Oh Joy.

Some bright spark suddenly had the clever idea to put rugby on American TV all day Saturday.

I don’t like this person.

My Studio Is Drafty

Drafting table.  Drafty.  Get it?  Huh?  Huh?  -snort-

(Sorry for the mess, I’m still waiting for warmer weather so I can cover my banker boxes using spray glue… which means I haven’t really been jumping up to deal with the rest of the junk under the table either.)

Anyway, here's a little info on my pressing table, a.k.a. the Poor Neglected Drafting Table.  For many years I used it for both drawing and sewing. Once I started spending significantly more time sewing than drawing, I decided to convert it to a pressing table.  But I felt sort of guilty about it.  I mean, Poor Neglected Drafting Table and I go back, way back, and it seemed sort of heartless to just throw it over like that.  So I decided to make a cutting table that I could (sort of) easily convert back to a drawing table.  You know, in case I suddenly had the urge to, uh, draw something.  (I don't.  If you think I'm barely capable of completing something in the sewing arena with the Evil Monkeys on my back, you can well imagine my trying to do something that requires concentration... like drawing.  It's not gonna happen.)

The biggest feature of this project, then, was impermanence.

To that purpose, I decided that a piece of plywood 37.5" x 72" would be a totally and completely permanent fixture in any room I happened to be in.  Ain't no way that kind of weight would be moving under my power.  But what to do?  Cut it into two pieces of plywood, of course.  I can manage a 3'x3' piece of plywood moderately well.  I know this, because I fairly routinely have to take the outer covers off the boards to wash them.  CURSE YOU, EVIL HAIRY CAT OF, uh, EVILNESS.

But let's not jump ahead of ourselves.  To make this pressing table system you will need:

• a table

• 1/2" plywood, cut by your friendly hardware store employee to whatever shape and size is suitable, i.e. the size of your table (you might be able to substitute 1/4” masonite, if you can find any)

• wool blankets, preferably of the Army Surplus variety and a minimum content of 80% wool

• material for the outer cover, preferably something sturdy but with not a lot of texture (like duck or bull denim)

• staple gun (and staples)

• duct tape (because frankly, any project that doesn't require duct tape isn't a project I want to participate in and I'm sure you feel the same way.  Right?)

First cut your blankets the size of your board plus about 4"-5" extra width all the way around.  You should have two layers of wool if at all possible, so purchase accordingly.  For a 3'x3' board I got two layers out of one blanket.  Just.

Next, miter the corners (cut them) and then staple evenly around the entire width of the board.  This is just like canvas stretching, but requiring significantly less tension.  It just needs to be smooth and somewhat taut.

Once the wool layers are attached, cut your cover fabric slightly wider than the wool, but don't cut out the miters.  You just want a square. Otherwise it won't be washable and will fray and will generally be a total pain in the patootie to deal with.  Just sayin'.  I serged the edges of mine but I'll be honest, I only did this last night and I've had this particular set of covers for over a year and washed them several times already.  I just was lazy and never serged before. It's probably worth the extra five minutes of effort.

To attach the cover, I use Duct Tape: Tool Of Champions.  You could staple, but again that will make it really hard to take the covers off and wash them.  And you'll want to wash them a lot, trust me.  I had the idea last night that you could use a huge piece of elastic and make a snugged up cover that way, but really the duct tape works perfectly fine and is easy to replace.  So duct tape it is. Anyway, fold your corners into miters and tape everything down, pulling the fabric as evenly taut as possible.

The goal is to have a perfectly smooth, very taut cover on the top and no bumps on the bottom (so the board sits flatly on the table).  This can take some practice and (in my case, at least) much swearing and cursing.  But persevere, because you'll be happy once it's done. 

Once everything is taped up, voila!  Removable pressing table!

I couldn't work without this thing.  Despite the slight gap in the middle, it’s highly useful.  It presses like a dream and provides tons of cutting and laying-out space.   However, I should note that this is not a cheap sewing accessory.  The Alvin Workmaster 6' drafting table retails for $550. I got mine for significantly less (12 years ago), but $550 is the SRP.  Even at a discount, you're still looking at several hundred dollars.  Of course, you can use this system on any sturdy table (it has to be sturdy, however, because those plywood things are hea-vy).  Beyond the table expense, the 80% wool army blankets are pretty pricey as well.  Or they were when I bought them.  It used to be army blankets were dirt cheap, but either they're a lot more popular now or they're a lot harder to come by.  Regardless, they're not inexpensive when you need two or three.  Plus you have the cost of the plywood and of the cover fabric, which is probably the cheapest part of the whole thing.  Well, besides the duct tape, of course.

It is, however, TOTALLY WORTH IT.  Totally.

Snowpocalypse 2011!

Ok, fine.  I stole that from The Colbert Report and The Onion.  It’s still funny.  We have a “snow day” here today, which probably would be more accurately called a “snow-on-top-of-inches-of-ice day”.  The news reports that all non-essential personnel at the city offices, the local state offices and the Air Force Base are to stay home today.  Everyone is asked to stay off the roads unless it’s essential, i.e. an emergency.  There’s a good inch of base ice under the four inches of snow we got last night. 

So of course, my boss decided that we should all go in today.

I stayed home.

So now while I ignore the Evil Monkeys whining about “going outsiiiiide”, I thought I’d post a photo of them in their jammies.  I made these before Christmas but never got around to taking pictures.  The Evil Monkeys love these nightgowns.  L-O-V-E love.  I like the graphic prints, which TLo picked out (mostly) by herself.  TLo has quite the visual sense.

The pattern is McCall’s M6189.

 

Total bedhead.  And I think The Big One has taken it into her bedhead that she can fly.  I’m not sure.  There seems little other explanation for this.

  

 

I also made these again using licensed flannels:

The pants and arms are bound with knit interlock, so they’re stretchy.  Because I bought small pieces of the flannel (do you know how much flippin’ Disney fabric costs, even on sale??) I had to piece in a sort of odd way.  But the Evil Monkeys love these too and should be able to wear them into spring.  They’re cuter on than they are on the floor.  So a winner.  (Sorry for the wrinkles, I don’t generally iron our jammies.  Well, let’s be honest.  I don’t generally iron anything.  So jammies are certainly at the bottom of the list.)

I altered the sleeve pattern to be more like a cap sleeve and obviously I made the pants into shorts instead of, you know, pants.  Besides slicing the pattern into pieced backs I think I followed the instructions for the most part because they were utterly basic, but I used a variety of bindings.  They called for bias tape and I only used that on the first nightgown (The Big One’s in black).  On TLo’s nightgown I used some lavender-colored FOE from the stash and on the nightie sets I used the white interlock on both.  I found, after doing The Big One’s first, that the bias tape didn’t really pull in the surplice fronts enough and they flopped around.  Using the FOE on TLo’s, I was able to stretch it so that the top snugs in a little and doesn’t flop.  Nice!

 

Great.  The Evil Monkeys are now Dressed To Go Outside.  That took about twenty minutes to accomplish.  So, about 10 times the actual length of time they’re likely to be outside. Any bets on when they’ll be back in complaining it’s too cold---?

Well.  If you had “twenty-five seconds”, you won.