spring cleaning the wardrobe

With the sun shining and a rather chilly minus 2 in the studio, I decided cold or no, I was going to light the fire and spend the day shut away in my studio.

It only took a couple of hours to get the temperature up to 8°c, and then I was good to go, coat off and erm........ well a whole load of spring cleaning first actually.

What is it about an unused room that over winter you just get in the habit of opening the door and throwing stuff in then closing the door and walking away?

After battling past the coffee table dumped in the middle of the rug, nestled up against the stool I have promised to someone else but not got round to dropping off, then sidestepping the two bags of donated clothes, the bag of castoffs from Thea's wardrobe; I ended up tripping over the two hangers of clothes needing some attention to make them fit that I had casually left lying on the table that was then used to elongate our dining table for New Year so someone (who shall remain nameless lest I get caught up in finding new swear words to rhyme with husband) had dumped them on the floor and left them there.

By lunch time with the temperature up to a very moderate 16°c in there, I settled in to finally do some sewing, after my machine had defrosted sufficiently to allow the oil to lubricate it.

Two pairs of trousers turned up, two tops with the elastic removed and new hems added, one shirt collar fixed, one jumper seam fixed, two pairs of jeans turned up and one pair of jeans with the waist band adjusted - and for once adjusted in the right way.

Here is my super easy, super fast way of taking in the waistband on a pair of jeans (as long as you are not too fusy and do not require your jeans to be perfect and are therefore happy with a few loose threads - although if you do require your jeans to be perfect you probably iron a crease up the centre of the legs in which case stop reading now and go away you scary person).

Ahem - ok, take a sharp pair of scissors and cut off the waistband. Remove the belt loops from the waistband and the jeans. Discard the belt loops - the object of the excerise is to take in the waist itself and therefore not need a belt to hold up your pants.

Rough cut edges to rough cut edges mean that you have to turn the waistband upside down.

Pin the end of the waistband that has the button on it to the flap of material that covers the zip, then with the zip closed, pin the waistband all the way around, gather if required at the pocket side edges.

If you are doing this to stretch jeans then you won't need to gather because you can stretch the waistband to meet the material.

Fasten the waistband button over the zip to make sure that you have a straight even front. (Because this is where lumps and gathers will show if you are not careful.)

Make sure any slack is pulled taut and pinned in place at the side seams, this is also where the material is at its thinnest and so the easiest place to pin and add any darts if needed.

Then sew in place with a thick cotton thread - either in that gold/cream colour of denim stitching or something more discreet.

This method is also great for taking down high waisted jeans for shorties like me.

Held hostage by my teen

The last day of the school holidays and I expected Thea to spend the day glued to the TV or the Playstation.

(sniggers evily) - that is of course after I made her help me this morning. We had a pantry clean up and brought in all the jars of jam and chutney from the barn and stacked them in the new spaces we created inside, cleaned all the shelves down and reordered everything, then scrubbed the floor clean around the gas cooker.

After all that when she sloped off to her room I did not expect to see her again until this evening when she normally starts demanding pizza or chips or some such teen food.

So you could have knocked me over with a feather when she turned up at the door of the studio and asked whether I would stop sewing and spend some time with her watching a film or something.

In the end she set up the laptop in the studio - well I did have the fire lit and she discovered my biscuit stash - and we had a lovely afternoon watching box set DVDs, giggling, eating junk food and I still managed to get quite a bit of my cross stitch done - did you guess what it is yet? - you can just make it out in the photo.

You also just see the bag I had started to make when she trotted up, but the machine was too noisy to run over the DVD so I have that to look forward to tomorrow!

Quick reversible bag from recycled fabrics

With my departure date looming large on the horizon and storm clouds even larger with imminent rain, decided to have a couple of tranquil hours in the studio before having to close the door on it for 10 days.

Took this sari/skirt that had been recently donated and unpicked it while watching The Hotel Inspector, then combined with a donated dress I made up this reversible bag. It is just lacking a button for the fastening.

Unplugged my stereo, turned off my trusty sewing machine, and switched the lights off. Be back soon.

Friday the 13th - chill out day in the studio.

Not being a suspicious kind of person Friday the 13th does not really affect how I organise my day, but this stinking head cold that is persisting had a great influence on me instead. I decided as the weather has been a little chilly and I was not feeling so good still to spend the day catching up on things in the studio instead.

