Mai Tai

I’ve been so good about working through my “almost finished” pile in my sewing room. My goal has been to finish one thing a day, or at least put a significant amount of work into a longer project. I’ve been doing better than expected, and have actually finished 5 or six things some days. The day before yesterday I finished a whole pile of Knut work clothes that needed mending, and even some ski things of his. I hate that kind of work and I’m so glad to have it out of my creative space!

Speaking of my creative space, my sewing room has been going through a mini-makeover. Clutter was starting to take over, and pieces of projects were just strewn everywhere. I used to have a policy of only having enough fabric on hand that fit in the cupboards in my sewing room. Well, when things get messy, things start to pile up. Part of my problem is that not everything was fitting in the cupboards anymore. So some of my top projects have their supplies stacked in my “almost finished” pile as well. I’m on a fabric spending freeze until I get myself back on track here.

Then there’s the other storage issue. Up until now my patterns have been organized in a plastic tub/filing cabinet. Then there’s the yarn issue. There’s the tub of cheap yarn, and the tub of scrap wool yarn that I use to embroider some of the wool items in my store. Then there’s my slowly growing reference book library of some amazing crafting books that I use a lot while I’m sewing. Some of my favorites are a cute applique book, a quilting encyclopedia, a pattern alteration guide, a guide for sewing clothes especially for children. All of these have amazing information that I pull out often and I wanted to add a bookshelf to my space. Then there’s the scrap problem, although I wouldn’t define it exactly as a “problem.” When I work on projects, more specifically projects involving cotton woven fabrics, like quilting fabrics, I like to keep as many scraps as I can for future quilts. I keep them fairly organized, per instructions of www.quiltville.com

Anyway, I got this little cubicle unit with a little opening for a bookshelf, a fabric bin which is now full of “almost finished” things. I have no problem having this bin, except there’s this bin and the entire top of my washing machine that has almost finished things. I’d like to cover this bin with coordinating fabric leftover from the bulletin board I covered that’s hanging right above this unit. However, I can’t find all my leftovers. To me that’s a red flag that my fabric problem is really in need of containment! I’m sure I’ll find it one of these days. I just don’t have time to look for something when there are plenty of projects looking for me.

If I can just work my way down to just this bin, I’ll be happy. Then I got some shelves in another cubicle which has a drawer for my various elastics, one is full of buttons, another with trims and bias edging, still another one with all of my double pointed knitting needles. It really organized all the things that were shoved in the one drawer in my sewing desk. Target didn’t have 2 deep drawers, so I had to get a rain check for one, and for the time being my ribbons will just have to sit there. Then I ordered the bottom left bin which is actually a filing cabinet to hold all of my patterns, and replaces the other tub. It’s a bit smaller than my other tub, but it fits the space so much better, and fits with the other cubicles I got.

The next 2 things I want to do is to paint the cupboards in the room white, (I’m thinking this will get done after this baby is born) and to make a fabric cover for my serger, to protect dust from getting in the gears. Plus it will look cool. I’m still undecided if I want some sort of valance in the room, or if I just like as much sunlight to flood in as I can.

So last night, I needed to get something off of my “almost finished pile” and the project I picked wasn’t even started, but wouldn’t fit in my cupboards. My “almost finished pile” also contains my “get done before baby” projects, and since this one was relatively simple I decided to make something from scratch because I’d been so disciplined to finished all of these tedious little projects. I had just finished mending Knut’s work clothes and my machine was all hooked up with the denim weight needle and color thread, and this project included denim as well, so it saved me some set up time.

It’s an Asian Mai Tai. Since Elias was born, I’ve learned so much about the parenting technique of baby-wearing and let me tell you I love it! I don’t wear Elias anymore, but in his first year, having him always there and always close made it so easy to teach him things and soothe him while I was doing dishes, gardening, or helping one of the other kids. It was great as we needed extra bonding to catch up from all of his hospital issues, and we sure got it. I used a ring sling with him mostly. My problem with that is that it only pulled on one shoulder which wasn’t an issue for a long time, but as he got heavier it became more and more difficult.

I also have a Baby Bjorn which I like, and find comfortable, but I don’t think my kids find it quite as comfortable as I do. When they’re not as comfortable, it kinda defeats the purpose of holding them to soothe them. Plus, I can only wear the baby on the front with the Bjorn, and I prefer to wear a baby on my back. On the front, the weight pulls on my back, and the heavier the baby gets, the more I hunch over. On the back, the weight pulls on my abs and I feel like I’m getting a good ab workout…something that any new mom is eager to squeeze in.

So this is the kind of carrier they use in Asia, and can be worn on the front, back, or hip.

Mine is reversible and I used a pattern that I’ve been holding onto for way too long. So I can either have the designer Amy Butler fabric facing out, or the lightweight denim. This was a great “stash buster” project as I let go of some fabric I’ve held onto for way too long, and it came together so fast. Really there’s the waist strap, 2 shoulder straps, the front panel, and the pocket. That’s it. There’s some hidden “X” supports on the inside, but it’s not too complicated.

I also whipped together a Moby wrap out of some $1 Walmart knit fabric I’ve had for I don’t know how long. Really, you don’t have to “make” a faux-Moby. There was no sewing involved. I took 5 yards of fabric (I think a real Moby is 5-6 yards, but I’m small so I thought I could get away with only 5…plus that’s all I had) and cut it in half “hot dog style” as my kindergarten teacher used to say (length-wise). Viola, 2 faux-Mobys for $5. This fabric does not unravel, so I didn’t have to serge the edges, although I wanted to. I didn’t, though, because I only have white serger thread, and the fabric I used is chocolate brown and I didn’t want that much contrast. Buying brown thread would have added about $20 to the cost of my project, and I liked the sound of just $5 from a few years ago better.

I’m happy to say that with my daily work on this goal of finishing all of these projects my pile is down by half, and I even have one Christmas present almost finished! My goal was New Years to get it all done, and I’m surprised how fast these “5 minutes to finish” projects are just flying out of my sewing room. O, it feels so good!