Industrial Sewing Inspiration

I have many visual obsessions. Home decor being one. While I have a decent workable sewing space, sometimes I dream about renting an urban loft with exposed industrial elements, and housing some sort of creative business there. Of course the space must be visually inspiring.

While searching sources of vintage iron radiator grilles this evening for a renovation project, I found Urban Remains in Chicago. Maybe we'll swing by there tomorrow. Meanwhile, a website journey renewed my dream of an industrial loft space.

Imagine exposed brick walls, beams and ducts like in this photo from Apartment Therapy:

With large plate glass windows overlooking a Chicago city view such as this painting by Kathleen Patrick:

To outfit the space, I loved these industrial objects on the Urban Remains website for an inspirational sewing space. These all feel like strong, stable and simple backdrops to the visual cacophony of all the tools, notions, fabrics, and pattern pieces when undergoing sewing projects. (Never mind these are all pricey, this is a dream where money grows on trees.)

I like this old 1930s cart for wheeling notions around to where they're needed:

This 1940s factory table for cutting.

Another factory table for cutting or just piling sewing stuff as I tend to do.

A sewing and fashion inspiration board would lean on this 1920s easel:

This theater spotlight would bring some illumination:

This stool looks like it almost has a smile on the back, in addition to its fun color:

Because I'm petite, there must always be a stepstool within reach:

First aid should always be available for scissor and needle mishaps:

The most dilapidated dress form would stand for decoration only at the entrance, just to remind of where you are and why you're here:

This steel basket unit would hold fabrics. WOW! Love it!

In keeping with the vintage industrial theme, isn't this overhead trolley cool for a gravity fed iron. It will hold up to 1500 lbs. That's a lot of water for a lot of steam, ha.

A rack for hanging sewn clothing is essential:

A wall decoration. Because sewing eventually leads to laundry.

Decadent Stockings

I made these stockings last year. The fabric is home dec from Hancock Fabrics. I purchased it years ago when someone on PatternReview made a coat from this fabric. I loved this fabric+coat idea. I stalked every Hancock store in Chicagoland to no avail, then finally found the fabric online. The person who first made a coat from this fabric looked really cute in it. Coats made from home dec were trendy at the time. But on me, the fabric was bulky and stiff for my figure-8 body shape, and its pattern not really "me" enough to wear. So the fabric was stashed.

Last year noticed it on a shelf near chocolate brown velvet and some scraps of Jim Thompson Thai silk (which crunches when you sew it, love that!), and I got inspired:

All together these fabrics make rich looking stockings, richer than anything that would go into the stockings, probably.

For the pattern, I literally laid dress boots on newspaper and traced. I tested them to be sure they wouldn't hang down too far when the fire is roaring. Actually they do hang down too far. I decided I didn't care. You can't fit much stuff in them if they're made much smaller. Ha.

I cut carefully to ensure each stocking has a unique pattern:

Then I cut brown velvet into 2" wide strips that are sewn to the front and back pieces to make a slim "box" shape.

The gold silk is quilted with diamond shapes. I liked the contrast of straight organized lines against the free-flowing flowery and leafy shapes in the main fabric. I used two layers of The Ugliest Fabric On The Planet as batting. Why not, you can't see it, and it was needed to beef up the silk and give it the puffy quilted look I wanted. Here's the cuff before it was attached:

Each stocking has a different color thread for the quilting on the gold silk, matched to the various colors in the fabric: salmon, turquoise, dark brown, gold.

I'm a little better at coming up with ideas than actually completing projects, in case that hasn't been noticed on this blog already. So last year I completed 2 stockings. They were stuffed with things scented like catnip and things that squeaked and rolled and squiggled. Because the cats always come first in this house.

I had intended to finish the other 2 for me and my husband this year. I only have to finish the cuffs. Never got to it. Oh well. Maybe next year.

Fabric Creation for Vegetarians

If you are, like me and my husband, vegetarian and tired of Tofurkey as the main turkey alternative, I present you with another idea for your holidays:

From Etsy seller uptownjane. You can make it yourself with the Turkey and Felt Food PDF file. Only six bucks. I actually might make this as a joke, and say I'm bringing a turkey this year. But clue in the host so she doesn't REALLY count on eating turkey.

And here's a really good vegetarian gravy recipe from allrecipes.com to go with a vegetarian holiday dinner. We've made this gravy annually for years. Even my carnivore relatives love this gravy. It's great on Tofurkey, mashed potatoes, everything. Just be sure to add all the garlic it calls for. It's not too much garlic, and the gravy needs it to deliver the flavor.

