Re-using a cot

Now that I have moved to a new house my sewing space is in the lounge room. Fortunately the kitchen/dining/family room is open plan and perfect for our normal family life . This means that having the sewing in the lounge room is no big deal. 

Still, my old cutting table, which was a six seater dining table that had been raised several inches using all manner of goodies from Bunnings, was too large for this new area so it went to the tip with all the rest of the clutter that got thrown out on moving day. I am glad it went because in the end it had to be held together with string and the height adjusters would fall off every time I re-arranged the room.

So... I needed a new cutting table.

Even though I am only short I like my table to be high enough that I don't need to bend over when using the rotary cutter.

What could I get that would fill not only the height requirements but also allow me to hide all the goodies I used to store on and over my old table?

Why, a cot of course!

Found at the op-shop for a mere $15 and in a lovely aged cream colour this folding wooden cot is perfect.

At the moment I am just using a piece of 9mm MDF from the shed on the top but I think in time I will get a piece that fits correctly so their are no gaps for goodies to drop through. The best part is that I can store things in the cot (hidden by vintage tableclothes when I get that far) and also underneath.

PS In the interest of sanity I have not vacuumed the floor or tidied anything up.

Spreading the white!

I like white.

There - I've said it. And totally not ashamed of it either.

I also like like wood, in most of it's modern and vintage/antique guises.

But I think dark wood suits larger places. And I have a small place. In fact so small that my bedroom is also my sewing room.

As all you ladies know, even the best kept sewing room already has loads of colour and problems with tidiness.

This terrific bookcase was gifted to me by a friend. It is well made and even has a gorgeous little heart cut which I totally treasure. It works well for material/tablecloth/teatowel storage but because it is a tall object it brings darkness into my little room.

So, prompted by all the terrific white blogs around, notable Mias Landliv and a beach cottage I finally took the push today and found all my tins of white.

I don't know where the sander is so lets skip that step. Besides it is too hot and it might storm later so lets get going. Let's just start with the undercoat, the one I took from the shed when I left home.

Miss nearly 16 offered to help. She is wearing my trusty painting dress that has served me through 2 pregnancies and loads of breastfeeding. A brilliant dress picked up at Kmart for $5 about 20 years ago.

I'll never be able to let go of this dress because I wore it the day I took my son home from hospital. I picked him up and his eyes latched onto the dress. He took to it straight off and never seemed to look at anything else when I wore it.

Would you believe it - now he goes for the black.

And I am going for the white - spreading it all over the place.

Yippee!!!

My creative space

My creative space today: Project number two will be finished tonight (Did I say THAT?!) and winging it's way to Melbourne tomorrow. Only one more on this list to go then I'll start a new one.

My creative space

All materials folded and squared away (except for the ones hidden away in the baby bassinet under the table!).

Sewing desk tidy for the first time in how many years? Can you see my threads all nicely hung up so I can actually see that I don't need to buy any more white but desperately need black? My daughter loves this new bit but I am not sure how it will go. It has to be bettter than searching around the bottom of a little basket and cutting those tangled threads all the time.

So now I can finally start on THAT bag that has been bugging me all summer. YaY!!

My sewing room

North

SouthEastWest
What a mess!!