Showing posts with label design wall. Show all posts

Jinx!

Last week I was talking about how the R2-D2 quilt had been a series of annoyances.  I also mentioned that I had it on the frame and hoped quilting went smoothly since nothing else about this project had.  Well, I jinxed it because quilting is currently at a standstill while I pick out a 9" by width of quilt row of stitching.  (I offered my daughter $10 to pick it out, but she quit after a few inches.)  Somehow I managed to get a huge ruffle in the border.  I'm hoping that removing the one row will allow enough where I can go in and somehow fix it.  I've never had that happen before, and I'm not really sure what caused it.

 Since I'm quite annoyed by having to rip out a giant row, I moved on to other things.

 I bought a B & C Clambake kit on Etsy and cut and sewed that.  I changed the pattern slightly by omitting the solid strip along the bottom.  I was thinking maybe I'd make this into a pillow cover instead of a mini, but it's not square, nor is it a common pillow form size, so it's hanging around on my design wall until I decide. (And yes, I know I can make my own pillow form, but ugh!, more work!)

I also cut out a mini Bobbin Box quilt, but have not yet had time to start sewing.
I really need to make some new short sleeve shirts for myself now that it's warm again.  I bought all this fabric last summer and have yet to do anything with it.  Fitting oneself is a scary prospect. I used the same pattern to make some shirts for my daughter last year and perfected her fit, but we are built quite differently.  I just need to take the plunge and cut one out and try it.  Wish me luck!
In other news, we got part of the vegetable garden planted.  This year we are growing lettuce, broccoli rabe, red cabbage, potatoes, green and purple beans, and ONE cucumber plant.  We planted all but the beans and cucumbers, but nothing has sprouted yet.  To be fair, it's only been three days.  :D

 If the weather is decent this weekend, I really need to clean out the dead stuff from the flower gardens and get some new mulch put down.  The deer have already decimated my tulips and most of the day lilies.  I'm sure the newly emerged hostas will be next.  Have I mentioned how much I detest deer?

Oh, I've gotten half of the pumpkin quilt bound and am a block behind on the Sewcial Bee Sampler.

 Something I'm proud of this week is that I had bloodwork done and have lowered my cholesterol over 40 points since last time it was tested and cut my triglycerides in half!  This was the best result I've had in 10 years!  I attribute this to all the walking I've been doing since the last test.  It's good motivation to keep it going.  I alternate walking outside and on the treadmill, 3 to 3.5 mph pace pretty much daily.  I'm going to add in a rowing machine next week for some variety and to spare my poor feet.  Now to lose 30 or 40 pounds......
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Work In Progress Wednesday

Some people share what they're working on with this label.  I feel like I myself am always a work in progress, so I thought I'd share a whole bunch of things this week.

 First is a series of sewing room pictures.  Two weeks ago I showed my future sewing room.  Here's some of my current space.  I also keep my (ahem, extensive) stash of fabric and supplies in the basement, along with the long arm.
My sewing machine and serger are in the corner of my living room right now.
My design wall with a few UFOs is in my laundry room.
Notions cabinet, embroidery machine, cover stitch machine, fabrics, minis I've received,
embroidery supplies, general detritus in the kitchen.
My cutting/ironing table and a bunch of stuff are in the office.  That Wellie Wisher doll has been in the bag since the end of July, which is when my son got a bug he didn't recover well from.  He's on the mend now, finally.
More stuff in the office.
The pile of shame.  Although most of it is batting right now.

Next, here is my canning updates.  I should be done for the year unless I start trying some different things.  I made 14 quarts of applesauce by myself this year.  I used a half bushel and a peck (3/4 bushel?) of Jonathan, Golden Delicious, and Jonagolds.  
I also bought some Bartlett pears at the orchard.  The recipe I had said you needed 11 pounds for 9 pints of finished pears, so I bought the remainder--five pounds--at the grocery store.  It turns out the pears I bought in a large handled bag at the orchard were all bad in the middle.  :(  So I only got 5 pints and one half pint.  I don't know that I'd do pears again unless I had a cheaper source, because these ran close to $20.  I do love canned pears though.  :/
I've kept my pineapple and plumeria plants alive outdoors this summer.  Thankfully we've had a lot of rain so they were always watered enough.  This is the pineapple top from the pineapple my husband brought me from Hawaii when he went there for work last year.  He brought me the plumeria starter too.


I completed my Bonnie & Camille Barn Quilt Swap Mini.  This was a 6" block quilt using only Bonnie and Camille fabrics and coordinating solids if needed.  I sent this quilt and some mini charms to my partner Jen, who likes star blocks, Scrumptious and Hello Darling fabric lines, and pink and aqua.
I received this mini from Leah.  She used a mini charm pack of Marmalade fabric to make it.  It's very cheerful and has the cutest quilting.  She also made a nine patch back for it.  It's so cute, and I have nothing like it.

I am sending two bags to the Sew Powerful charity.  I had really hoped to make more, but this year just hasn't worked out like I had hoped. If you are looking for a charity to sew for, this one is great.  They have very low overhead.  The majority of their funds go straight to the program.  Check it out.
I'm working on my Coral, Queen of the Sea quilt right now.  This will be a bed sized quilt when it is finished.  I still have another border to add and it needs a good pressing too.
If you are scared of spiders, quit reading now.  Don't scroll any further.  Nature here can't decide between summer and fall.  Last week was more fall like and this week feels like summer.  The spiders are out in force and make it look like Halloween.  
These are always in the grass and are pretty with the dew on them in the morning.
I saw this on a morning walk this week.
This creepy thing is on our deck and bird feeders.
And creepiest of all is this big guy who build a web over our slider door opening overnight.  YUCK!!