I started by lighting my little fire. This lovely little enamelled fire is not really big enough to warm the room effectively in winter when temperatures drop to -16°C (daytime temperatures), but it is quite adequate to take the chill off a room in spring and autumn. Now I know that in August we are strictly speaking in the height of summer, but my temperature gauge was only registering 15°C in the studio and I have a desperate need to keep my Lemsip levels high so I lit the fire anyway, just for an hour to warm the place up so I could be comfy for the day and to boil the kettle.

It also occured to me that the photos on my blog are a bit of a lie. They only show the studio as it was when first finished. So I took a couple that tell the real story.  (and even that is a bit of a lie because I tidied up recently and now you can see the floor and some of the worktables which were buried just a couple of days ago!)

So from left to right is my ideas board which is actually an old picture frame that I have strung some wire across and use little mini pegs to attach things to, my Christmas pressie the stereo and mp3 player, the comfy armchair and book for when things get too much, the cutting table I stole from Brendan back in June with the big mirror underneath that I have not worked out how to hang up yet, then there is the lovely 'POSH' rug that my mum sent for the dog for his Christmas bed a couple of years ago, and shelving holding just some of the material I have to play with.

Then continuing around the room, just visible on the left is the table with the iron on, a chair I tried to shabby chic paint effect but looks really naff, a pine bed shelf that I found in the sales and made Bren fix to the wall, a tapestry frame covered in work in progress items, a chinese folding screen with pockets full of sewing magazines and patterns, then my Ikea tables that I work on, luckily the other 3 boxes of old clothes are hidden from sight.

The floor is concrete but a lovely friend gave me the rug so at least my little tootsies stay warm, and you can just see Molly posing in the nude on the right.  360° tour of the studio.

The brick built end is actually a bread oven, which is what my studio used to be.

The oven was shared historically by 5 houses, who would stoke the fire up and bake their bread every other day or so.  The fire would be lit in the oven (behind the black door) and allowed to burn fiercely until all the brickwork was hot, the dough would be left to proof underneath in the hollow space.  Once the oven was at baking temperature, the dough would be moved out of the way and the fire would be shovelled into the hollow and left to go out basically (it is just a niche with no flue there), and the bread would be put into the oven.  It is quite a big oven, 1 metre x just over a metre, so lots of loaves would bake at the same time.  It had not been used for a long time, and in fact we used to store our wood and coal in there until Brendan installed his death saw in the barn and we moved our wood next to that.  When the bread oven  was empty I could finally see how large it was and how it made a perfect den, originally intended for Thea, but I took first dibs at moving in.

Despite making a mess of the pattern cutting yesterday I thought I would continue with my table cloth tunic top as if nothing else it would be good practise, so I whizzed up the hems with the machine and made a couple of straps in the same contrast fabric as I used for the interfacing on the front and finished the top.

  Unfortunately the cutting error means it is unlikely to fit me, will have to see if I can convice Thea to wear it....

On the plus side the tablecoth is large enough to have another couple of attempts at this pattern.

The malevolent harbinger of viral rhinopharyngitis......................

..................................has scattered their foul spore upon me........in other words............... I have a stinking cold and am feeling pretty rough.

I thought I might console myself with a couple of hours in the studio as any form of out door activity currently leaves me huffing and puffing like a poorly maintained steam train attempting to negotiate a 1 in 7 gradient without the advantage of a rack and pinion track.

Little did I realise that the pesky virus was sorely affecting my eyesight too.

There I was quite happily snipping up the tablecloth I bought the other week, pinning out the tunic top pattern that I am going to sew up when suddenly I realised that not only had I cut into the pattern but when I started pinning it I was trying to match right side to wrong side.

One Lemsip later and I am feeling no better.

In fact Thea sent me to bed an hour ago and I am being very naughty typing away like this when she thinks I am sleeping.

Whilst lying around feeling sorry for myself I had a flash of inspiration and decided on the best way to recover the tapestry stool I have in a corner of the bed room, that is now sticking out like a sore thumb against my beautifully painted purple wall, so I sneaked out of bed, got my note pad and had a quick scribble.

Have to go now, I hear Thea's tread upon the stair and if she finds me up she will punish me!

Pacing myself

I have not been in my studio for a while, what with one thing and another recently, mostly gardening.

When I got home from work this afternoon it was still raining and therefore an ideal time to go and shut myself in away from the telephone which rang itself off the hook this morning.

I thought I would ease myself in gently having negelected Molly the Dolly since buying her the weekend before last, and so grabbed a few things that just needed minor alterations in order to be wearable, thank you once again to the donors.

I tried to get back to the top that I am making from a pattern but I was all fingers and thumbs trying to fold delicate pleats in and then I could not be bothered to move everything around to get to the mirror to adjust the straps, so it is still not finished but it does at least have some hemming around the armholes now, a button and I attached the bit of upholstery braiding to the hem.  Almost done now.  

