360 degrees and lots of yammering

what is that saying? When the cat's away ...

Well I have been playing, in the "studio" as I am having to call it since I have moved ALL of my quilting/knitting/beading/and everything else into one room. Beading and kitting are recent loves but I decided I didn't really want to see them all over the house all of the time. When I am actually working on them while Ray is home is enough.
I already got off topic...surprised? Not me. :)

I took a couple of pictures to show off the new shelves and a drawer unit which I hope keep me more tidy and organized.

This wall of shelves and drawer cabinet is wonderful so far. I have all of my patterns in the red drawers divided by subject; paper piecing, applique, hand piecing, embroidery, etc. The fabrics (not all organized and pretty yet) are sorted by colors except the far right side which is baby/children fabrics.

The white cabinet of drawers holds all of my beading/jewelry stuff and misc. stuff I couldn't decide where to put.

The Great Wall  :)

Paper piecing above, companions below

 While Ray is gone I have been piecing again on my Pineapple Crazy. It is such a mess maker I will be glad when I am finally finished.  I have loved working on it. It is really good for stressful days or insomniac nights, but man at the mess! I didn't take a picture of the trash can and around it, the floor of strings after digging again, the front of my clothes at night before leaving the room. I am covered with threads...covered!

Paper piecing machine and stuff

 I'm not sure how much I love my computer being in here, but I am trying it. I thought I would like watching Netflix or DVDs in here, but I find myself watching the screen instead of sewing.  Music may be my best bet.

Finally all of the pineapples!! Some knitting

 Look! See all of those blocks? That is all of them! So exciting! Of course I thought I had them all finished and then I counted and saw I was one pineapple short. :^/ But I remedied that!

Scrap digging...and a mess

I'm so ADD! Look at that mess. Very far left is three different block/quilt designs I have been working on. Then a pile of light scraps on top of a tray with PP.  The books are some I have been looking through for some new quilt designs then more scraps.  What you can't see is a stack of books and magazines and quilt drawings, two huge plastic boxes of leftovers from fabric cuttings. When I took out my cutting table I lost the area to have my drop box. The drop box is where I put the scraps that are too large to strip into 1", 1.5" or 2" strips, but too small to put back on the shelves.  Right now they are being stored under my cabinet the Bernina sits in.



My constant companions and helpers in all needlework

It us going to take some more thought to get the room clean and organized properly. If you know me you know I will change it three more times before it feels right. But then that would mean I would have to stay home to do this. Fat chance! Ray keep saying he wants to retire so we can travel. I want him to retire so I can stay home! We travel enough! Too much sometimes.

Later!

Diane

Working for more fun

I haven't been lost or gone away. I haven't quit the blog or quilting. I have been redoing the whole sewing room.
UGH!
Along with redoing the sewing room I have ha to rely upon the help of those stronger than me for this work, namely my husband. His work schedule is way different than mine.
Also I have managed to injure myself during the process so deep restorative sleep has been traded for drug induced, knee jerking sleep that keeps me in a fog. 😡

I tell you though when it is finished it is going to be great! I have one whole 130" wall that is Ikea shelves. I am so excited! After many months of living with the furniture arrangement I have decided that the "U" shaped sewing area needs to shift 90 degrees. The wall that did house my fabric shelves traded places with the design wall. 

The reason for the whole change up was this. While quilting the cousin quilt and working on the quilting for a baby quilt I discovered that I really couldn't use the back part of the sewing cabinet that lifts to give you a large support area for your quilt. If I lifted the table with much struggle from lack of room to get behind it, I could no longer get into my fabric closet due to the same lack of room. One could say that would be incentive to get the quilting finished quickly so I could move on to the next project, but really? Does that sound like me? Didn't think so.

You would think with the husband being home for two full weeks we would have this done by now, but...anyway...

122 inches of wonderful storage!

I promise pictures as soon as it no longer looks like the previous post pictures. Believe it or not it looks worse now than then.

Take care,

Diane

What in the world was I thinking?

All I wanted to do was put an small Ikea shelf unit together to go with the large one I already have.

 

 

I remember telling Candy S. when I worked at her quilt shop we could NOT move one group of fabrics because it ALWAYS turned into moving the whole store around. I should have remembered it a bit sooner. Now all I can do is sit in the middle of this mess and whimper.

Maybe I can convince the man to bolt them to the wall tomorrow and then I can toss the fabrics into the holes and shut the door until after Christmas.

Remember when it looked like this? So neat and organized. I miss it so much.

While in Houston the last day me and my BFF spent a couple of hours having fun. On our way to deliver the Monkey quilt to her youngest grandson we stopped at an antique mall.
I found a couple of items I liked and of course they came home with me.

Old pipe holder is a useful thing!

 

I have a weakness for old irons. They get so hot and no auto off!

Monkey quilt and boy! Look at that smile!

When we drove home we stopped at a really nice antique mall and spent a couple of hours strolling and looking.

301 Longbed

This machine was not used much. I had to give it a good oiling and smear on some grease and it hummed to life. The previous owner made a note to remind her how to thread the machine.

Thread from this side

So far this note is still intact. I'm afraid to try anything more than soap and water, not wanting to harm the finish.

I'm still behind on laundry.
Later,
Diane

Crazy busy weekend

I have been so busy this weekend I am totally exhausted. I woke up this morning and while setting and looking at blogs first thing I fell asleep sitting up! But I have too much to do to sleep.

The sewing move and redo is still underway, but I have lots to report.

First of all my husband was in rare form. He is mostly agreeable and will go along to get along, but there are a few things he draws the line in the sand about. He HATES Ikea. Not so much the products or the idea of the store, but he hates going inside. He says it is a rat maze and you are trapped until you find the end, and the prize instead of cheese is the exit doors.  Well I wanted to go and buy a few things to go into my new sewing area. I wanted to get rid of the plastic drawers I have been using for years and wanted a put together look, but on a budget.

