I love this day. It’s September 30 and a Saturday. It’s been vacillating between raining and drizzling all day. I bailed on the dog park because of the rain but was pretty content to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things for tomorrow’s dinner as we are having a surprise visitor. I stopped at the library on the way to pick up a couple of books I had put on hold. Another Christmas novel and a sock knitting book.
Previous to leaving the house I spent the morning in my dungeon studio sewing to my heart’s content. No pressure. No one waiting for my project. Just something I wanted to make for myself at my leisure. Now I am back at it. I love my studio and it’s the perfect place to be on a raining fall Saturday afternoon. Eating leftover pumpkin pie and browsing through my new UK Country Living magazine. I love this magazine. The photography is amazing. The font they use for all the titles is so beautifully British. Most of the ads look like actual articles. And the paper is still high quality and glossy. Not like the dull newsprint they’ve started using in all the American magazines. I digress….
My studio. Let me describe it. It’s a little chilly down here but I have one of Lexie’s old man cardigans she was going to toss and I saved from the bin to warm me if I need it. Mike has built me a long wall to wall and around the corner desk for my computer and all my sewing machines and my books and lamps and pretty paraphernalia. I love to have a movie or podcast on while I am down here working. I have all the pretty office supplies that I couldn’t buy when I worked in an actual office because they weren’t professional. My profession is beautiful things so I can have all the beautiful things I want down here. Thus, I have all the pretty color post it notes and pens and tabs. Mason jars full of rubber stamps and paint brushes and lovely mugs full of pens and scissors and rotary cutters, nail files and exacto knives. I save all my greeting cards when I receive them so a lot of them are pinned to the walls. They bring me joy. I have shelves and shelves of sewing notions, card stock, books, and old journals, crepe paper for making flowers, candle making supplies. A circuit and a cuttlebug (google it). I have wallpapered one wall with gorgeous layouts from one of my favorite magazines. Mostly flowers and water scenes. There are shell frames and jars full of pearls and beads. Clocks. Mirrors. Tiny art work. souvenirs from my travels. Bulletin boards, boxes of puzzles. Stacks of library books. An old typewriter. A gold standing mirror Lexie scored for free off Marketplace. Jars of thread. Boxed cards and empty journals waiting to be filled. Lots of lamps. A dressform. Candles. I think I’ll go light one now. There are close to 100 large cardstock roses pinned to the unpainted drywall (not that anyone can see it). I guess that’s the point. I have large black filing cabinets (that I inherited from a company 4 jobs back) full of fabric and baking packaging. I have an industrial sewing machine and serger I bought from a clothing store my dear friend works at. They came with their own tables. so….I have those tables covered with sewing projects, fabric and magazines. I have a high self to store my Christmas village on during the summer. The shelf used to be the high rise platform or our kitchen island. I’ve got an old glass front hutch that stores all the quilts I’ve made when they are not being used. Lexie has a shabby chic looking armour and dressing table down here as well. A trunk… Wedding dress storage bags full of the gowns she loves to make as a hobby. Bunches of silk flowers wherever I could fit them in. Many of Lexie and my paintings that are seasonal adorn the walls.
Often when I survey the studio, I evaluate how it got like this. It has evolved over time. One could never just throw this together in one fail swoop or a plan because the beauty of it is that it’s not been planned. It’s just evolved and taken on its own personality. Well maybe my personality. And that’s OK. It’s my studio. It could never be replicated exactly. It’s taken me 13 years of living in this home. And it perfectly suits me.
All in all, it’s kind of a shabby chic look only with black accents. I know black is not really shabby chic but I think I’ll make my own style name. Because most of my home is sort of shabby chic – ish, except for all the black. I like the black and there’s too much of it to turn back now. Ebony French Country Chic maybe.
Anyway, it’s back to sewing and puttering for the rest of this rainy day. No one is calling my name or harassing me. I’ll do what I love. And thank the Lord for these circumstances. They are ideal – for me. In this moment.
The Red Plaid Apron 