Shopping, Cosiness and Curry

Hello again!  So this post is a little later than I wanted it to be, but to be honest – some of those things I talked about being scared of happening last time, well they happened.  I won’t dwell on it, but let’s just say it’s all been a bit rubbish **massive understatement** and life has changed again.

**Deep breath**  But back to the project, I’m sure you’re gagging to know what’s been going on.  After deciding on my New Year resolution to get organised, declutter and set up my sewing room, excitingly, at the end of last year I had my personal shopping session with the lovely David, our #liveLAGOM leader, and it was pretty good!  I wanted to buy things to help get, and keep, my sewing room organised but as is my usual style, not really thought about it until I rocked up for the session.  David steered me through the sweet shop that is Ikea (ooh, I could get that, and what about that, hold on – I’ve just seen this, oh and that would be perfect, etc, etc) and after wrestling with my obvious need for ALL the stuff, my very practical head took charge and I came away with a pretty decent haul. 

I got some extendable legs for a desk top I already had (see, I’m already reusing stuff that’s been gathering dust in the gersinter) to use as a pattern cutting/layout table, some kitchen wall racks, pots and baskets for organising everything on the wall behind my sewing machine and a lovely floor lamp to give me plenty of light (LED of course) across both the layout and sewing tables.  It’s all looking fabulous…in my head!  

So now comes the hard work – clearing and rearranging, and not just in the soon-to-be sewing room – this is where the realisation of how many gersinters I actually have becomes apparent.  In order to clear the envisaged sewing nirvana, I first need to clear my old craft room upstairs to make way for all the stuff from the other room to go into, so that we can then clear and move furniture out, and then new stuff in (have I lost you yet?).  It’s like one of those puzzles you used to have as a kid – the ones where you had to move the little squares around in a frame until you finally got them in the right positions to make a picture, or you got fed up and it remained a piece of abstract art forever.  

But I’ve started, and that’s an achievement in itself – here’s a couple of photos of the progress (I know you’re thinking they must be the ‘before’ photos, but I was far too embarrassed to post those, this really is progress - look there's carpet!).

It’s all started to get me a bit excited about sewing again – I’ve already made my daughter and niece matching dresses from my fabric stash and planning the next two makes **spends the next twelve hours on Pinterest drooling over patterns and tutorials**.

As if all this wasn't impressive enough, I’ve also been along to two of the #liveLAGOM workshops – the first one was Cosy Homes where we made draught excluders – I made mine from an old jumper and some kids clothes (upcycling like a pro, booyah!)...and yes, that is me wearing the draught excluder, it was very cosy!

The second was Curry in a Hurry, where we learnt about using a pressure cooker to minimise energy use in cooking and reducing food waste.  Since then I’ve been consciously thinking about my cooking habits and using up my leftovers.  Damn this stuff is infectious - next, I’ll be turning my heating down by a degree and using more cosy throws **turns heating down and pulls that woolly throw over my knee**…argh!!!