I am sewing - sort of

When I started this blog, I thought of it as a catalogue of finished projects.  By posting each project, I thought that I would "force" myself to sew in a more organized fashion.  I am certainly motivated by those of you who consistently post new items.  I too, could produce things at a rather consistent rate, or so I thought.  Reality sets in, every so often, unfortunately.  I seem to have a backlog of things that need attending to.  One, this week, had nothing to do with sewing.  I had a mass of paperwork that needed to be sorted, filed or shredded.  This is part of an ongoing project of moving things around in the house, the most important part of which is moving the sewing out of the "bat cave" by the furnace to the large room that used to be part office, part "family room".  I finally realized that I just had to bite the bullet and get the job done.  The carrot at the end of the stick is the fact that I will have a lot more room, and  I will actually have windows to see outside, even if they are small.  There's still a lot to do, but I think that I've finally overcome the most dreaded job, and I will now be able to get things moving more quickly.

Other backlog items seem to have nothing to do with MY stuff.  I seem to have accumulated a lot of my mother's mending.  She will call up and ask one of two things - "What colour thread do you have in your sewing machine?"  or "Could you come over  and rethread my machine?"  Hint, hint - she needs something mended.  It always seems easier to just tell her to drop things off, and to take care of them at some point.  Some point doesn't come around all too quickly, hence - a stack of things that really shouldn't even be in my house!  I decided that those really had to be gotten out of here.  Boring sewing, but it had to be done.  (Why do old people insist on mending things that should have been thrown out years ago?  Am I going to be like this, when I hit my eighties?  Perish the thought!  I will always prefer sewing something to new, to mending something old.)

Thank-you for all your lovely comments, and to answer a few of the questions...  Yes, the satin stitching on the jacket was done on my regular sewing machine.  I've used this "cheater" method a number of times before - I don't even remember where I got the idea from.  It does end up looking like piping.  It also covers the raw edge of the facing beautifully.  The only trick is to play around with some samples to make sure that the stitching doesn't create tunneling on thinner fabrics, hence the stabilizer. 

And ...  I have actually been sewing something useful-to-the-wardrobe.  I started on a "suit".

This is Vogue 1166.  I bought the pattern back in the spring.  Didn't get around to making it then.  Thought that I would leave it until next spring.  Then I saw it made up in wintry fabrics in the Vogue Patterns magazine, and that gave me some ideas.  I have a silk tweed that would work for the jacket.  Started pulling out fabrics that would go with the tweed, and what do you know - the beginnings of a "capsule" - if I persevere with sewing all the pieces.  Oddly enough, I did not begin with the jacket, as I usually do in these cases.  I started with the pants (and yes, I did add a fly front to these, despite the pattern!).  They're done.  On with the jacket.

On a parting note - I am trying to improve my photography skills, really I am.  It's all in the lighting, right?  As you can probably tell, I've been trying various locations in the house, since each room has more or less sun coming in.  I've noticed that many of you take your photos outside.  With winter coming - that is not an option around here.  Besides, I really have nowhere to hang things outside.  May-be I should have have paid more attention to what the photographer of the family was doing before he passed on to a better world.  But then, one never thinks of these things at the time.