Dressing up my desk

No, these are not dinner napkins...

... although they are made just like 'em (cut a large square, make a narrow double-fold hem with neatly mitered corners).

Actually, the red one in the middle is a napkin, "luncheon" size, I'm calling it. That one's becuase I had a small piece of the red colorway lying around, and I figured why not make one more. I eat lunch at my desk a lot. Sometimes that's because I'm on a roll and want to keep going on a project, but more often I'm using my lunch break to blog-surf or catch up on personal emails.

The four large ones are for my desk. Which is really a square dining table, and which has these very cool glass-covered sections. Each is about 15.5" square and 3/4" deep, with a bevelled glass top. The insets have a woven reed lining, which is a blah brown that I've never liked (I am a COLOR fiend, as you may have noticed).

In the past, I've lined these sections with beautiful papers of the heavy/expensive hand-made, gift-wrappy kind, and sometimes I've put little trinkets in there, too. Sort of a 3D collage of pretty things and favorite stuff.

When we last moved, a year ago (yikes, it's been that long?!), I tossed the faded old paper and disassembled everything for packing. Then reassembled here, without doing anything at all in terms of desk decor. Because moving is hassle and a time-eater, and I wanted to get set up and back to business. I figured I'd dress the desk back up in a little bit, when I had the time and felt inspired.

I've had the inspiration/plan for a while now: make some cloth inserts from fabric left over after making my office curtains. But the time-motivation thing didn't happen until this past weekend. When I produced these, cleaned up the desk, and got them in place:

Don't they look nice?

Of course, this is a WORKING desk, and although I like to think I'm a smidge toward the "tidy and organized" end of the spectrum, my desk typically looks something like this: 

So glimpses of flowers is what I get. I'm thrilled, though, to have finally crossed this off the "someday" list, and to have a more colorful, cheerful, and inspiring desk to sit at all day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to stop blogging and go get some "real work" done...

Another Linen Top

I'm slogging slowly forward on this Mini-Wardrobe Challenge over at PatternReview.com, and was all set to finally make something from some gorgeous stretch rayon in my stash. Until I realized that there was just enough -- maybe -- of the turquoise linen left over from making MWC garment #1 to make a simple tank top.

Inspiration credit goes to this top, with which I am much enamored, although I'm past the age where spaghetti straps in public are a good idea. Isn't that ruffled hem adorable?

Unfortunately, the Japanese pattern book it's made from is not among those on my shelf, and I don't have time to order a copy of it. Plus, I'm supposed to be making this challenge from stash, fabric and patterns.

Once bitten by this image, making a linen tank for my second MWC top seemed essential. Plus, it would use up that fabric. Which is a lot more appealing to me this week than putting a scant yard-ish size piece back in the stash. This is supposed to be the year of sewing from stash (and finishing UFOs, not that I'm doing spectacularly in either department, yet, but it's only April, I've got time). Plus, a sleeveless tank would be a nice counterpart to the long-sleeved Patricia tunic, and maybe even fit into a THEME for the challenge, which has so far been lacking. (More on theme later.)

I rummaged through the pattern stash, which yielded a couple of items that could be easliy altered into sleeveless tank-ish tops, but alas, not from the limited piece of fabric I had left. So I self-drafted one, very loosely based on a linen pull-on (no buttons or zip, yay) JJill top that fits well through the bust thanks to armscye darts.

So I copied that, sort of, adding to the length (aiming for lower hip area) and whipped up a quick muslin. Yikes. Okay on the top part, but wow, did I underestimate what would go around my hips with any kind of ease. So now it's more trapeze-ish in shape.

Then I trimmed the neck (very slightly gathered at center front) and arm edges with bias strips cut from the Anna Maria Horner "Guest of Honor" fabric left over from making my office curtains. So far so good. On to the ruffle. Which turned out not to be such a good idea. The cotton print is huge scale, and I planned a deeper ruffle to show just a bit more of it. But a gathered length of wider cotton, even quilting weight, was too heavy for the very lightweight linen. (Took a pic, but it was a dud.) So I cut the ruffle off drafted a straight lower border and went with that. Super-narrow double-turned hem, top-stitched at the seam.

It's okay, but not quite as super-delicious spectacular as I'd hoped. Which is about normal for my semi-experimental sewing. I'm happy with the fabric combo, though, and although there is still a yard-ish size length of the GofH fabric back in the stash, it was fun to use some of it for a garment purpose. Probably I'll make a simple skirt from the rest, but no tackling that until I've completed (or given up on completing) this mini-wardobe thing.

Finishing the white denim skirt is next. It's been hanging in the sewing room closet for a week, waiting for me to give it a waistband and a hem...

