Our Studio is Coming Along!

Over the past week a lot has happened in our new sewing studio! The electrical has been finished, and most of the sheet rock has been put up. You all probably thought our favorite place to shop has been a fabric store...but lately it has been Home Depot. We went there to look at cabinets, storage ideas and lots more things for our new area. We also have contacted some friends in the flooring business about getting our entire shop carpeted with industrial carpet! I can't wait...I will actually feel like someone can bring their beautiful wedding dress in to a professional space, and not have it dragging on cement floor etc... We are also looking at getting a very large cutting table that we can put storage drawers underneath. Now all we have to do is work, make lots of sales, and save for our flooring and storage. Oh and we also are looking into more shop display items such as, an adult display mannequin, another boutique style clothing rack and anything else that will help display our items....

So please if you know of anywhere to get these items or have any ideas that might make our workspace more efficient and organized, please please please, let us know!

Looking into our new area from our existing shop!

Now looking at it from the opposite angle...(on the right is our new fitting room)

a little more to the right of the room from the last picture (on the short wall we want shelves for fabric bolts)

This is the wall we want to put built-ins on, with a desk area, drawers for patterns, and cupboards

Looking straight into our new fitting room...in the back will be more shelves with storage

What to do with Antique Lace???

Yesterday a very good customer of ours brought us in a bag full of antique, hand crocheted laces. She found them in an attic of a relatives and thought we would love to have it! (very nice of her) They are all very intricately done and there are lots of them. (she only gave us this bag - she has lots more) Anyways, we need ideas with what to do with it? Do you have any? One thought was Christening gowns.

Here's just a few of the laces

This is the bag we got!

They are all hand crocheted - WOW!!!

I really like the packaging on this one

A Gift from a Sewing Class Student

Last week during sewing classes one of our very dear students created a little video of her class. I am so glad the girls have so much fun at sewing class, they really are some of the most enjoyable times in our shop. Here it is. Enjoy!

The 8 Month Pillow Project

Back in May of last year a friend of ours had a birthday. We knew she wanted pillows for her bed so we bought some fabric when we went Fabric Depot. We wrapped up the fabric, gave it to her and said it would be for pillows for her bed. Days and days went by and they were always in the back of my mind, knowing that I needed to get them done. Here we are 8 months later and I just sewed them all up today! I guess doing them this much later did yield some better fruits. Yesterday I just learned how to make beautiful vintage flowers by burning the fabric and I had some cute trims on hand. I have a little video of me burning the fabric so you can see how it's done and try it yourself! Enjoy!

All of the pillows

Getting ready to make my flower

Cut a circle to your desired size and then cut slits for each petal

After you bur the edges it will look like this

Sew a button in the center for a finishing touch and there you have it!

My finished pillow

Here they all are again!

Piping and trims can add alot to a pillow and it's so easy! Here a link to the blog I found the vintage flowers on: Simply Vintage Girl

A Baby Jumper to add to our Collection

Since Eloise is gone I took advantage of some of her clothing and thought I would give it a try at replicating one of her jumpers. We are always looking for new babies' clothing. It is made with corduroy and has little ric rac that gives it some style. It's always fun to get ideas from other clothing and try and copy it and change it around. I started out with making a pattern from the bodice by drawing around it then adding my seam allowance. It was actually really simple and extremely fun. Here are pictures of the progress and finished product.

Here's my bodice I made after creating the pattern

Comparing the bodices

Getting ready to attach the skirt

A closer look at the detail

Here's the finished dress next to the dress I copied!

Oh, and here's a beach ball I made to match Eloise's bedding

There's a Hole in the Wall!!!

Yesterday was a day with lots of accomplishments. Besides just getting some sewing jobs done in the midst of it all a hole was made in our wall. Yeah!!!! It means our shop extension is really coming along. My brothers got all the insulation in and then they tore out the existing wall so now we can see right into the new part of our sewing room. The electricity works so now the sheet-rocking can happen. It's really coming along much, much faster than I had ever expected. All the excitement is making us want to look up new storage ideas and sewing studio designs so we can come up with a new sewing studio best suited to our needs. If you have any ideas at all, please let us know!!! We need your help!

Getting ready to take out the wall!

It's out! That was fast!

This is yesterday right after the wall got taken out

Checkin' it out!

To keep the cold out for now we put up a sheet

This morning after the electricity is all put in!

It's comin' along!

Our future closet and fitting room!

Our Sewing Studio...in progress

For quite a while now we have been bursting through the seams of our shop. We have less and less storage areas, but more and more fabric, we don't have a dressing room :( and a few other things... so we got to work on designing a new addition on to our existing shop. We are planning to make this room our "sewing studio" (built-in shelving to display fabric and notions, large cutting table, walk-in storage closet, dressing room and more!) So far the framing and wiring are completed so now it's to work on the insulation, sheetrock, mudding...(we'll see how it goes this time-we learned alot when we did our existing shop :) Let me give you a walk through of our new area! Oh and you can let us know any of your design ideas -(things you like about your sewing room that could help us.) Enjoy!

THE WALL WHERE OUR BUILT-INS WILL BE

MORE STORAGE AND CHANGING ROOM!!!

THE YELLOW INSULATION IS THE CONNECTING WALL TO OUR SHOP WE HAVE NOW

THE SAME WALL AS THE LAST ONE, ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE...

Valentines Apparel in January

Yes, it's only January but as you all know the stores already have their Valentine's Day decorations ect... in which means we must too. We created a few designs for little girls, hoping they will be a big hit this holiday. You wouldn't normally think that people would dress their little girls just up for Valentines but I guess they do! (all the better for us!) Here's some pictures of the designs we came up with.

All the girls really liked playing with the balloons

This is called our "Twirly Skirt"

Pink corduroy dress with ric rac trim

she almost cracked a smile :)

Twirly Skirt up close

New Years Day Snowboarding!

Yesterday we got to go snowboarding up to Crystal Mt. with a couple of my brothers. It was a blast. The day started out a little rough because there was no fresh snow so I took a few hard falls, but later on it was much better and we were able to improve our snowboarding skills quite a bit. We brought our iphone with us so we took turns taking creative video shots so we could put together a little movie (coming soon :)) Anyways, it was a beautiful and sunny, cold day. My bothers took us on a few different runs that we weren't quite used too but it was fun being adventurous and just being with them! I look forward to going on some more snowboarding trips in the near future.

look at this beautiful day

vic, on the first lift up of the day

don't worry, nobody got hurt!

takin a lunch break

Gettin ready to get back out there!

The day was gorgeous