All posts in Making Stuff

Sewing Sunday: March Edition – Domestic Bliss

Finished Apron

For about a year now, I’ve been wanting to sew myself an apron.  I’ve been increasingly interested in the idea of the apron as a metaphor for domesticity, as well as what appears to be changing attitudes about what domestic life means to women.  I feel like so many professional, well-educated women I know (myself included) are also really embracing the trappings of homemaking, choosing to spend time cooking, sewing, baking, decorating and generally making their homes these inviting, beautiful places–all the while finding enjoyment in these domestic tasks while maintaining professional careers.  These same women also seem to frequently have an apron they love to wear and talk about as if they are extensions of themselves.  While watching Mad Men last winter, I was thinking a lot about the apron metaphor (as Betty Draper so frequently wears an apron at home), and it really made me want to have my own apron.

So yesterday I finished March’s Sewing Sunday project–an apron.  Yes, I know it wasn’t Sunday, but in my defense, I had planned to sew last Sunday, but then my body was under assault from some mighty nasty allergies.  So instead, I spent last Sunday sleeping and watching season 3 of Breaking Bad on Netflix.  Since we had plans to see my grandfather today for Easter, yesterday had to be the day to sew if I was going to get the project done by the end of March.

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Adventures in Upholstering

dining chair - cropped

Last winter I decided it was time to reupholster my dining room chairs.  They had been gradually deteriorating for several years, and they finally got to the point where they looked so miserable that it was time to do something about them.  My dining room furniture belonged to my paternal grandparents, and it’s this interesting mid-century Danish modern design.  I had been considering getting rid of the chairs because the needed a little structural help in addition to their upholstery woes, but Ben thought their design was unique enough that I should hold onto them.  After doing a little research on Danish modern design, I found a dining room set very similar to mine listed on eBay for somewhere around $1500.  It was enough to convince me that I should probably hang onto the full set and just give the chairs a little facelift.

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Sewing Sunday: February Edition – A new wallet!

Open Wallet

I’m excited to tell you that I have managed to successfully complete my second Sewing Sunday project.  For those of you who missed my announcement last month, this year I’ve decided to challenge myself to complete one sewing project a month, and I’m trying to set aside one Sunday each month to do it, with the understanding that some projects may take longer than one day to complete and sometimes I may have to sew on a different day than Sunday.

This month I decided to sew myself a new wallet.  Admittedly, I may have been a little more ambitious than necessary in my second month of this sewing experiment, but I desperately needed a new wallet, and I really wasn’t diggin’ the ones I could find online.  I have some specific requirements when it comes to wallets.  (I suppose some would say that I’m picky, but I’m gonna go with “discerning.”)  I don’t particularly like the clutch-type wallets that fit a checkbook because they’re so big, and I generally favor the trifold kind that have an easily accessible change purse on the back side of the closed wallet.  Unfortunately, the pickin’s are slim when it comes to trifold wallets for women, and men’s wallets work just fine if the most exciting style you’re interested in is dark brown (and possibly snakeskin).  So I decided to make my own.

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