Get in the Groove!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but space is at a premium in my house, particularly with the kids.  We converted the garage to a bedroom for our roommate*.  Which gave the kids their own room, but now I'm out a garage. We're still recovering from that (and hey, I got rid of an entire dumpster full of crap). Currently I take up about half our sun-room and I'm always fighting a losing battle against clutter and mess.  My daughter's art supplies share that space with me. Which brings me to one of my current projects that my Dad is helping me with.  We're building a new base for my cutting table, which currently looks like this:

Barely contained mess!

Oh, yeah, they finally came out with Instagram for Android and I've been having fun with it.  I like to use it because carrying my DSLR around is inconvenient when I need to be doing work. Anyway, moving along. The OTHER issue with this table is that its at exactly the wrong height that I lean in a manner that sets off my back (more about that here).  So now that Dad has his shop up and running in its new home, and we have light late into the evening, I'm making the effort to go help build the new base to hold my table. The base is essentially two sets of shelves to hold up the top of my current table. One side straight shelves, the other a bit more tailored to specific sewing needs.  Here's Dad's technical drawings:

Fun, right?

The other side will just be shelves, but I had what I call the "tall" shelf (on the left side of this drawing) so I can store actual BOLTS, woo!  We went this evening, including Felicity and her new tools.

Proper protection is important!

I love how different my kids can be. Felicity is all about the hands-on and making things.  Simon, on the other hand, got the President's Award for Academic Excellence this year. I'm having a Proud Mom Moment.

Felicity helps her Grandpa measure the router blade.

Felicity helped with holding the wood steady and removing and replacing the c-clamps.  And then, like most 9 year olds, decided that it was noisy and wanted to go inside for icecream. Cause Grandpa always has icecream. We made her earn it first though.

We moved to the porch after the first run.  We were all covered in sawdust by the end.  But, the grooves were cut, so I guess you can say we're groovy.  Bad DUM DUM.  So, now we have the shells done, Felicity held it together to show off.

I've Been Framed!!

So, not only will it be the correct height, I'll be able to reorganize my sewing and craft supplies.

In other news, I've finally managed to get the cover stitch machine to work. I've decided to keep BOTH machines so I don't have to re-thread when I want to go from safety stitch to cover stitch.  Four machines in constant use is totally not unreasonable, right?  I didn't think so.

* (Our roommate is also our nanny, it ended up that way as for numerous reasons he hasn't been able to find a job in years. He helps with the kids and house and he gets room and board, it works out.  Mom pointed out they used to do that years and years ago, the unmarried adult would live with and help whomever needed it)