Sunday's brief project - fly curtain for the studio.

We went to the sales yesterday.

Considering how rotten I was feeling and how much my psyche was begging for some retail therapy to ease it, I managed to stay strong and resist all the bargain clothes reductions - I didn't even buy a pair of pretend suede ankle boots  in soft beige with big buckles and stocky cowboy stack heels that I found in the sales reduced to 12€.  That's how strong I am!

Phew - wipe the sweat of resistance from my brow, and then shamefully admit:

"My name is Monika and I am a bargain basement material-aholic"

Having taken Thea around all the trendy young thing shops - (so no temptations there at all for me), we also trawled a couple of the larger supermarket for their sale bargains.

I must clarify (and digress) - I love the French way of handling sales.

There are only 2 sales periods in a year, one in February and one in July.  All the rest of the year you get the odd promotion, but not a real sale with knockdown prices and bargain bins of tat.  Nor do you get that very UK things of non-seasonal items reduced all year round, so for instance, you can't buy your next years Christmas decorations in the New Year sales, because there aren't any, and by February when the sales are on, no Christmas things are to be seen.  You have to buy Christmas decorations and cards etc before December 24th, and you may find things on 3 for 2 promotions or buy one get one half price then and only then.

This comes as a very real culture shock having spent the last few years in the UK getting used to being able to buy anything at any time and usually reduced.

You can't buy a swimming costume in France in the winter unless you go to a specialist sports provision shop.  Fashion swimsuits and bikinis arrive in the shops in May, and are all gone by August, if you miss them, you have to wait till next year.  Even the home order catalogues are seasonal.

I was struck by this after flicking through the summer La Redoute catalogue the other day.  I saw a couple of things that looked quite nice and so when I got home I went online to see if I could get a bigger picture of it to try to copy it (see no buying new clothes - just plagarism instead).  But I made the mistake of looking on the English version of the site and found all sorts of things including thick tights, winter boots, and mittens.  On the French site - only beach cover-ups and swimwear - nothing 'wintery' at all.  Very strange how different the stock levels of the UK/non UK catalogues are.  In fact the two catalogues bear no resemblance to each other.

Anyhoooo - back on topic.

We went around the supermarket sales, and in one of the dark and dusty corners I found a cardboard bin of opened and ex-display bed linens.

Now I actually think I was quite restrained.

Material is very expensive to buy, as are bed linens, but I managed to hold back from throwing the contents of the bin into Brendan's arms and running off cackling manically for the tills.  I actually sorted through the sheets and duvet covers and just bought those that fitted and the colours I needed for lining materials - and at 2 € a double bed fitted sheet they were real bargains.

I also bought a lovely voile tab top curtain for 2€, which I naively offered to Thea for a wall hanging, then when I got it home I squirreled it away into my studio instead to use as a door curtain to keep the flies out.

All that was required was a quick hem to shorten it, then a couple of hooks and a bamboo cane stolen from the garden to suspend it.

Job done.

And just because Thea insists that I am biased towards Ferguson (well he is the most beautiful kitten in the world)  here is a quick photo of Pond in the clover.

Alterations - How to spend a couple of hours on a hot Sunday morning

Following yesterday's denim cut off start, I am continuing the theme of alterations.

My lovely generous mummy sent me some charity shop bargains again, and for a change they actually fit, in fact they fit so well that I have one cropped pair of trousers that don't need anything doing to them!

But there are some minor alterations to be made to the two shirts she sent, one simply because the buttons gape a bit and it just needs a stitch to hold everything in and decent, and the other shirt has a small hole and way too much tight elastic around the arms so I am going to remove the elastic and get rid of the puff sleeves.

In the meantime Thea is sorting out her wardrobe and has a pile of requests of her own, one dress to be altered to a t-shirt, another pair of trousers to make into shorts, this time with turn ups rather than a frayed edge.

So coffee and a biscuit then off to the studio.


Edited:-

OK it is now Sunday night, and the alterations plan went well as long as it lasted, then things took an embellishment twist.

I started off by cutting and hemming a pair of jogging bottoms for me to wear for work, then moved on to the stitch for my gaping buttons, but by the time I had shortened Thea's dress to a t-shirt I was bored.

Which meant that by the time I got to the brown shirt that just needed a small hole fixing and some elastic removing I couldn't just stop there, out came the ribbon and lace basket and I found this bit of pom-pom trim, which was just long enough to attach to the sleeves, then I added a couple of wooden beads to the neckline ties.  Another original for the summer.


