Laboring on Labor Day

Me, laboring, on a gorgeous sunny day

Americans observed Labor Day this past weekend, a national holiday instated in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland following the deaths of several workers during the Pullman Strike, a nationwide conflict between labor unions and about 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company over reduced wages. Technically, Labor Day is celebrated with a street parade to exhibit to the public the strength of trade and labor organizations, followed by a festival for workers and their families. Most Americans now celebrate the holiday with a Monday off from work, a bbq or two, and lots of beer, as we bid farewell to summer and welcome fall. While I found some time to relax with Oliver and some friends (I even hit the pool in Central Park for one last sunning session) I was a very busy bee this Labor Day weekend: I took my first stab at sewing and made some things for the house I'd been wanting to make for a while.

I've had a sewing machine for six years. It was a thoughtful and generous hand-me-down from a dear friend, Jeremy Waterman, back when Oliver and I lived in San Francisco. In those six years, I've touched the sewing machine four times: 

1. The day Jeremy gave me the machine. I promptly broke the needle, had no replacements and rendered the whole thing useless. A year later, we moved to New York and, due to space constraints, the sewing machine was relegated to the attic of my parents' cabin in New Jersey.

2. In 2009, Oliver and I were making the rounds to various libraries and Salvation Army, donating things we hadn't used in forever and he snuck in the sewing machine, thinking I wouldn't notice. A mini-quarrel ensued: he insisted I would never use the sewing machine; I somehow convinced him I would. I was so convincing, in fact, that he let me bring it back to New York so it could sit high on a bookshelf (aka: "upstairs") and taunt us both. 

3.  During our last visit to see Oliver's family, his mom gave me a quick sewing lesson on her machine. I came home, fully intending to practice but never did. A few months ago I retrieved my sewing machine from it's high-up hiding place, and managed to play around with some practice stitches on a scrap of fabric. That spike in productivity was brief, and the sewing machine soon found its way back to the top shelf for safe keeping. Oliver kindly kept his trap shut about the fact that I still had yet to make anything with the sewing machine. 

4. Fast forward eight months to Labor Day Weekend 2010: I was suddenly stuck with the need to use the three yards of linen I bought months ago at Mood. And use it, I did! I busted out four short curtain panels to conceal office-related junk and other sundry items in our open shelves and five pillow covers. In the words of the great Liz Sullivan, "in your face, Oliver!" 

Our hall console has two drawers and open shelves. It houses our fabulous, but very unsightly printer, some paper, office supplies, and all of my project binders. I made a panel for each drawer, so we could still open them at different times:

Please excuse my sneakers and the poor photo quality, I did not style these shot at all, and I took the photos toward the end of the day, when the light was disappearing. Better photos will be taken soon!

Our kitchen is in our living room, and our Ikea shelves perform several important duties: they provide a visual divider between the kitchen and living room while storing extra dishes and dry food on the top and middle shelves, and magazines, papers and more office supplies on the bottom shelves (office supplies are scattered all over our apartment). The office stuff is very cluttered looking. So, the new panel covers all that business! 

Would it kill me to iron the panels better? No, it would not. Apologies.

Using my new Dritz pliers, I poked holes in each newly sewn panel, clamped a tiny grommet in the hole and hung the panels from 5/8" cup hooks Oliver drilled into the drawers and shelves: 

We've had the same garish pillows for way too long. I kept talking about replacing them with cheap-o ones from West Elm or some such store. But, after sewing all the curtain panels, it dawned on me that I could make my own pillow covers using extra project fabric, leftover linen from the curtains on the back. I just re-used the inserts from the old pillows. A few online tutorials made it clear that creating a simple envelope flap on the back of the pillows would be easiest. It was, indeed, easy:

This video was instrumental in my success – thank you, Crafty Gemini! 

Fabric, from left: Duralee 20953 in Graphite, Kravet (Lisena in Gull), Duralee 42030 in Buttermilk, Kravet (Sommers in Driftwood)

Fabric: Osborne & Little 

At the end of the day, I threw in another panel for the other side of the kitchen/living room divider: 

All the new textiles have really refreshed the hall and living room. I'm so happy with the results! After this marathon weekend of sweatshop labor, the sewing machine is resting "upstairs" now, but I can't wait to get it down and make more stuff soon!