Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Organizing My Sewing Space for 2007

Wow I didn’t realize it was less than a month away. WooHoo!! Unfortunately I won’t be able to take a class with Jane Townswick. She is having surgery. I hope to take a class from her at a later date. I was given the option of other classes and so I am hoping to take a class from Nancy Kerns. My other class will be with Mary Sorenson.

After I got my Next Generation Quilt Frame with the Pfaff Grand Quilter, I set it up in the best space that I could for how my quilt studio was set up at the time.
I was finding that the way I had my room set up was hindering my productivity. At the time I had my sewing table on one wall and my computer table on another wall. There was also a corner that jutted out that prevented me from seeing one from the other.  Then I had the DVD player and the TV on another wall.
What was happening was I couldn’t watch anything and sew or work on the computer at the same time. So I was turning around and watching stuff instead of sewing, or I couldn’t watch it at all. Now mind you most of the time I am listening to podcasts, but it was still a hindrance.
I had the Next Generation Quilt Frame kind of in the middle of all that. I was also running out of room for storage and so I needed to do an annual purge.

Here are some before and after pictures so you can get an idea of how much better my new setup will function for me.

Before, as you can see my sewing machine was against the one wall looking out the window.
The area it was in was like a cutout of the room and so I had 2 corners in each wall.
Then the frame was right there acting like another wall, and so the frame cut that area off from the rest of the room.
The frame also became a catchall because of where it was located and I didn’t like doing that.
I do love all that extra storage I gained underneath of the frame.
I am planning on using velcro to make a skirt that goes around that bottom shelf so that what I store under it will not be visible.





After, I moved everything off of the wall where my computer and the 2 large bookshelves were, I moved the frame along that wall.
The window will give me wonderful light during the day but I will need to get some lighting in that area for quilting at night.
This frame without the sewing machine or the long bars on it, is very light.
Even moving it across the carpet was very easy. I did leave it set up at it’s largest length as most of my quilts are large.
I also moved the thread racks to this wall and they hold the threads that I would use on this machine.
Once I got all the furniture where I wanted it then I added more stuff to the walls.
I then moved my sewing machine and computer to the middle of the room and put them in an “L” shape.
The TV stayed where it was but I put it on top of one of the taller bookshelves.
I also took that cutting/ironing table and I removed it from the metal stand that it was on.
I then took the top and put it on 2 of the fabric carts I had and moved those into the space that the “L” area made. 
The nice thing about it is that I can move my sewing table or computer desk away from the cutting/ironing area if I need too as everything in my sewing area is on wheels.
I can also turn my computer monitor around and watch DVD’s from the sewing machine and both of these face the TV in case I want to watch TV while sewing or at the computer.

I did lose some of my design wall though as I have fabric about a 1/3 of the way up the wall. I am real happy with the current layout and wanted to share, maybe give you some ideas for your own quilting space.
I should have the photos uploaded in a while that will show you more of what was done and I will post the link.
I have also been working on some projects. I completed testing a quilt pattern for Country Junction. Great pattern and I will post a link when she has the pattern online for sale. I have also been working on some applique from the book by Patty Harants. I haven’t spent as much time sewing as I would have liked too. Spent a couple of weeks getting the yard ready and getting everything ready in the garden took most of my time. I love spring though and it usually gets warm here early so it is extra nice.
I have freed up some time so now I have more time to sew.
I also have a new job. I will be joining the sales professionals for a textile company. I won’t say which one yet but I am going to enjoy that as it allows me to visit all the quilt and sewing shops in my district and show the new lines to the owners. I am much happier working when my love for quilting can be turned into an employment opportunity. It will mean a lot of travel though as my district is in a neighboring State.

My visit with my Mother was wonderful. We laughed, cried, shopped and just had a great time getting to know each other better.
We also went up and saw the Grandkids and my Daughter Wendy.
They live in North Carolina and my grand daughter Ashleigh talks in what I call Sugary sweet tones, she has that southern drawl right at the end of her words and she speaks just sweet enough that she is becoming a true “Southern Belle”.
Every time I talk to them they sing me the latest song that they learned in daycare. It is wonderful being a grandma.
Here is a photo of the kids that my daughter had taken this year.

