Why I haven't been sewing - from Riquee.com

This is a post from my Web site Riquee.com and it's also on my blog, "Made By Riquee" .

First of all, I have been sewing a little, hemming pants here and there, but I haven't been working on my own garments. I haven't been sewing for many reasons:

1. My sewing room is a mess; it's turned into a dressing room/closet for me.
2. I need fabric. I need lots of fabric.
3. I need a dress form, but that's coming soon, although I'm not going to wait for one to sew.
4. I work full-time.

I took before and after pictures to show why I couldn't sew in this room.

Here's an "after" pic. The room also poses as a guest room, so I use the bed as a makeshift layout area.


It's embarrassing, but i hope it will inspire me to get organized and start sewing consistently. Here are the before pics. Brace yourself, and don't think less of me.





Here is part one of the after pics. I still need to get organization for my fabric and a new ironing board, a dress form, and a sewing table - and get that bed out of there!






There will be updates at least weekly.

If you have any affordable organizational suggestions for my fabric, or anything else, feel free to share. Thank you for visiting the Web site!

Riquee

Making a dress

I made this dress from a pattern. I am going to add snaps to close the front; it's pinned on in the pictures. Click here to see the pictures.

Work In Progress

This is a quilt I've been trying to make for - brace yourselves - around 10 years.

It's a sampler from a beginner's quilt book I bought when a women named Martha Brown who I worked with years ago inspired me to want to learn to quilt.  I went out and bought all the supplies and the fabric I needed for the sampler.  It was very relaxing once I started piecing together patches to make blocks. 

 

That patch on the right, the basket, it made me quit.  I had such a hard time understanding the instructions for that block that I gave up.  I put the project away - for years.  Here's a closer look:

Here is the reverse side:

I got up the nerve around 3 years ago to finish the rest of the blocks and add some of the edge trimming.  I will finish and actually start quilting this soon.  It obviously needs to be pressed again.  It was all done by hand.  Here are more pictures:

 

I'll post more as I make more progress, but I'm sure it won't be too soon. 

Basket made from magazine strips

A while back I attempted to make baskets out of magazine page strips. I made a small bowl and a waste paper basket. They were OK for my first try; you can see them on riquee.wordpress.com. You can see more pictures of this basket on my Web site, Riquee.com.

This bowl is a lot better! I used a glue gun instead of rubber cement and glue sticks. The glue gun works for me because it dries fast and bonds tightly. This bowl is so much more steady than the first ones, the waste paper basket fell apart after a couple of months.

The Scarf

Here is the scarf I started. I want to make it a little wider; I need more black yarn. It's around 11 feet long! I'm very excited about wearing it once it's done. It feels comfortable already. Here's a sneak peak:





I'll post it when it's completely done. Also, I'll be posting some things I've made in the past until I get more things made. Thanks for visiting the blog.