Not only did he take me and never uttered a snarly word, he even loaded a really heavy wall unit (4 boxes) twice. Twice you ask? Yes twice since the first one he loaded on the cart was the wrong one. Who told him the wrong one? Me! :(

I had figured the cost in my head, but while we were there we had picked up a few items we spotted for Joseph's room and a couple of the best lights for a great price. More on that later. To be honest I was WAY off on my math, but sweet man never even blinked. Hmmm, is something wrong with him?

We got it all home and I didn't want to cause any frustration for my sweet husband who loaded 12,000 pounds of stuff three times already so I said I would start putting it together while he went and rested with the puppies.
He kept asking if I needed help, but I trudged on. 

The red is double drawers. I have a few more to assemble.

I LOVE this! It isn't in place yet since it needs to be attached to the wall for security. Loaded with heavy items it would be a death trap if not secure. Maybe this afternoon.

Civil War fabrics in the closet and sorted. 

Perfect! Civil war fabrics neatly stacked and visible. I was sick of plastic boxes all over the place. I was constantly opening boxes looking for what I wanted and then I had all of them all over the floor with jumbles of fabric. Constant mess.

Thread and incidentals not in permanent place.

Last but surely not least, a thread and incidentals drawer unit. Woo Hoo! I have plastic drawers but I really don't love them. They were both bought at garage sales and didn't match but they did the job. This is what I have wanted for a long time since seeing it on Mel's Fibermania blog. It isn't as tall as the other sewing tables I have but it will be fine. :) I'm happy.

Oh I almost forgot. This is a Closet Maid stackable shelf I thought would fit in this spot and oh my it is perfect. The closet doors when opened just about cover the shelf but doesn't touch it so instead of wasted space...I can use it! It is holding patterns and hand piecing kits.

Now to put the ironing/cutting table back in place and put fabric away. No rest for the weary.

Later,
Diane

I'm serious this time! ***EDITED with pictures now**

Really I am!
NO MORE FABRIC PURCHASES!
 Stop laughing! I hear you Linda! Hush up Karen! Don't howl so loud!

I need to remember this not only because I have A LOT, but because there is no room for another fat quarter!
All it takes to let you have full knowledge of your sickness is moving your sewing room from one place to another. You unstuff all of the things you crammed into empty holes and it looks like your stuff exploded. Basically it did!
There is no way all of this is going to fit into this room and it is the exact same size.

I'm headed to Ikea Friday to buy a small shelf to fit into the new closet. The rooms are the same size, but the closet is just a bit different. The old room had the built in shelves more behind the wall and so my fabric shelf unit was more exposed. The new room is just the opposite. I have to rethink how I will use the space.

New closet space is shifted a bit from the other closet

I used to have my "kits" behind the wall and the fabric very visible. This caused me to forget what kits I had already made. Thus too many kits forgotten about until today. UGH!
Are you kidding me? I forgot about that! I don't remember ever cutting that! Who's is this?
That is the mumbling that is being heard over here.

Forgotten kits in old closet

Kits placed by the door under the light switch so I have to see them until I do something with them

I plan on not bringing the ironing table. That will allow me to have more room to move. I will use the small ironing board for piecing and when I need to iron a large piece of fabric I can still put my big ironing board on top of the cutting table. With that decision made though it causes another storage issue. I used to store boxes of wool and flannel under the ironing table and boxes of flimsies under the cutting table. What do I do with all of this now?
Get rid of the wool? Quilt the flimsies?

Former ironing table...it was neater until I started the move. Wool in boxes.

New cutting/ironing station in the middle of the room. The fabric is the CW fabrics waiting for the Ikea shelf. Blue and white on the right is strips sorted by size. I must do some rethinking. Too many boxes!

New sewing area. I'm so excited! I sewed some last night at it is a good set up I think.

I am able to have my regular piecing machine (Bernina) and my paper piecing/quilting machine (Brother) set up at the same time. Pretty cool! I have it set in a U shape so I can just wheel around if I need to press a seam or nip off a corner and not have to do so much up and down. My ironing/cutting area is just there beside the yellow floor mat so it is far enough to make me move if I need to iron or cut something bigger. 

Kari brought me my first wall art! It's over my door and I LOVE it!

Diane

What do I do first?

Yesterday on a whim I drove to Venice (FL) and went to a quilt shop I have wanted to go to since moving here. For some reason I thought it was really far away but it was only about a 45 minutes drive. Not too bad.
Anyway while I was at Deborah's Quilt Basket I noticed a bulletin board with items for sale. A lady who lived near the quilt shop had a gently used Koala quilt pro sewing cabinet for sale. I called and saw and will go pick it up tomorrow in my big red truck. I'm pretty excited!

Ray and I have been talking about moving my sewing room into the front bedroom since it is cooler. I have put it off since that would mean moving all of that stash I managed to get so neatly put away just a few short years ago. I think it will be a good thing though since now I can paint the room, hang the design wall and get everything exactly like I want it from the start instead of just trying to make everything go together. Over the short time we have been in this house I have rearranged the sewing room twice since I could never quite get it how I wanted it. Maybe this time will be better.
What to do...
- take down wallpaper border around closet.

- paint fuchsia pink wall

- empty closet and rearrange shelves
- remove furniture....maybe this should be at the top of the list?
- spot clean carpet...someone spilled and didn't clean up after themselves...which kid was that?

It sure sounds like no sewing for a while again...:(
Maybe I should sew today and just start fresh in the morning...I guess we will see what the day holds.

Later,
Diane