I'll post photos of me wearing this stuff when I have complete outfits to show off. Which will be sometime within the week if I'm going to make the challenge deadline.

... and a pillow for my desk chair

to go with the curtains:

I whipped up a pillow for my desk chair yesterday afternoon, to go with my new home office curtains. My chair is really a dining chair, and I sit on the front half of it while working, so a big fat pillow to fill up the space behind me is welcome. The white Guest of Honor fabric is from the stash, and I consider the border fabric stash also, as it's from the piece left over after making the top borders for the curtains. It's the same on both sides, except that the big white blossoms are positioned slightly differently.

I used a 20" square pillow form, and the "Sunset Button Pillows" pattern from Amy Butler's Softwares. I even read and (mostly) followed the directions! I had to size down (Amy's pillows are huge: 27"), and I skipped the buttons, but did the rest according to plan.

I love how the flanges turned out, and the whole thing was super quick and easy to do. Except for sewing the seam through both sides between the flange and pillow body (so the flanges become flanges, not just a bigger pillow cover) ... in spite of pinning, it was tricky to get the seams lined up just right. I was in my usual slapdash mood and, after considering briefly the pros and cons of doing a super-careful, precise job, did a quickie, imprecise one instead. Unless you look closely, which no one but me will ever do, you can't tell that my "stitch in the ditch" wanders on and off the ditch more than it stays in it.

The only drawback to this pattern is that the pillow cover is entirely sewn on, no zipper or other closure, so it's not removable for washing. I have zippers in the stash, and could have added one. But I didn't want to bother, so I'll just have to be careful not to spill coffee on this one.

Guest of Honor Curtains...

... for my home office! Ignore, please the messy desk. Things got moved aside, and then I was so eager to snap pics as soon as the rods and curtains were up that I haven't even unplugged the power drill yet. My office is the dining alcove: the plants are orchids on top of some storage cabinets that function as a room divider so the space feels less like an alcove and more like a separate room. Here's the view from the kitchen:

It took me a long time to make these. I got the fabric all measured and cut some not too long after we moved in early this summer, and then was distracted by life and other projects. I kept thinking I ought to sew these up, but after getting our bedroom curtains done (shown here, two of the five total made, Amy B fabric, not blogged yet):

I just couldn't face another curtains project right away. Which turned out to be about two months.

But the sun has been inching ever southward as we've inched into autumn, and glare on my computer screen has (as I suspected) become a problem. I didn't want to change my office layout (for feng shui reasons, as well as it's a very small space and options are limited), so curtains are the solution.

These are made from Anna Maria Horner's "Guest of Honor" fabric from her Garden Party line, with borders in two colorways in "Dance Floor" from the same collection. Many thanks to Kerith at Material Girl Shoppe for the fabric, good price, and great service. I look forward to shopping with you again.

I did not make these curtains "by the book" at all. For one thing, they are quilting fabric, which is not very wide, nor does it have the heft and drape a good curtain should have. Well, too bad. I love, love, love everything about this print. So yes, while the curtains do cover the windows when drawn shut, they are not as wide as they should be according to curtain-making guidelines. Sad truth is that 1.5-2X window width for fabric means double the yardage (i.e., cost) plus at least twice the cutting headaches plus finicky print matching on the seams. It just wasn't going to happen.

So, these are just one fabric width wide each. There is barely 1/8" turn-back at the sides, as I didn't want to sacrifice even fractions of an inch in width. Lining is a cheap cotton-poly blend in pale blue. I experimented with using a "clip strip" at the top back, so the curtain ring clips would be hidden rather than grasp the top edge of the curtain, but after doing one curtain I decided I didn't have the energy or patience to go that route. So, visible clips it is, even though I don't like them. They sure are easy, and that's worth a lot to me.

Here are some close-ups of the borders. The top is interfaced (on the lining) for 3", to avoid drooping between the curtain ring clips. So nice to work with coordinating prints, as the color match is perfect. I love how the red border at the bottom picks up the colors of the blossom centers:

Next up, I have some of this fabric with white blooms, and I'm going to use that to make a big pillow for my desk chair. I might even have enough left of the blue "Dance Floor" to trim the pillow with it.

Only problem is that these dress up my office so nicely that my husband has decided that his office needs curtains, too (we both work at home, so we have two full-time home offices). He's right, too. Compared to my office, his now looks bland and blank and white, and in need of some nice fabric embellishment in the window area. I don't think he has anything as boldly floral as this in mind, so first challenge is to get some idea of what kind of fabric he'll be happy with. I really hope we don't have to settle for something traditionally gag-inducing like boring stripes or plaid. We're just not the traditional type, either of us.