So Ready to Sew

On Tuesday, with no headaches in sight I decided I needed to clean and organize my sewing space. I only have a small dedicated space for sewing and because it is not so user friendly, it sways me from doing more sewing. I needed to fix this.

What a mess. It is amazing what can be accomplished when you are not wracked with a headache.

Yellow Arrow: this bag is filled with letters written by a young high school and college girl. They are from 1946-1950. So much fun.

Black Arrow: yards of organic canvas that was used to make the flags for "I Surrender This". I plan to cover the boxes below with this fabric.

 1) Organize and put on Etsy or eBay's all of the patterns that are not my size or I have no interest in sewing.
~ I have them organized and most of them photographed, but still need to put them up for sale. The brown box below right has them all organized and ready for sale. I plan on selling them in lots of 7-15 patterns each.

 

2) Organize all of my sewing notions.
~ I organized and put them into labeled boxes (see note at bottom of page)

3) Go through all of my fabric stash and see what I have.
~ I went through each piece and measured and then tagged it so I know what I can use it for. I also had all of my stash in my attic and I brought it all down and put it into this cubby hole thingy so it is ready to be used.

The bulkier fabric is folded and put on top. And in front of it and ready to pull out when needed is my Singer

Yoga mat and weights ready for some much needed me time.

4) Put all of the patterns I hope to sew in one place.
~ I found these simple fabric polka dot trays which perfectly fit all of the patterns and they were only $1.00 each.. I then labeled them by decade.

 Finished and ready for sewing.

With my nicely organized and clean space I was ready for sewing. I really love this fabric but each time I start to sew again I realize again what a novice I am. I know nothing about how to sew anything but simple cotton. Here is the 1970's Palazzo Pants, and right away I ran into trouble with a capital T. The fabric is puckering. Ironing does not smooth it out AND the fabric frays quite a bit. Question: What should I do? Should I do french seams? Change and use a smaller needle? What? HELP this novice out.

Note: I literally have HUNDREDS of these "I Surrender This" boxes. I need to 'ditch' them but they are thousands of dollars worth of boxes and I can't just throw them away. If any of you would like some, I am willing to give them away. They are ready for shipping in big boxes of 12-15 (I need to go to the warehouse find out exactly how many or in one box). If you are interested email me at retrolassie at gmail dot com.