Costume shops usually use homasote board to top the cutting table and make it a pinnable surface. Homasote is a soundproofing drywall product that is sold in 4'x8' sheets like regular drywall and plywood. Quilters and quilt stores often use it for large pinboards on the wall for quilt layouts.
Since our cutting table is more than 4 feet wide in both directions and we'd need to piece it anyway, homasote wasn't necessarily the best product to hunt down for our cutting table, especially since it's currently out-of-stock at local Home Depot and Lowe's stores.
So we decided to use office ceiling tiles - an easier to haul home option that I've seen used instead of homasote in a couple places I've worked. We bought an 8-pack. Here's what we bought - https://www.lowes.com/pd/Armstrong-Ceilings-Common-48-in-x-24-in-Actual-47-719-in-x-23-719-in-Fine-Fissured-Contractor-8-Pack-White-Fissured-15-16-in-Drop-Acoustic-Panel-Ceiling-Tiles/3299184
To make the pinnable top, just put pieces on the plywood base layer of the tabletop and use regular masking tape to tape the seams. In the pieces that need to be cut to fit, use a long metal ruler and box-cutter to score the topside (line it up with the plywood edge), and then score the bottom side along the edge of the plywood. After scoring, it's easy to push down to break off the excess, and everything should line up nicely with the plywood.
Once all the ceiling tiles were cut to fit (I taped all the seams as I went), I put a second layer of masking tape on the seams and taped the edges to the plywood base. Then everything was wrapped with brown paper taped in place, and finally covered with canvas duck cloth pulled tight and stapled on the underside.
And now we have a wonderful pinnable top cutting table at the studio! I plan to use the extra 3 ceiling tiles we had to make a top for my cutting table at home at some point, so if there's anything you'd like more detailed photos of, let me know and I'll take some when I make the next one.
#SewingStudioBuild #cuttingtable #tutorial
I spent the day priming things for paint and then I remembered to shoot a quick video. #SewingStudioBuild
I started cutting all the edges while Janet was away yesterday morning. When she got back after lunch, she pulled out a roller and started filling in. I'll put a pic below in the comments. #SewingStudioBuild
We broke for lunch and then came back with a portal ac unit plugged in to an extention cord from the house. Can't wait until they finished hooking up all the electrical and we have the mini split cooling the room for us - it was stupid humid today! #SewingStudioBuild
I keep meaning to cut something new out to sew, and keep not having time. But in the meantime, I thought I’d show something I started several weeks ago. About two years ago, a geography project that was in our curriculum was to create an embroidery design, the unit was on Ukraine and this had to do with traditional embroidered garments. So my oldest made this design, and asked if I’d use it in my own sewing sometime. I had to sit on this one for awhile to plot what to do, but I finally started it. Last year’s ice dyeing had this leftover sweatshirt fleece from some shirts I made when the boys were younger, but it only dyed on the back side. So I’m using reverse embroidery to put his design on the front piece of this sweatshirt, so I can also use that piece of fabric in a way that won’t look like my clothes are inside out. I also have a back yoke piece cut, but I’m only getting to work on this around once a week right now, so I’ll need to either speed this up or drop that ...
I just need to vent. I was hemming some jeans today and one leg was perfect. Did it in one try. The other? It took 4 times of sewing and picking it out! I’m done now but that was such a pain. I hate stretch denim so much. Can anyone else relate?
Almost time to start quilting panels for my jacket pieces. I have one more front section to piece and I need to lengthen the hood pattern (why does everyone always draft hoods too short?) and then I can make "sandwiches."
I took this photo before I stitched a strip of background fabric to each side of the stripes so that the pattern piece of the jacket back is completely covered.
