Out & About

Fun fact about me: panties is a word I loathe and avoid saying in the normal course of events. But it’s appropriate in this case.

I sewed some underwear!

Now that my sewing machines are accessible, I’ve been casting about for what to make first. I cycled through a lot of fun things (dress! pants! top!) before coming to the conclusion that what I really needed was new underwear. And while I know that bras are not something I want to integrate into my sewing wheelhouse, knickers seemed to be in my skillset.

I took a class from Sincere Studio, a new-to-me sewing studio. The class was great, walking us through what kind of elastic to purchase, what kind of material works the best, and then taking us step by step through the sewing process. I’d not worked with fold over elastic before, so that part was very helpful.

The instructor let us know that the first pair of underwear we make will probably not be quite right. But by the third pair, we will have locked in the skills and will love our underwear.

When cutting out the pattern, I went for a higher waist because my current underwear slides down in the front. I almost went for the highest waist, but the instructor said the high waist was really high, so I knocked it back to a medium-high waist.

The pattern (Iris Knickers, by Tilly and the Buttons) was easy to follow and had a little trick for joining everything up that was helpful. When finished sewing them, I tried them on and found that, my goodness, that underwear was high waisted! The legs are the slightest bit tight, but not terribly so.

I’ve been wearing my very large pair of underwear with dresses and such, and one thing I do like about them is that they don’t crawl up. I put them on, and they stay in place for the day.

So I do have some iterating to do, and I wish I hadn’t bought quite so much of bright white organic cotton, but I’m looking forward to my homemade underwear future.

I have finished sewing my valance. Here it is on the wall.

Do I like it? I do not. For some reason, I didn’t figure out that it would be wavy, even though I knew I was cutting it longer than the width of the curtain rod. I don’t like how puffy it is.

But I also didn’t like the curtains that were the previous tenants of this window, so the valance is continuing the tradition.

I really like the Murphy bed’s built-in lights when they are on and I am reading. However, they have a significant design flaw.

You can see my jury-rigged solution: part of the packaging from the Ikea pillowcases I bought. It doesn’t entirely solve the problem; it just lessens it.

The button to turn on the lights has a very bright blue light that shines regardless of the on/off status of the lights themselves.

From the future, I can say that the second layer of solution involves me leaning the memory foam pillows against the headboard to cover the light. There’s a void between the mattress and the wall, so the pillows sit at an angle.

That means I can’t really use them as pillows, just as light blockers.

Other than that situation, I’m really enjoying my Murphy bed.

I was still in the holding pattern waiting for my Murphy Bed, when I got a call on a Saturday morning, asking if they could delivery that very day.

They could!

While I waited, I took another round of photos.

Formerly the bed corner, this will soon be a corner with a cabinet.

The left side is the last view of some of the wall; the bed will block it.

A corner shot. I have hung two of my grandmother’s clothing creations as decoration.

And a view of this corner. It will soon have one more Billy bookcase in view.

And the bed is delivered and installed!

Doesn’t it look great?

I now have a big open space in the middle of my room.

I also learned that when you forget to put the feet down on the Murphy bed, the bed is rather heavy and will break your toenail.

I’m excited to sleep in my new bed!