My Sewing Room - Part 4

Continuing around the room.....

Mick is so happy that we can see and actually open the verandah door.

The boxes that were stacked in front of it have now found new homes.

I bought two of these cube shelves as soon as we bought the house.  They fit perfectly either side of the windows.  All the pink boxes and magazine holders were bought from The Reject Shop some years ago.  They brighten things up.

The painting was done by my Dad's aunt when in her 80s.  She had done some painting as a teenager and then started classes again in her late 70s.  I've had it since I was a kid.

Mick's Mum lined the picnic basket on top.  It is perfect for storing small handmade items for gifting.

Initially, we had a vintage red chair in here. It made this corner look very dark.  We did a shuffle of three chairs, and it has made such a difference to the three areas where they were before.  This chair used to live in my Grandmother's bedroom.  It was blue then, upholstered by my Mum.  I'm not sure how old it is.  My Grandfather bought it at an auction in 1928 (just before my uncle was born - that is how I know the date) and it was old then.  When Mum took it to be reupholstered in this fabric in the 1980s, we saw the original fabric, underneath the blue.  It looked Victorian and had waratahs on it.  We requested that some of the fabric be saved for us, but that didn't happen. It had previously been in one of our spare bedrooms, but was too big for the space.  It works so much better here.  The cushion is a vintage one I found somewhere on our travels.  The cushion and pink boxes bring out the pink in the chair.  The armchair caddy was a gift from Lou.  

It is now a nice cosy corner and Mick can sometimes be found sitting here, reading, while I stitch away.  

We added these shelves shortly after we moved in.  Even when the room was a mess, these were generally tidy.

Hanging to the left is a canvas work evening bag Mum made while in the Embroiderer's Guild.  It was very rarely used, but looks fine here.

On the top shelf there is a Peri-Lusta embroidery thread box.  We found this is the middle of Tasmania and brought it home on the motorcycle......as you do......  The little Peter Pan sewing machine was found at a clearing sale many years ago.  The heart is just cute.

On the second shelf, the tin with the bunny playing ukulele had been one of Mum's button tins.  The picture in the centre is actually a 1970s notebook I found on the white elephant stall.  In front, the little iron was my Mum's toy.  Yes, a toy flat iron.  That is showing her age. When I was a little girl, I once had a go at iron hankies with it, down at Grandma's.  It was quite a novelty.

The bottom shelf houses my thimble collection, my low volume grey fabric stash and a notice board where I can make a project progress list.

Underneath is my cork board with pretty bits and bobs.  I have plans - or should I say dreams, of making a pretty one, but it never seems to happen.  There is even a vintage oak frame leaning against the wall under the table for that purpose.......one day.

My thimbles aren't mainly china ones, rather interesting ones.  I have quite a few metal ones with advertising on them, as well as those of my maternal Grandmother and my paternal Great Grandmother.  There are some tiny little child sized ones that Mum used when she learnt to sew and I subsequently used.

I very rarely use a thimble now.

I have a few boxes of fabric sitting on the floor under the window on the other side of my sewing table.  Joey has decided that this is the perfect place to sit and watch the world go by..........especially as I now often have the blinds open........I'm not hiding my mess away from the world any more.

The matching cube shelf sits in the other corner.

On the wall above is a picture I found years and years ago.  It is of sewing notions sitting on a shelf.

The jigsaw is a beautiful impressionist painting of a lady sewing.  When I turned 21, my aunt sent me $21 for a gift, which was a common thing to do back then. I used that money to buy the jigsaw, that I had been eyeing off at the local book store.  It has only been put together once, and Mick did most of it while I was at Tech doing a course.

I'm not sure where I got the pretty rose tin, but coincidentally, Mum has the same one in her sewing drawers.

The sewing machines are a part of  my growing Elna collection.   The one on top is Mum's Elna SU dating from 1979.  The bottom one is my Elna Stella that Mum and Dad gave me when I was 16, in 1981.  They both work beautifully.

You will, of course, notice Joey in his favourite place to sleep.

More soon.