A Most Unlikely, Unexpected Visual Obsession

Soap???

Soap sure can smell good. It can look good too. Downright luscious. I want to eat these soaps.

Chocolate Heaven Soap from Etsy seller pinkparchmentsoaps:

Gardenia Chamomile Soap, from Etsy seller DeShawnMarie:

Sugar Lime Soap, from Etsy seller DeShawnMarie:

Cedarwood Lavender Clove Soap, from Etsy seller DeShawnMarie:

Don't you just want to lick them? I bet they'd all taste good.

OK this could go on and on and on ... so good ... but today I gotta sew. Christmas deadline for numerous pieces of clothing. And I gotta make jewelry.

Filed under Home Decor because I do have soaps that have never been removed from their gorgeous Italian paper packaging and ribbons, decorating our main floor bathroom. Next to them is the Aveda soap dispenser where the soap can actually be used for cleaning, not just looking and obsessing.

Decorate Yourself

I love the idea here at Delight by Design of fashion and interior design inspiring each other. If you love some elements of rooms in your home or somewhere else, why not try to wear them?

But please, not as literally as sewing a dress out of your curtains, unless you have really fabulous curtain fabric appropriate for the pattern, of course.

Another Sewing Library Addition

Many of the clothes aren't my style, but I'm interested in the techniques. While I don't quilt, I would like to make a very textured comforter cover, like these from Sundance catalog:

It's hard to see unless you zoom on the original photo here, but there are rows of hand-stitching. Similarly, this is a great way to use remnants without getting into quilting with smaller pieces:



Quilts like these are shown in the Sundance catalog with this bed I posted about previously. Ten months later, I still remember this and still so want it!

Our previous comforter cover was made of silk I found at Nalli in Chennai, India. After years of sun streaming through the windows on it, the silk shredded. I may repair those sections and disguise the repairs with Alabama Stitch techniques. And then on a future trip somewhere, buy yards of cotton for a new comforter, not silk ...

Let There Be Industrial Lights

I was really pleased to get the latest Rejuvenation catalog and see gutsy industrial lights like this. Love it! But it unfortunately doesn't fit anywhere in my house. Believe me, I've tried to think of a place. Actually, it would be pretty cool to have some of these hanging in the garage! Instead of the four bare boring lightbulbs out there now.

As we re-do our sunroom over the next year, we'll need three sconces out there to replace the current lights that look like mason jars screwed in a socket. We already have lights from Rejuvenation in other rooms and I've always been happy with their service. I like customizing the lights on their web site to get exactly what we want. When we changed our minds about the sconces for our bathroom renovation, Rejuvenation was great about exchanges. So they're now my go-to source for lights.

In the sunroom, we're installing 18" square porcelain tiles that look like faux slate with shades of bluish, browns, beiges, rusty-coppery colors. I might install a contrast ring of metallic copper tiles -- not perfect shiny but with verdigris and variation like they've been exposed to chemicals. This Rejuvenation sconce has a slight touch of industrial and the three punches of copper high up on the walls would look nice with the new floor. I would just switch the shade to something stronger.

Sorry So Selfish

I've been holding out on giving back to the online community that I've learned so much from. I've taken what I've learned and had fun making things but kept it all to myself! Actually I've been busy living life. Although the internet can do so much for us, it can also completely take over us. That's my belief. Stickin' to it. Learned from experience. So I've needed to put the internet back in its rightful place in life. I never did nor never will do Facebook or Twitter (and I'm comfortable enough to violate "never say never") -- keeping up with email, web sites, blogs and discussion boards is enough. I just don't understand how people can have enough to talk about, without having time to live offline enough to have something to talk about online. ??? Am I missing something? Or am I just lame? Can't juggle it all? Whatever, we all make our choices. I live online here, in some discussion boards, and I share trips my husband and I take in our plane on another blog. That's enough for me.

What ignited instant obsession and drove me back here is this chair from Anthropologie:

One of these would sit by my marble table, the one that was once my single woman's tiny apartment dining table, but is now a perfect garden table, tucked among plants that tower over both table and chair, hidden.

Only one chair, though. Two would lessen the uniqueness.

I'm growing more gardens. Since spring, been building a raised bed behind our sunroom that will someday cradle a patio in its own outdoor room between walls of foliage and flowers and the windows of our sunroom. Where our cats will probably be sitting, inside but longing to be out, meowing and whining. Thus marring the peaceful gardeny ambiance. Of course I will get up from the Anthropologie flower chair and let them out, but they must roam, and as I follow them, I'll soon be out of sight of the flower chair and my coffee on the marble table will go cold. But I love my cats and I'm happy when they're happy, and I can always return to the flower chair which will sit waiting for me, surrounded by a garden of brilliant color in the summer, but really designed to glow in waves of burnished red, orange, yellow, purple, and brown in the fall, and stay standing all winter. I love autumn gardens.

