Clever, practical birthday present

The practical reinventor loves to sew.  After eight years of working pretty solidly on it, she's pretty good at it.  Last year's resolution was to make clothes rather than buy them, so during the year, she made all her own knickers, worked out how to make t-shirts and continued with blouses and work tops.
For her birthday, the creative reinventor did this:

This started off as a bar with a couple of stools. 
The stools went off to Bolt Coffee, and this started its transformation.

It's the right height, and has a handy shelf, but it wasn't long or wide enough.

Or pink enough.

The pink was pretty easy to take care of, but the long and wide bit required a trip the to Green and Orange Temple to Lost Weekends for a sheet of MDF.

The two screwed together didn't fit through the door, so it had to be assembled in situ.

Et voila! A pattern cutting table!

Which is what you get for the sewist who has almost everything.

It's since had a cutting grid glued to its top, which is a huge help for accurate fabric cutting.

As a sustainable present, it ticks a lot of boxes:  something that will be used for years and years, very little of it was new, and it was extremely thoughtful.

Digression

The practical reinventor is a bit jealous of all her sewing friends who have sewing blogs, but given the irregularity of posts here, isn't going to start one. So here's a random sewing post.

  

This is a Lekala pattern, so while it's been drafted according to the practical reinventor's dimensions, its instructions are all but unintelligible.  Fortunately, it's not too complicated a design and most of the pattern markings are clear enough.  The green is broadcloth, bought for $6 a metre and the birdies are what's left of a dress that never stood a chance.

Usually the practical reinventor just wings her buttonholes with the zigzag foot, but this time, she busted out the proper foot.  And, yes, reluctantly, it does a better job.

  

It was the perfect project for these metal flower buttons.

 

And it will go nicely with the sensible tweed Miss Marple skirt she made last week.