Cushion + Pillow Win

That’s pretty much my story for the end of March. As you can see …. TADA!

I finished the bench cushions last Sunday, and I’m terribly pleased by them! This afternoon I also finished the four pillows in celadon and lemon that coordinate with the benches.  All are made from heavy natural linen on the sides/backs/bottom alongside various coordinating fabrics from Kate Spain’s Fandango collection.

Can we talk PIPING? If I’d left off the piping this project would have taken half the time and about 1/3 less fabric than it did. I think that I had to make 54 feet of 2.5″ bias tape, then pin that to cording, then sew it, then trim it down to .5″, then pin and sew it onto the cushions and pillows. It is my hope that the projects look more crisp and more professional as a result. I think it makes a big difference, myself, and now that it’s over with I’m glad I went to the extra trouble and time. Plus, piping is a new thing for me – another sewing skill CONQUERED. HA.

So can we talk zippers next? Again, a sewing accomplishment, at least for me, because until now I’ve found zippers intimidating. No more. I installed 6 hidden zippers using a pattern I came up with myself. I find it quite tidy to have removable washable covers via hidden zippers. I was thinking I might do a how-to for my hidden zipper pattern, but … um. No. Just getting it all sewn up was enough of a travail for one lifetime.

I have 3 more small things to finish up, but for the most part that’s the end of this enormous project. All of this kitchen stuff together means that this February/March project is arguably the largest craft project I’ve ever taken on. I think that it took more than 40 hours to put all of this together so far, some of which my brother and Jeff did. The sewing by itself has taken a lot of time. For each of the four rounds of cushion sewing with the piping it took 2 hours to pin and then sew. If I haven’t posted much lately it’s because I’ve actually been really busy working on this project, and also because sewing this much totally screwed up my back. I had to take some time off.

Luckily, our resident opportunist assures me that it was all worth it.

Carpentry Accomplished

HA. BENCHES ARE DONE. THEY LOOK AWESOME. Cafe curtains are done too!  See? Isn’t it nice and bright and cheery?

I have a galley kitchen, and this dining room is at one end. It is compact, with a good layout and lots of sun. To the left  s a built-in corner cabinet for dishes (not visible).  I made curtains because the dining room is one of the few windows in our apartment where people might actually be able to see inside. We overlook an urban landscape – the interior courtyard of a busy city block. However, if you’ll believe it, you can see an urban chicken coop and garden out that end window (p.s. chickens make weird noises).

I put together an animated slide show of us putting the pieces so far into the space, to amuse myself.  If you’re reading this in an email you may not see it (MOM, AUNTS), in which case you have to go to my website to see it.  (I made the animation at Gickr). So who can spot Callie?

I designed these benches myself. I have the proof right here, in this Plan I drew up. There’s another page showing where I think the screws should go. And you know what? With the exception of a couple of board widths, these got built exactly like my plan shows.You must, however, excuse my inability to do perspective drawing. Also that in perspective drawing I forgot important pieces – the cross pieces that hold the whole thing together. That DID actually become a problem when I was trying to show Jeremy and Jeff how to build the thing.

After much dithering, sawing, drilling, screwing, sanding, painting and whatnot, it’s all finished. And my design? These things are rock solid! They’re held together by these 10″ bolts that normally hold together garden posts.  I did try hard not to over-engineer it, and I think I succeeded.

I realized while building this that the process of building furniture is ridiculously similar to sewing. They’re both

• detail-intensive in the same ways (planning, measuring, measuring, measuring),
• they require specialized knowledge (dried board sizes, width of fabric, types of screws, types of needles),
• they require specialized tools (sewing machines, saws, levels, seam rippers, clamps, angles, scissors),
• and they take a lot of time to get it all right.

In sewing you have to IRON and MEASURE before you do anything, in carpentry you must SAND and MEASURE first. Or twice. The part where you screw or sew stuff together is a minimal part of the activity compared to the prep and finish work. Not that it isn’t hard too, just prep works takes lots of time …

I enjoyed it this. It is rewarding to try something completely new and have it turn out so well. I’ve got my brother to thank for that, he has the specialized knowledge that I was missing, and also the brute strength when it turns out your drill is too weak to do the job. Jeff and I spent a lot of time painting amongst the many rainstorms we’ve had lately, and finally, FINALLY yesterday we could bring them in.

Next up?  Cushion covers. Not easy! That mess above is what I’m referring to. Why, people, WHY did I put a zipper end next to a fabric end next to a corner while inserting piping? Am I trying to make myself crazy? Oh well. I only had to redo … never mind. I’m not going to think about how many times the seam ripper has made an appearance until I’m done.

Getting There

The most fun part of crafting is … CRAFTING. I reserved 75% of this past weekend for making stuff – curtains, pillows, mitts, benches. Good times!! Stuff is really coming together. And it looks AWESOME.

Jeff has said on more than one occasion lately that he thinks I might not be satisfied until 75% of the stuff we have is made by me. I said no, 75% must be handmade, not necessarily made by me. Ha! Not really. I don’t think I have enough time to amass that kind of collection! Not that I won’t try.

However, I can manage only a short post tonight that does not include my recent attendance at an Etsy craft night or the knife skills class, for I must return to typing up my self-review for my job. Next Sunday is my six-month review that ENDS my probationary period. YAY. Well, yay if I’m not fired first, I guess!  Hard to believe I’ve been here in the Bay Area for six months as of Thursday.

TTFN.