Beautiful autumn gardens don't just happen, they have to be planned that way. My shade beds look barren after the hosta leaves go mushy. They're not so wonderful to look at then. But the garden outside the sunroom must be beautiful over four seasons. It will be unavoidable to see from the sunroom, close to the house. So someday we can drink morning coffee out there in December and see snow sitting on little brown puffballs and fluffs of grasses swaying. I love the strong shapes of plants like millet. I might install witch hazel, so in January and February we get the promises of spring even before the daffodils.

Struck With Sundial Obsession

Well doesn't time pass so fast. Been too busy for blogging. Still busy. But tonight any busy-ness was waylaid by trying to track down an armillary sundial for a new raised garden bed I'm building. Before I got the current issue of This Old House and saw the armillary sundial in it, I never knew these things existed. But now, life has changed. I must have one. Apparently, life just won't be the same without one of these on a pedestal:


I am attracted to objects that hint of travel, globes, time passing slowly. Maybe because that's the antithesis of my daily life: going to an office in the same spot on the planet and racing the clock all day. Now tonight I lost all track of time chasing a new object of wanderlust. My blog title is still appropriate. Some things don't change.

So where did these come from and what do you do with them? Here's a nice explanation. And a Naples, Florida publication has an upscale explanation with armillary sundial eye candy photos.

I love the looks of these because they're both a little different than the mass produced versions in Google Images:

Other people like these enough to steal them. Or they steal them to serve the one-of-a-kind purchase market for hungry people like me who want a piece of another place, another time.

Speaking of another place and another time ... I've gotta get back downstairs to doing some cleaning I was supposed to do earlier. But this was a nice journey. Time to share ideas here more often, too ...

Not Second Guessing, It's Doing the Right Thing

On the home decor front today, I'm going to return the 24"x24" version of this print to Target, written about in Sunny Summery Sunroom. The sunroom wall is so large that this size would look insignificant. Yeah we all gotta pinch pennies today, but why spend a lesser amount on something that will be insignificant? Why spend at all, then? Who wants to buy insignificance? When looking at it that way, better to spend nothing at all, or wait for later. Bottom line, get the piece that will be right over the long haul. Cost Plus World Market has this in 36"x36". There's a Cost Plus World Market so close to us, I could walk there and get some exercise. Bonus!

My husband has another Rodney White print in his office:


I went for the biggest one. It's impactful and obvious as soon as you walk in the door. It has meaning for my husband. At the time we got it, he was in an energy-sapping job and wanting to fly more often. Flying is his hobby and love. He is alive when he flies. This print is a reminder to do what you love, even a little bit, as often as possible if not every day. And yes, he flies more often now and he is happier. He spends most of his waking hours in that office working on his business. But he can always glance up and be reminded to take a break on a clear blue sky day ... go out and fly ...

The It'll Cost Nothing to Dream print, hung in the sunroom and overlooking our backyard, will remind me of the gardening dreams that every spring and summer I put in place a little bit more. There's a grand vision in my dreams and bit by bit, weekend by weekend, year by year, we're getting there ...

Sunny Summery Sunroom

Now that it's spring in Chicago, time to clean and spruce up the three-season sunroom overlooking our backyard. The cats have been in there since February because they are desperate creatures, but only now is it comfortable for human use. This human is desperate to bring some sunny color into the room. It's been decorated like the rest of our house with international flavor -- red sari border pillows, Afghan table runner and Thai accessories decorating the teak and bamboo furniture. But feels so serious. It's time to bring on the sunshine and make it a happy place.

I finally got this, which I've coveted since last year:

It's the 24" x 24" version on sale for $45 at Target. But may be too small for a very long solid wall. It could look like a speck. The 36" x 36" version at Z Gallerie would be more impactful but it's nearly $220 online. You could purchase just a canvas online, then stretch it on a 36" x 36" frame on top of a blank canvas, as we did with another Rodney White piece. But I don't feel like searching the mountains and seas for a 36" x 36" canvas and no, I don't want to assemble one myself or pay someone else to do it. It seems to cost a disproportionate amount of money to pay for canvas stretching and framing, and although in the past I've paid the average U.S. monthly mortgage payment to frame things, I'm not paying for this. No offense to the framing industry, I just don't understand why the material and labor cost.

