Are you a member of the "I Hate Tights" club?

In my quest to be warm, I have upgraded my wardrobe a bit this winter. I have purchased nice, thick, tights. They're warm and cozy and can be worn with pants or skirts/dresses. I've got them in black and brown. (Boring, but I had to start somewhere.) Then I discovered something: I hate them.

I am 5'4" which is on the line between regular and petite. Back in my thin days, I lived in Florida and didn't wear tights. Now I'm decidedly NOT thin and tights are a nightmare! They're a one size deal which means that there's always more material than leg for me. I don't have much of a rear (I may have been born without one), so that means there's not much help to keep the tights up in that department. The part, though, that really gets my tights in a wad is, well, that my tights get into a wad! Somehow the feet direction don't match by the time you get to the thighs and they're all twisted and uncomfortable.

This morning I decided to take action. Surely there must be a way to turn tights into thigh-highs. I did a search and came upon this tutorial: How to Stockings from Tights. On top of that find, I discovered that I'm enjoying the rest of her blog. The title alone is inspiring--Down With Clutter.

I WILL be making some stockings. My concern is they won't stay up, so I may end up going the garter direction if I have to. But only if I have to!

(ETA: I dashed off after posting this to remodel my brown tights--I sacrificed them to this experiment. Well, they don't stay up if you just turn and sew them. I'm going to add some elastic and see if that helps. My upper legs are bare which is a little discomfitting. It was nice, however, not having to do the full adjustment when I visited the powder room!)

We interrupt this regularly scheduled experiment...

In this blog I am currently concentrating on using up my food stock (frig, freezer, pantry) instead of purchasing and lugging home MORE groceries.

But that's not the ONLY thing this blog is to be about. It's called The Haven of Home to give me a broad palette concentrating on all aspects of making a home.

So, this post is about something else: Sewing! When I was a teenager, I sewed all of my clothes. I learned to sew by machine when I was seven. HERE is a post on my homeschooling blog where I talked about my amazing sewing prowess. I still sew, but primarily house stuff like curtains, valances, pillows, etc.

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of my "stash." I'm dying to sew some vintage-style clothes (30s, 40s, 50s) at some point this year. I will abide by the old adage of "use it up" and try my best to sew out of this stash.

Let me explain the cabinet. Coming home from work one day, my hubby called to say there was a hoosier-sort-of cabinet by the side of the road for free. Free is a happy word. Storage is another happy word. "Hoosier-sort-of" intrigued me. He brought it home and put the upper part on the wall. The lower part was no longer hoosier-like, so he put it in the garage for tools. He then recycled an old bookshelf for the bottom part of my sewing area. White paint brought the two pieces together and I waited impatiently for it to dry so I could get my fabric on it.

For your viewing pleasure I present my "stash" area...

The whole unit:

The area in between (the cups are square-shaped!):

The STASH!

The "hoosier" part closed. I added the glass knobs. I know they're not appropriate, but I liked them!

Left side:

Right side. A mix of old and new. The cannisters on the bottom belonged to my husband's grandparents. That's rickrack on the top right of the door.

If you have pictures of your stash or your sewing room or, well, anything sewing related, please leave a comment so I can come and see what you have!