texas (thank goodness), the humidity in Mississippi kept my asthma topped out so badly that I could barely leave camp by Wednesday morning/Tuesday evening. I also dislocated my right collarbone early in the week.

While I was gone, my elderly dog, Raven, was suddenly hit by all of his health issues (some known, mostly unknown) exploded all at once.  He spent two days in the hospital.  I packed up camp Wednesday night and hit the road Thursday morning, driving straight from Gulf Wars to the emergency vet clinic, where I spent a last couple of hours with him before he went to sleep for the last time.

Between dog issues and health issues, please excuse my absence from this blog for a bit longer, while I spend some time on both emotional and physical healing.

Raven
August 2001 - March 19th, 2015

"Ok...Who Had 'Two Months'? Two Months? Anyone?"

That would be the sound of my BFF pretending to have taken bets on how long it takes me to completely re-do something once I've finished re-doing it, LOL.  She's kinda right.

In this case, it's the new bedroom from back in November:

Don't get me wrong, I love it.  I was really skeptical about moving from such a huge, open bedroom, into this weeny tiny one, but I LOVE how cozy and secure it feels to sleep in this space.  I haven't been in the habit of just hanging out in my bedroom since I was a teenager, so this room is actually pretty perfect, space-wise, since I only use it for sleeping and dressing.

Between the closet, dresser, and armoire, I have all the storage I need.  I love the colors, the curtains, and the way the room works both visually and functionally.

So what needed changing?

The Bed

You guys remember the big, wooden, canopy bed that I built back in 2009, right?

L-R:  building in 2009, bedroom 2009, 2011, and 2013

As much as I've always loved this bed, it had gotten to be too big - and it was definitely too big for my new, smaller bedroom.  And although I like having a low bed these days, in the new bedroom it wasn't on any sort of frame or platform at all - the box spring was directly on the floor, and it was too low, and too close to where all the dog hair lives.  Blech.

I also really love the metal Ikea headboard;  but I did NOT love the way it mounted directly onto the wall.  It never stayed on the wall, and every time I so much as moved a pillow, the thing would rattle and clang.  And because it mounted to the wall, it limited where I could put the bed in the new bedroom as well.

And so I cut down the posts of the wooden bed.  I made the feet shorter (the bottom of the bed frame is only 4" from the floor), and I turned the 7' canopy posts into shorter, "normal" sized bed posts (60" at the head, and 23" at the foot).  I touched up the stain job on all of the pieces, and reset the mounting brackets as well.  I removed the head-rail piece from the bed, and mounted the Ikea headboard directly onto the posts at the head of the bed using copper tube straps (spray-painted black), so that it was all one piece, and free of the wall - which let me re-position the bed to allow for more floor space in the room.

BEFORE

AFTER - SO MUCH MORE FLOOR! 

Now to get some stuff up on that big, empty wall above the bed.  ☺


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SCA Crossover: Refinishing A Chair

 I recently refinished a piece of wooden SCA furniture for a friend in the group, for his campsite.  It had definitely seen better days:

(all of these pics are halfway through sanding, to show just how much *crud* is in/on this wood)

Don't get me wrong, it's a good chair.  It's extremely well-made, sturdy, and not a joint is out of place, though it looks horrible.  What you're looking at is several years' worth of

• rain/water damage
• sun exposure/oxidation
• corroded varnish
• sweaty fighter butts (ewww)

Not only was the finish shot, but the wood was so swollen with weather and age in places that the chair wouldn't fully open OR close...rendering a really nice chair completely useless. 

I'll be honest, I was dreading the prospect of sanding allllll those pieces individually.  I guess the chair, or the Universe, or the Powers-That-Be heard me - because I could NOT get this thing apart to save my life.  I tried every tool at my disposal, got friends to help me, even tried to grind the hardware out, but it appears to have been made of naquadah-enhanced unobtanium, and sealed with black magic.  @_@  In the end I had to sand and stain this thing WHILE FULLY ASSEMBLED.  I'm here to tell you that was a bitch. 

BUT I got it done: 

(I could no longer feel my hands after this...and it still needed more sanding)

Here's the first coat of stain, applied very, very carefully, with a small brush and a lot of paper towels.  The chair is solid oak, and pretty well weathered and seasoned; still, I didn't want to chance the stain swelling the wood and undoing all the work I put into buffing down the seat pieces so that this thing would move properly again.  Rubbing stain into the wood with paper towels keeps too much stain from soaking in and swelling the wood, and it also gives you a LOT more control over the depth and amount of color.  

(oooh, aahhh)

After two more coats of stain, and several coats of spray poly-acrylic (for a low-tack, matte-sheen clearcoat, rather than a polyurethane which could stick in hot weather), it was finally done:

(The dark area of the back piece was severely stained, deep enough that I couldn't surface clean it out, or even sand it off the wood.  It's the same on the reverse of the piece; in fact, it's worse on the other side.  I have no idea what caused it, but, this was the best I could do with it). 

Sir John's and his lady Bridget's devices painted on the center of the back rest, in acrylic paint, and heavily clear-coated to prevent scratching.

Tada!