Thursday 21 August 2008

Keeping the door open

At work they have this thing about turning the air con right up. I often find myself sitting at my desk in a tshirt when it's about 12°C outside, which I can't really complain about (although I do think that their energy consumption is excessive, and especially since the institute I work for is trying to "stay green", but that's another story). But the real "problem" is that the air blows so hard that my door closes. It makes me look entirely anti social, like I enjoy sitting in a stark white office with no windows and fluoro lights and want to be left to read research papers all day without distraction.

So I've decided to make a door stop. It will not only brighten my office but will also create an inflow of sociability and welcome distraction into my dull space (times when I have wedged my recycling paper bin in front of the door have shown this!).

There's a nifty pattern in Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing book, which looks ace, but I think it might be a little big. I could scale the pattern down though.


Photo from supergail - isn't that fabric adorable?!

I have also just found this tutorial for a cute little pyramid shaped door stop. It's a little smaller and I like the shape, but I could go either way. Both seem like excellent projects to start using some of my stashed fabrics on. Tonight I finally have a night off to myself and I hope to spend it practicing some printing and sewing.


Pyramid door stop by all it took was one stitch



Update!

So this evening I did actually get time to do some sewing. I decided to go with Lotta's pattern, but I reduced the size by one third and the whole project took me about 2 hours to make (adjusting/making the pattern, sewing and finishing). I chose the fabric to match the blue/green colour of the carpet in my office. Unfortunately the lighting all around here is terrible, but hopefully I'll be able to get an "action shot" at work.


5 comments:

Liesl said...

Excellent door stop. I like the cute print. What did you fill it with?

I have been thinking of making a door stop, to stop two small boys crushing each others hands in our back door. I wondered if sand would be the right sort of thing to fill one up with?

Beth said...

The book suggested I fill it with "beans" so I used a tub of brown lentils that are not-so-good (the last time I used them, even after an overnight soak and hours of cooking, they were still like bullets). It was weighty enouh, but still not quite full, so I just stuffed the top of it with a little stuffing.

Kate Moore said...

It looks great and I hope it does the trick. My office is the same. Some rooms are arctic, some are sweltering ... and the company has an advertised "green" mandate to cut carbon use. Eeek. I have argued for opening doors and windows in summer and closing doors and windows in winter, coat racks for those who want to wear layers and then hang them later in the day ... the list is simple, but I haven't got far. I just end up sounding like a whinging greenie. Happy to be one, but it's not going down well.

straykat said...

ohmigoodness...

the colours and design of the material reminds me of 1988 and st. andrew's kindergarten.

wow

love it.

Becky-lee said...

I have read so many people say the pattern for the door stop in this book is ridiculously big! everyone has altered it seems, does anyone have some re-patterns on the web?, really love this door stop but can’t yet bring myself to buy a book for a pattern i know i will have to change?