I still haven’t had my surgery for my nose repair. The doctor did say that they will remove bone from my skull and use that to help build my nose backup. Then of course I will have the “flap procedure” where they take skin and tissue from your forehead and bring it down to my nose. It will sit there and fuse to the skin and tissue currently on my nose. Then once that has fused (joined), they will trim away the excess and do the final repairs. Let this be a lesson for you. Wear that sunscreen and cover those kids and grandkids from head to toe.

Well I will close for now and work on getting all the photos uploaded. Talk to you soon.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Radiant Night and Summer Garden BBQ

My main goal today was getting the house cleaned up, now all that’s left to clean is my sewing room. This poor room is trashed. I have too many piles and I hate it when stuff isn’t put away. I will have to get it cleaned up this week and then I will be happier.

It will have to wait though because my friend Chere is coming over in the morning and we going to make a jacket that we can wear for the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop in March.

In between cleaning and watching my favorite show called “House”, I did get some sewing and prep work done. I got my top from a pattern called BBQ on the quilt frame. Here is a picture of it on the design wall.

I didn’t have the border on it in this picture, I was trying to rehearse which border idea I liked and I ended up just putting a small pieced border on it. Took me 3 days to decide. I just didn’t like anything else.

When it came to this quilt top, less really was better.

Here is a picture of it on the frame.  You can get a look at the final border I decided to put on it.

The pattern I made this from is called BBQ and it is from Debbie Bowles at Maple Island Quilts.  I really liked how easy this went together. I just needed to do something simple and I liked this one as it will give me some area to practice my machine quilting on.
She has a lot of patterns available on her website and I may just do another one of hers later this year.

I really need to get some projects that date as far back as 8 years done. I think every quilter reaches a time where the UFO’s just get under our skin and we have to get some of them done.

My other goal is to use up at least five fabrics before I buy any more. I guess that would be 5 out for every 1 in.  May help me get over this feeling of being a glutton for fabric.

Since I have that on the frame now, the other project I started on was a pattern I bought at the end of summer last year. When I saw it I knew I had to do it.

I was lucky enough that the shop owner gave me the pattern and all I had to buy was the fabric. Sheesh!! more fabric.
At least this will help me get some more out of the way for my goal and I just love this quilt. Here is a picture of what I have done on it so far.

This fabric line also came in other colors and if the Red would have been more vibrant I would have done this with the Red. It was just so dull looking on the bolt.

One of the other things I did this week was I changed my design wall. I had originally had cotton batting on there but it wouldn’t lay flat enough on the wall and it was pieced. So what I did was I put 120” white muslin up and then sprayed that with temporary adhesive. I am really happy with that. I also put a strip across the top so that when the entire top was done I could hang it from that for photos and not have to worry about it pulling on the fabric. I like it much better so far.

I still have been to lazy to scan some photos that were taken at guild and post them here, I will try to get that done later this week.
I hope to have my jacket done tomorrow and I will post that up tomorrow night. I hit Hancock fabrics for the flannel and homespuns that are going to make up the jacket and thought is has a bit more Magenta than I like I really liked the fabrics.
Talk to you all tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Sewing Room almost complete

Well I almost have my sewing room done. I have the furniture where I want it, now just need to put some more items away. Yes this is how tidy I like to keep it but sometimes I can create the biggest mess and then I don’t sew because I am fretting over the chaos that the mess is causing me. I am not an obsessive compulsive person but I am one that likes things in place.
Here is a shot of part of the room and then you can visit the Sewing room gallery to see the way I have done it.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

EQ Round Robin # 82

This was the final result of an Electric Quilts round robin that I participated in last year. See below to download project file.

The theme we decided on as a group for this round was the “4 Seasons”.
We also made other rules up such as the first round had to feature squares, second round circles etc.
I don’t remember the exact order but it made for a challenge that was much more fun.

You can join these round robins if you are a user of Electric Quilt 5 software at the EQ website.

There is no charge to partcipate and they try to match you up with a group that is as experienced or inexperienced with participating in these as you will be.

To the left is a small image of my completed project.

If you click on the here you can download my project file.
You must have Electric Quilt software in order to open the project file and see all the individual blocks that were used as well as the colorings.

If you would like to see the other three projects that were completed in this swap, please click here