So, the 24" x 24" will have to do, but must be supplemented with other pieces so it's not lost on the wall. But be careful, don't want "too many thingies" on the wall.

One option ... add to it another Rodney White print appropriate for overlooking a backyard where flower gardens will soon be in color:

This one is total 36" x 24" and $199 from NapaStyle. I love NapaStyle. Why oh why did you remove me from your mailing list? It's not my fault all the things I wanted to order from you for holiday decorating were sold out!

This frame from SecondLineFrames on etsy is made from wainscoting salvaged after Hurricane Katrina, and despite its sad beginnings, is perfect for a bright and happy countryish feel in a sunroom. Unfortunately it's one-of-a-kind and sold two days ago, same day I saw it, but SecondLineFrames has many more available:

I'll keep my eyes on this store for other frames in colors to go with the "Dream" print.

Another option is to find an old wood shelf at a flea market, paint it with several layers of colors, and sand and crackle and distress it to make it chippy, like numerous owners painted it different colors over many years. And place colorful clay pots from Tuscany and Provence on it. Also very appropriate for a sunroom overlooking gardens!

Do You Ever Buy A Fabric Because Of The Name?

I've searched years for the right fabric to sew living room curtains, where we have four windows to cover. For now the previous owners' curtains still hang, which is OK, because while they don't "go" perfectly, they don't clash.

Our living room has things from India, Burma, Thailand, Japan & China, paired with dark brown leather sofas and antiquey paprika orange & gold chairs. Overall color scheme is dark chocolate brown - paprika - gold - celadon green -- the whole room was inspired by the very first pillow I sewed in 2001 or 2002, from an expensive India jacquard silk of which I could only afford one yard. After hand-sewing that thing for many days of life, I bought a sewing machine. And never looked back.

With eight panels hanging for the four windows, curtain fabric must be chosen carefully so it helps weave all this together as well as our big area rug does. (Area rug cheap-cheap-cheap from Home Decorators Collection -- other things purchased at bargain prices, some made-to-order, during travels to Asia.)

Today I saw this name -- Tamil Scotch -- for this fabric from House Fabric ...

Tempted mainly because of the name! My husband is from the Tamil Nadu state of India. The color could be OK, but the fabric is not quite right. It has a rustic linen look which is great for spring/summer. I don't like linen curtains for winter though. For winter I like smoother silks, velvets, etc. Just like with clothes, the linen must be put away after September. Unless, two sets of curtains are sewn ...

Has a name ever enticed you to buy a fabric? Sounds silly, but don't names add to the promise of what a fabric will become ... ?

Glimpses

While we're on the topic of wood carvings, here is a plaque of the incarnations of Krishna in our second floor hallway. From one of my favorite shops in Stillwater, Minnesota -- Enigma Global Artifacts.

Glimpses ... of Sweet India Dreams

Here is a glimpse of other bedroom elements that the India bed shown below would join:

-- Kama sutra carved wooden doors from Seret & Sons in Santa Fe, once part of temple doors in India

-- Carved wooden candlesticks that were crafted as samples for our former business by a kind businessman in Delhi

-- Wallpaper of unknown origin. It isn't my head-over-heels favorite wallpaper but it would complement the bed. And having already removed wallpaper from five rooms, I know how either expensive (if someone else does it) or time-consuming (if you do it) it can be. So this wallpaper is staying for now.

Sweet India Dreams

This bed from Sundance catalog stopped my page-flipping and got the obsessive ideas flowing:

Detail:

But, oh, the description: "our bed is a faithful reproduction of one that rounded the Horn from England to India nearly a century-and-a-half ago. We discovered the original in a field in New Delhi, dismantled and all but hidden beneath a carpet of grass, and instantly fell for its elegant angles, its cast ornaments and even its weathered patina. The tall, finial-capped posts support a canopy frame that can be left unadorned or draped with panels of linen, velvet, silk or—as it no doubt would have been in mid-1800s India—a fine mist of mosquito netting."

And you just know I have linens, I have velvets, I have silks -- saris in fact -- and even I have mosquito netting to drape. It comes in non-canopy version too. And that's OK, but in the Indian night, you must have flowing silks and mosquito netting.

It would enhance our wallpaper (left over from previous owners' era) rather than fight it as the current Danish modern style bed does.

Sundance even has antique saris that could be quilted into duvet covers. But you know I could do better than this on my own, in India for real:

And check out these bedside tables from Arhaus in the "relics" category, also India-inspired:

And as I am planning our next trip to India right now, I am just in the mood for this visual obsession today ...