This morning we started the day with a quick visit to a local small car boot; there was not much there to be honest but at least we left the house and had a change of scenery for a couple of hours.  Whilst there about the only bargain that I found was this piece of vintage 70s floral fabric, only a small remnant but enough there to make up another bag.  And while the weather was way too hot for gardening (36°C in the shade today) I stayed in my studio and got another bag sewn up.

My plan for this week while Thea has a free day is to get another little photoshoot sorted for the collection of bags I now have ready for listing on Etsy.

Productive Day in the studio - new bag design on vintage fabrics.

The lovely weather is continuing - not - lovely for ducks perhaps. With the grey skies looming overhead with the threat of yet more heavy rain I decided to shut myself away with my stereo and my sewing machine in my studio.

I designed another easy bag on my very useful plastic coated publicity material, lit the fire and started cutting away.

I finished sewing up the bag I started the other day, finished it with some wooden beads,

 then used the same vintage 70s cotton to make up another bag in my new design with some hand crocheted flowers to add a bit of detailing, then had a go at another nautical themed bag in the same design.

 Very pleased with the way these have turned out, and also how my new design works, only two pieces, a round bottom, then a single cut of material to form the tube body of the bag, then this pattern piece is folded in half and creates the template for the handle.

Very productive day.

The little things in life...

...that give us pleasure.

I love squared paper.  Call me a little retentive (probably a lot retentive would be more appropriate), but I love to write and make notes on squared paper.

In my teens I went on a French exchange from school and whilst in France bought some blocks of squared paper - which is commonly used here as school note books and scribble pads, and fell in love with it then.  On occasion I have found it in the UK, normally at one of those high street discount shops, or European supermarkets, but now I am here in France I get to use it all the time.

I like the way I can draw out designs on it and how easy it is to scale them up, I like the way I can make my own cross stitch patterns on it and see how they work out, and I like the way I can section it up to remind me of what I need to do, how to do it, and what I need in order to do it, basically I just like it!

Anyway - using my pad of squared paper, yesterday I drew up a pattern for a reversible bag on it, then scaled that up onto some of the glossy publicity paper, and started cutting up the vintage material I bought at the flea market on Sunday.

The hectic pace continues, after Wednesday's flooding of the field, which coincided with a job interview, and Thea's friend coming over, we had guests in the morning, visitors in the afternoon (at least two of the cars have now gone and my garden looks less like a scrapyard today) and went out for a meal last night.  

Typically French, the starter appears at 9.30 after two and half hours of aperos - we all fell on the food like the starving hordes, and it was midnight before we got to coffee.
Now I have to smarten myself up and get ready for work for my first day with my new client - I guess the general disorder 'chez nous' did not put off my new employer on Wednesday then!

With me in the dog house with the tower, I am back to the laptop - so before posting any photos will have to download all the software again first.  Bag photos will follow - although saying that I now can't remember whether I took any 'in progress' shots so it may just be the finished article.

At least the sun is out this morning.  I may even get some gardening done this afternoon - it's either that or a quick power nap when I get in from work.

New bags and embellishments

It has not just been busy here the last couple of days it has been absolutely manic.

I think every one of our neighbours has been round with something that needs fixing, we have some friends over from the UK on holiday too and are trying to spend some time with them, as well as trying to get as much done as we can in the garden and house in between showers.

On the basis that we all have to draw a breath every now and again and take some zen time, I managed to find a couple of hours yesterday in my studio to draw up a new bag design and get the first prototype sewn up.  It took a bit longer than expected because of having to think everything through before committing my scissors to the cloth - what's that old adage, measure twice, cut once.

If I thought yesterday was busy today was relentless.  The current fix-it list for Brendan is: Polo, Clio, John Deere, seized tractor water pump, a dead VW 4x4, leaky tap, a broken rotavator,  and a non-running Renault tractor - this is all because he is off to the UK for a few days himself next week so of course everyone wants things done before he goes!  Oh well, looks like painting the bathroom will be a project for me then.

Earlier, while he sat cruising on the internet for a cheap car stereo for another one of our neighbours I ran away to my studio so I could get the trimmings onto the finished bags, one denim bag done, two cotton bags with embroidery and crochet flowers done, one cotton bag with felt flowers finished, now I just need Thea to model them so I can get them listed on Etsy.

Photos to follow when I can get the computer tower to work - I guess my Dutch is still not up to scratch on Microsoft gobbledegook!

Edited: Wednesday - as you can see I managed to get a couple of photos up.

