Saturday, November 1, 2014

Setting up the Sewing Room

My new sewing room is taking shape here in a 5 foot by 6 foot walk-in closet in the second bedroom.  Sounds small, but with good organization there will be plenty of room.  I will never have the stash here that I have in Alberta, but there is plenty of shelf space for storage.

There is an active Lions Club here in the village and this morning they hosted a swap meet.  Individuals were able to rent a table for $10 to sell what they wanted to get rid of, and the Lions Club had several tables of donated items.

I didn't find a sewing table, but I did find a few other important items:  an Ott light ($5) for on the sewing table and a small fan ($3) which should come in handy as there are no windows or fans in the closet.

I took my Janome Memory Craft 4900 here this fall and intend to leave it here.  In the future we might want to come by plane, and it wouldn't be easy to take a sewing machine as a carry-on.

The table in this photo is borrowed, and obviously too small.  I'm looking for the right table, possibly a 2 x 4 foot table with folding legs.

An acquaintance here, Paula, inherited a Bernina sewing machine and serger from a friend and has set up her sewing room in an identical space in her condo.  I'll stop by soon and see how she has managed.  She found a "writing table" in Walmart that filled the bill.  I haven't seen that there yet, but will keep on looking.

Another good buy today was a Bissell Power Steamer Rug Cleaner ($20).  The carpet here is an old, dusty rose with many stains and dirty traffic areas.  Eventually we'll replace it, but not right now.  So in the meantime a rug cleaning machine will help keep it looking decent, I hope. The word "Steamer" is a misnomer: it uses hot tap water and Bissell rug shampoo, not steam, to clean.

There was no instruction manual with it, so I got down this afternoon and figured things out.  First I cleaned a large amount of carpet fuzz off the brush roller and that whole area.  Then I figured out how to remove the tank.  I was poking around in that and accidentally popped a filter down a tube.  Yikes!  I turned the machine upside down but still couldn't retrieve it.  Later on it showed up at the bottom of the tube and I was able to snake it back up.  Whew!

I put some hot water in the tank and ran the machine.  It Works!!!  And a few determined passes picked the water back up.  I think when I get the proper rug cleaning fluid it will be a go.

And one more good buy: a Proctor Silex bread maker for $10.  It's smaller than the breadmaker at home, so I will be able to make just one loaf at a time or 6 large hamburger buns.  But then, I don't have a chest freezer here to keep a large stock of frozen goods at hand, so one loaf and 6 buns will do just fine.  I use the breadmaker for dough, not finished loaves, so the round pan and smaller capacity shouldn't be a drawback.

It was a fine day with lots accomplished and I'm starting to feel more settled in here.  Just a few more things to find, especially some chairs for the small patio so we can enjoy the cool evenings there.  Our condo faces north, so we aren't troubled with the direct sun in the windows or on the patio.  In a hot climate, that's a plus!

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