Three train cases and some weaving

 Earlier in the week, I put in some real effort to sort out the chaos in my sewing room.   As well as disinterring several long term glory piles to put them away (or throw stuff out), I also made room in a cupboard to put away some of the boxes on the floor, and put my new Japan/Korea fabric onto the fabric shelves.  The result is a room  that, while still not really tidy, I can at least open the door most of the way and walk into and through it more easily.  It feels better anway.

I also finished up my three train cases  so that I could put away all the bits and materials for those.  I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out but still trying to come up with ideas for what to put in them. It's also surprisingly pleasing to have cut into the 'good' fabric mountain.

This first one uses two panels from a 1990s cushion panel set  that I inherited from an older sewing friend for the outer and inner lid.  The remaining pink fabrics are from the Little Sweetheart line by Edyta Sitar. The thread reel zip pull was from a novelty pack.

This one uses some fun 'quilt fair' fabric for the lid, and some of the Moda Flea Market range (buttons) for the sides. To go with the sewing theme, I added a mesh pocket inside the lid. On this case, I experimented with pre-folding the binding to finish the internal seam allowances and sewing all in one step (rather than sewing the single binding, then folding it over and re-sewing it) but that didn't work at all and looked awful. I left it on the lid but unpicked the base and re-did that. I got the heart charms in Korea.

This one below is using one of my older 'good' fabrics which is the toile fabric of the sides and base, which I probably bought in the 90s. The top is newer, again from the Moda Flea Market range.

I got my weaving sorted out and it is now underway.  I had to lift each of the 200 threads and move them along into a different slot in order to correct for the slots that I had accidentally double threaded, and for the broken warp thread.  Then rewind the warp to correct the tension on the back bar (I used a long arm frame technique and wound it all onto the front bar, applied the tensioning bars again, then rewound it onto the back bar).  This is a houndstooth pattern and will be a hand towel. This is the first time I have woven anything other than stripes on my little loom so I'm super pleased at how it is coming out, it's like magic watching the pattern unfold.

I've started a new knitting project which is the free pattern from Hobbii for the Ida Doll which came up on Facebook.   It's cute although I'm not keen on her hairstyle, I might see if I can improve on it. Photo from Hobbii website:

I finally had a go at dressing myself in my hand-sewn kimono because I had some friends coming over who wanted to see it.  It was even harder than I thought it would be.  You need to be an octopus to do it by yourself as you need to hold some things in place while you are wrapping and tying other things.  I couldn't tie the obi at all in the time I had, so it is just tied at the back in a reef knot for this picture.  But my friends were very impressed since they don't know how it should look, ha ha ha.  I've since watched a few videos and can now make a better stab at tying the obi.  I also need to sew a few more cords and sashes to help with the underpinnings that hold it all together.  I'm sure I could get better with practice, but realistically am I really going to wear a kimono here in the UK.  While not uncomfortable, it is time consuming to put on and a bit restrictive of movement, plus the long sleeves get in the way of anything I reach for (Japanese women get used to delicately holding the sleeve out of the way with one hand when they reach for a tea cup or whatever).  Still feels like a cool thing to have done, to have actually made a traditional Japanese kimono using traditional methods, I'm glad I tried it and learned more about the culture.

The day has finally arrived and I am tackling 'file cabinet mountain' although not very effectively.  DH helped me bring down all the files plus some piles of further pull-outs waiting to be filed, and it has virtually filled our living room. Probably 35 years of pulling things out of magazines for potential future use, although I have had a few clear-outs over the years.

The old rusty filing cabinet has now gone to the dump and I am supposed to be going through all the papers to drastically slim them down.  The problem is that I keep picking up a folder to go through it, but getting bogged down with 'oo, I could make that ' and 'ooo, pretty!' etc.  I am trying to keep in mind that if I haven't sewn that doll's outfit or crafted that dollshouse cabinet or sewn that quilt in 20 or 35 years then I am probably not going to.  But it is very hard, I want to keep it all, ha ha ha. And it feels so precious, so many tutorials that you would never find on the internet because they came from a magazine 25 years ago.  I even found a set of instructions from a dollshouse workshop week I attended in 1995 for various techniques from luggage making to artifical flower crafting that I still think I am going to get around to one day.  Deluded R Us.