Thank Crunchie it's Friday

The weekend starts here - well actually the weekend starts a few kilometres up the road with a birthday BBQ in the sun this afternoon.

In the meantime - a bit of greenhouse potting on again- I found more tomato seedlings and I just can't let them go to waste.
I keep finding these random little strays from last year, peeping out from the edges of the weed suppressant and so I keep pulling them up and replanting them.

  I grew cherry and plum in the greenhouse last year so they could be either - but most likely cherry as we lost a few fruit here and there collecting them in.

I have started using my new cutting table, I have a dress on the go, and also a couple more bags done, they just need the embroidery finished.

As you can see the table has four handy little cubby holes underneath it - which I have obviously already filled up.

I also managed to finally get my patterns sorted out this morning, having been stuffing them willy nilly into the pockets of the room screen and running the risk of damaging them, I got them organised into a folder neatly - not sure how long that will last though.

Unfinished bag embroidery - first layer of beads done yesterday, now just the crocket flowers and large sequins to go.

Shoe fetish - moi?

I had no motivation today, not a drop, not a trickle, not a teeny tiny 'ickle bit.

I don't really know why, but I think we all have days like that, days when we wish we had stayed in bed with the covers drawn up.  I did manage to drag myself out of bed, had my coffee, tried to read a new book (which was so bad I had to abandon it at the first chapter - you know it is a bad sign when you find three spelling mistakes in the first two pages) then went and watered the greenhouse.

I decided that the best thing to do other than dragging myself listlessly around the house and garden, was to shut myself in my studio.

So with my MP3 player set to play my new Johnny Cash downloads I shut the door, turned the lights and the sewing machine on and got on with the bags I cut yesterday.

And instantly felt lots better.........

....  so with my newly motivated self, I pinned together the black bag lining and the outers ready to be sewn up, and cut another tweed bag and the lining.  One skirt recycled, one dress recycled.

Rather than make material straps for this bag, I took some old brown suede trousers, and cut a single shoulder strap from them, and also some strips to make a suede hem for the bag opening, as well as a button flap.

After work, I finished assembling the bag, got it sewn together, and found a lovely vintage button to use as the fastening.  No photos today as I forgot to charge the battery in my camera - will get some uploaded tomorrow. (edited on Friday to include photos)

Hurrah for the studio - saved by a recycled bread oven!


When we were out shopping yesterday, Brendan got some new shoes.

New shoes are my absolutist most favouritist new thing to have.  I love how they smell, how they look in the box, I  love trying them on, posing in the mirror with them and most of all I love wearing them.  I was very sad to get home without a new pair of shoes for me, but then new shoes are really far down my list of things I need to buy.

Once upon a time in a land far far away, when I wore a boring grey suit to work and added up columns of figures for fun, I used to buy a lot of shoes, I mean a LOT of shoes.  A LOT OF SHOES.

In fact when we moved, and downshifted and switched lives with some French peasants from a century ago a lot of people asked me what I was going to do with all my shoes, I replied quite naturally that I was going to bring them to rural France with me - obviously.  What else would you wear when planting spuds in the rain in a muddy field, but some cerise kitten heels from nine west?  As for letting the chickens out, well I have a pair of 5 inch stiletto heels in a very fetching patent black with some contrast piping in turquoise!

I don't really need 200 pairs of shoes, these days I only ever wear my muck boots, and a pair of faux UGG boots as slippers.  I can't sell them though, one day I may need to wear a pair of cream sandals with crocheted flowers and a metallic sculpted heel - probably to plough the field with.

Wednesday morning in my studio for a quickie.....

Before shooting off to work this morning I had a couple of hours to myself so I got out the materials and the patterns for the bags that I want to make in the next couple of days and started to snip away.

 This bag will be made from a pair of old black trousers, a shirt in abstract greys and blacks, and the lining from a skirt.  Here are all the layers when I had finished cutting. 

 While I was in the studio I finished off the top that I made the other day with some little belt loops in cotton ready for the satin ribbon that will tie around the waist to finish it off - watch out for the appearing in my shop in the next couple of days - when I can get my model to stand still for long enough to put it on so I can photograph it.

The first photo you see today is a selection of the treasures in my bargain buy of the car boot at the weekend.  A bag of miscallaneous sewing items for one euro.  In there were some nylon threads, some cottons, some wools, some hook and eyes, some mohair sewing thread, some elastic, some ribbon, some bias trim and of course some buttons.

Not that I am button obsessed you know - after all - doesn't everyone have a kitchen drawer packed to the gills with buttons?