Sewing room cleverness

It has been so long since I posted last – my apologies. Once again work got a little crazy and the wedmin has stepped up a level while we try and nail down the venue. Anyway. Enough wedding chat, this is a sewing blog!

I must say thank you to Pip a la Chic for tagging me in her lovely blog :-)

So my sewing course is going pretty well so far. There are some lovely people there, from lots of different backgrounds. It's really fun all learning together! The picture is of me cutting out my pattern on the lovely long cutting tables they have in the workroom.


Last week I cut out my pattern in calico to make the toile of my jacket. Our instructions have been to cut out the pattern a size or two too big, with the aim of sewing the toile together and fitting it (I guess using the excess bigness to make sure we have plenty of room for adjustments), and then I guess we will have to transfer the adjustments to the pattern afterwards, before cutting it out in the fashion fabric (which I haven't bought yet). Any suggestions for what fabric I should make this up in? I'm really interested to see how that sewing the calico together will go – so very exciting tomorrow! I will at some point have to.... SET. IN. SLEEVES. Eeek.

Which brings me on to my (or, more realistically, my bf's) next DIY project. I really want a bigger work surface in my sewing room (note I now refer to our study as 'my sewing room' – heh) which is sewing friendly and versatile. I had a look on the internet at what is out there and found that Horn do an awesome adjustable height table (the Horn Professional 3002) which has their 'airlift' system for hiding your sewing machine under the table when you're not using it. It also lets you, with the help of a specially cut insert, use your machine in a flatbed configuration which I think would be awesome. And it has electrically adjustable legs. This is a real luxury, but I think I could live without that functionality. The bad news is that this awesome piece of kit is £2500.


I think I can do better than that. I think that the airlifter plus some adjustable legs plus a table top can be fashioned into exactly what I'm after for less than ten per cent of the cost, albeit the height will be adjustable only manually. I can then buy the insert from one of the companies that sell them (for the flatbed option). I am even wondering whether it is possible to have two openings and airlifts - one for my overlocker and one for my sewing machine...


What do you think? Has anyone had any experience in making a custom made sewing table? Or has anyone found anything like the Horn one above which is more affordable?!