Sewing Blitz

One of the really great things about knowing where I'll be next summer (assuming that The Call from YNP will happen soon) is that I don't have to wonder what to take for living. You know, stuff like pots and pans, linens, junk like that. There's at least an 80% if not higher chance that we'll be back in the same apt as last summer, so this week I finished curtains for each room. I stuck some fabric over the boys' window last summer, but this year I dug out ones I had made for their room in Acadia. I took my sewing machine with me then, hoping there would be room for it. Boy was there and we totally paid thru the nose for it.

But I wasn't sure what we'd have in YNP. Turns out that it's wonderful--all 664 square feet of it. Yeah, I know our Ohio house is three times that big plus the garage and the basement, but what the heck. And as great as our view is here--woods we actually own--there are no bison roaming around. I can actually do without the bears, but bison I miss. Wolves would be nice, but the occasional coyote here is nice, although they hardly ever howl here.

Our cabin in Theodore Roosevelt NP was the cutest of our housing places. It had a nice size bedroom with a closet, nice bath, small but cute kitchen, living room--which was the boys bedroom--how loverly, campground office, and front and back porches. We ate 95% of our meals on the back porch. Since there were no mosquitoes thank goodness, Tom and I pretty much lived out there. The boys each had a bed in the LR, along with the ratty couch, one small dresser, and a small closet. They set their game cube and vcr up on our traveling boxes and called it home. And I when we got home to Ohio, I went on a rampage and cleared out a lot of stuff that we don't need.

Living in a tiny space will do that to ya. Sadly, I'm still up to my eyeballs in stuff I don't need, but I've done pretty well getting rid of stuff I don't want. I even--gasp--got rid of lots of books!!! There are still some things I can't resist, but I'm soooo much better than before. For many years I kept myself on a strict rule about if I buy new clothes a like item has to go to the Goodwill. Then I was subbing and needed school clothes. I'm not subbing much now, so last week I pared down my school clothes. That felt good.

So what does all this have to do with a sewing blitz? All the curtains are done for the apt.. Venetian blinds are in each window, but I hate blinds with a passion, so now the place will have curtains. Our Ohio house doesn't have any curtains because who's going to bother looking here? Out there we have neighbors and tourists and all sorts of other interesting riff-raff. Not to mention the long summer nights and early mornings. And the curtains give a sterile apt. some flavor. I'd post pics of the place, but when 4 clutter-prone people live in a tiny space, it always looks messy. Ah hell, it IS always messy. I've got a couple of ideas on ways to try to do some clutter busting next summer, but as usual it involves serious re-training on 3 male members of the species. Wish me luck.

And for extra sewing fun, Amy and I are working on new cushions for her cool old "Heywood Wakefield" furniture. I was hoping to duplicate the shape and construction of the original cushions but after dinking with one for several hours that ain't gunna happen. So we re-grouped and got it figured out. The inner covers are done for the 3 bottom cushions (well, almost--they're all cut out that that's the pain in the butt part). Tomorrow I'll finish those, and in between errands, I'll start cutting out the outer covers, which will be simple black denim. We were hoping to put on piping, but again the pain in the butt factor is high there. Amy also has the good sense to want good looking simple stuff as opposed to poorly done cooler stuff. Yea.

Oh, and I also made 2 wee tiny pillow covers today, too. Gotta justify all those fat quarters that seem to jump into my cart at the fabric shop. . . .