Burdastyle coat done, yeeeeeepie! And I'm a problem-solver. WIth a bad memory.

Back again! Did some travelling again (might post more about that in another post, I went to Provence, I love love love Provence!), and spent a few days intensely sewing a coat for the Burdastyle book when I came home. Now I'm finally on proper vacation, it's a bliss!

Sewing for Burdastyle was actually complicated and became very stressful due to - what should I call it - the human factor?

My younger brother borrowed my flat to stay in when I travelled and he and his family visited Stockholm. The friend I travelled with lives in the north of Sweden but had visited family in the south before we left so she left some excess luggage at my place before we left. In my storageroom, at the attic.

I forgot to tell my brother to leave the spare keys - which are attached to my keys to the attic and to my storage rooms at the attic - in my appartment when he left for our summerhouse (where we were going to meet up when I returned to Sweden). But I did remember to ask him to please put my printer up there to make some room for him, girlfriend and two kids in my tiny flat. Beeing an obedient little brother he did.

When me and my friend got home I quickly realised we had no keys to the attic. My brother had brought them with him 600kilometers north.... ouch.

We got home late at night and my friend was catching an early flight the next morning, so we decided I'd borrow a key to the attic the next day, break the lock to my storageroom and bring her luggage to our summerhouse where she'd pass by car a couple of days later and be able to pick it up. Only, at about five in the morning she realised she had put the keys to her appartment in the bag at my attic. She woke me up at six, and had to leave for the airport at six thirty. Panic! What to do?

I ran outside. Determined to find a neighbour who wasn't asleep (very likely at 6am in the middle of summer-holiday-season, not). Half dressed, not showered for a day having travelled home in +35 degrees celsius, hair not brushed for a few days, well, I'm glad I have brave neighbours! And I'm glad I have neighbours who go to work at 6 a.m! And that I met one almost immidiately... who kindly lent me his key for the attic when I tried to explain the situation and nearly began to cry (I didn't look forward to paying for a locksmith for my friend's appartment) even though he had no idea who I was (I think. But then I'm in the board so he actaully might). So about ten minutes after I woke up I was up at the attic, breaking my lock (glad I had an appropriate saw for metal). My friend got her luggage and caught the flight, HUGE relief!

I really would have needed to print the pattern for the Burdastyle coat before leaving for our summerhouse where I planned to sew the coat-variation but since the printer was in my other storageroom, behind another lock, I decided to arrange the print otherwise, which became through my father who kindly offered to print it for me. And did, in the correct scale. Only he printed it double-sided, which was the default setting at the printer he used, before leaving home to meet up with the rest of us at our summerhouse (where there are no computers and no printers). Which I realised friday night, two days before the deadline for shipping, when he arrived. Panic again!

I ended up copying the back of each print at a bookshop in town (no internet cafés or anywhere else to print things available), assisted by my mum, saturday afternoon, and spent the rest of the weekend sewing frantically (glad I had already made all the more compliated of the needed changes to the first printout of the pattern that I made before leaving for France).

This is where I did the sewing, at the verandah. There are worse places to spend a few days sewing! The water (i.e. the
sea) was right behind my back when I got the photo at four am, right after finishing the coat monday night. I love being able to look out the window and see water, and the forest.
 
I had to push the deadline for shipping from monday to tuesday (which would have worked) only to discover (tuesday morning) that the papers I had recieved from Burdastyle for the shipping weren't enough to send it, and that FedEx had to snailmail me an airway bill before I could even think of sending it. Panic again.

I could do nothing about it though and shipped it today, two days late, since you have to arrange the FedEx pick-up before 10 am and the mail is delivered at 11 and FedEx refuses to arrange the pickup unless you've already recieved the airway bill. So although I got the airway bill yesterday I couldn't send the parcel until today.

I can safely say I'm relieved now! And that I hope my "coat" will get to New York as soon as possible!

I wish I could show you pictures of it, but I can't, not until next autumn when the book is published. But I will show you pictures of the dress I made for my niece today. I needed some instant gratification after all the hard work, and I wanted to make her something before they went back to Norway this evening. What better to make than a shirred dress in gingham cotton? Pictures to come tomorrow.

Now bedtime, again...