So far in my year of non-procrastination......

The weather in Sydney has been warm, hot, humid, cool, breezy and more humidity. A bit of everything. Since I can really only sew productively on cool days, my sewing has been limited. But I did move the machine into the air con to sew something two weekends ago. And no, it's not pants.

It's the Dog Under My Desk Take Off tote! Yeah that's right, another bag! Erin's instructions are great but she uses different interfacing etc to Nicole Mallalieu so I had to source them, cos of course, I *had* to use the right stuff! I'm really happy with how it turned out so let me show you some of the features.

This pocket slips over the extendable handle of your suitcase. Very handy! I have a sewing bag with such a handle so this will give me extra space at my ASG meeting when I always come home with more than I go with!

The end of the zipper was supposed to have a sewn zipper tab over your chopped off zipper but since I used the correct length zip, I just left it. Plus I like it!

This is the inside and very hard to photograph. But that pocket is huge! If it wasn't divided, it could fit an iPad easily.

Outside zipper pocket which is handy for things you want easy access to.

There are a couple of things I would do differently next time. Like add handbag feet to protect the base. Mine is already dirty. :( But since I have to unpick it cos my front zipper pocket has come adrift, maybe I'll add them.


Onto the second item. When it was cool on Australia Day, I jumped at the chance to sew. And this is what I made. It's also by Dog Under My Desk and is the Get Carded bag. I made this for my DD. She has, funnily enough, a similar wallet by Vera Bradley. Cough. And she requested this fabric which is also VB. Double cough. Anyway, it's turned out FABULOUSLY! I even impressed myself with this one.

One side has a zipper gathered pocket and the other has a clear plastic ID pocket. Very handy for Opal cards etc.

This is the gathered zipper pocket. There are also options to have a normal zip pocket or a pleated pocket and a normal pocket to replace the ID pocket.

And of course, the inside. Erin uses velcro for the closure but I hate velcro. It nearly always dies a terrible death before the bag does. So I used a magnetic snap. Yes, I know...people say they wipe your credit cards but we shall take the risk.

In other news, I have decided to keep a running total of my fabric purchases for the year. Ergh...this may have been a mistake cos of 31 January I have bought 27.65m!!! Although I have to admit, a couple of pieces are specifically for the Travel Wardrobe contest on PR. But still. So this morning I did a quick purge from two of my plastic boxes in the sewing room and removed 6.5m to donate to Crowle Home. Feeling a bit better about that! But there is definitely more that can be donated so I'll be going through boxes as I feel the urge.

It's done

The sewing room is finished (well, the section where I actually sew is!) and I'm a happy woman. The wall still needs painting but I can live with that especially when I have a bookshelf which will be going above my bulletin board. So I'm now hoping to get in there tomorrow and actually sew something. I found a pair of board shorts that I cut out ages ago for my husband. So that might be the first thing I make.

You wanna see??

This first pic is my cat Sooty who decided that the cleaned off table top was a great place for her to sleep! Alas dear Sooty...it's now covered with stuff.

The great organisation of 2008!

Well finally the weather here in Sydney is conducive to sewing. However, my sewing room is not! It's been messy for some time and there is no way I could do any productive sewing in there. So I've been planning what to do and buying some new storage furniture. To this end, I got 2 of these Ikea Annefors units and a narrow pantry cupboard. I even assembled the two Ikea numbers myself! They are fabulous for storing my 2 extra sewing machines and now I've got something that I've never had before.....pressing equipment storage! Oh wow!! I'm excited about that. Usually my ham, seam roll and tailor board just float around the room getting in the way. Not anymore. :)

I thought I had a 'before' pic stored on my camera but I can't find it. So you'll have to make-do with a 'during' pic, which is after the furniture has been re-arranged but before I've done a complete tidy up. Without further ado....



I used to have the 2 tables sitting at right angles to one another. This made a square gap in the corner and stuff was forever falling down there. Try as I might, I could not find a 600mm square white table that would go there. So then I thought of a shelf but again, couldn't find the size. That's when I thought I'd just get another table (you can no longer buy the ones I have anymore) so scrabbled through my Ikea cattledog and found a table. Unfortunately it was going to be 1" higher than mine. So then I found the Annefors storage unit and it solved multiple problems for me. Now I can put my extra sewing machines away. Before they were flapping around on the floor, always getting in my way. So I put one Annefors in the corner, moved my table along a bit and put the other Annefors between it and the drawer unit.

This is the other end of the room. It's a complete shambles but it was worse about 2 weeks ago! We used this end of the room as a junk storage place. I want to move that sofa bed (yeah there IS one there somewhere) so it's at right angles to the wall (& we can actually sit on it...what a concept!!) and then I might be able to physically get to the bookcase in the corner that you can't even see.