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Dream Sewing Space?

I have decided that our next major house project will be finishing my sewing room in the basement (and a bathroom while we're at it).  I'm tired of having everything spread all over the house.  It makes the upstairs look messy no matter what.

 I decided that the original space we planned is not going to be large enough, so I switched to the other, larger, but not as bright, space.  It will have a large closet attached, which will store not only my sewing stash, but holiday decorations and other random things as well.  Using the bigger space also gives me space for a design wall.  The smaller room would not have had space since two walls have large windows, one wall would be closet doors, and the remaining wall would have the door.

 Losing the two large windows and great natural light is sad, but having enough space to spread out is great.  I'm trying to plan the space ahead of time to aid in light and outlet placement.  The problem I am having is that I can't find much in the way of inspiration on Pinterest.  Nothing looks quite like what I want, but I don't know exactly what I want either.

 Some things I know I want:

  • separate ironing surface
  • cutting area
  • design wall
  • book shelf and cabinet with glass doors
  • space for the embroidery machine
  • sewing table of some sort to hold sewing machine and sergers
  • space to maneuver around the longarm
  • a clock
  • a soft chair for visitors or for me to look through books

What I can't decide is what type of sewing table setup I want.  I don't think I want to face the wall.  I'm not sure if I want three separate tables in the room.  I thought about an L-shape or perpendicular to the wall sewing table extension, but I don't want to feel locked in either.  If I have a separate sewing table, we (my husband) will have to build it because I don't like the look of commercially made tables versus the cost of them.  I know I want my machine to fit flush with the table, but I will probably need a lift for it because my bobbin case is underneath and I do occasionally need the free arm.  The bad thing about making a custom table is--what if something happens to my machine and I had to get a new one?  Chances are it would be a different shape.  Oh, the decisions!

 Do you have a sewing setup that you love?  What would be in your dream space?  What other things should I consider?



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Honest Sewing Room(s)

I've been seeing a lot of photos on Instagram lately that are labeled as #honestsewingroom or #honestcraftroom.  Many of them are quite pretty and not messy at all.  Although I would love to always have a photo-ready space, in my world, a clean sewing space is an unused sewing space.  Anyway, in the spirit the hashtag, I am showing you my current sewing spaces.  {I think I may be oversharing lately!}

 Here is my cutting and pressing area, which is in our office.


 Here is my machine area (in our living room):

 I keep my notions cabinet, embroidery machine, and coverstitch machine in the kitchen.  This area is usually a little cleaner than this.

 My design wall is in the laundry room.

 The longarm is in the unfinished basement.

 The majority of my stash is also in the basement.  Technically my stash is in my sewing room, but, as you can see, it is currently unfinished.  I jokingly say that it is my ongoing quest to take over the whole house with sewing stuff.  Seriously though, my goal is to have it all in one space so that the mess is contained.  I can't wait until this room is finished!
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Quilting Progress

I've been trying to make a dent in my quilting stash.  Of course, whenever I make a dent it is immediately filled right back in....  I think most of the time I qualify as a topper rather than a quilter.  :(  Anyway, I was in need of binding fabric for the Mini Northern Lights quilt.  Friday I got back to the shop where I bought the fabric and found the matching binding fabric I wanted.  And now I have my first finished quilt of the year.  

I've also been trying to work on the quilt I had on the design wall.  I thought it was a really easy quilt.  It mostly is, but I found it really tedious to mark all the center edges of each block.  I've been plodding along with all the pinning, doing a few rows each day.  The main part of the quilt is together now.  I just have to add the borders.  There is a shop near here that rents out longarm time.  Since I'm not particularly in love with this quilt, I think it would be a great candidate for trying out the longarm.  Maybe I'll have a second finish soon!
So many pins!

I am taking a quilt class with Kimberly Einmo in March.  Over the weekend I did the preparatory cutting for that since I have a pretty busy work and kids' activities schedule between now and the class.

Today I arranged all my bird quilt squares onto the design wall.  My kids are home from school today (second day in a row!) so my daughter grudgingly helped me put the squares on the wall.  Can you tell which ones I did and which she did?!  For ease of putting everything on the wall, I went four across and three up and down, but the real quilt will be three across and four up and down.  I totally love the colors for this one!  My laundry room lighting isn't very good for photography, but once I have this sewn, I can maybe get a better picture.

One last thing to show:  I wanted some pins to mark each row.  I made my own since the commercially available ones are quite pricey.  They helped tremendously with keeping the columns in order on the blue quilt.


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Quilt Design Wall

I've been wanting a quilt design wall FOREVER!  It's been hard to come up with a location that is big enough.  So, in my ongoing quest to take over the entire house with my sewing supplies, I decided to use a wall in the laundry room.  I now have my machines in the living room, cutting/pressing table in the office, notions in the kitchen, and design wall in the laundry.  Plus my stash and reference library in the basement.  Seriously though, I do have a nice sewing space planned for our unfinished basement.  Just waiting until my money tree grows!  So, the design wall needed to be temporary, yet still functional, and also not in the main viewing area of the house.  

So I finally decided on the laundry room since it's already dusty in there, plus out of the main traffic flow.  I bought a bunch of Command hooks, a box of mini binder clips, and a twin size Warm and White batting. The batting package gave 72" x 90" as the dimensions, so I measured up 90" from the top of the trim.  I ran the batting through the steam cycle on my dryer to release the wrinkles (and lots of fluff too, not sure if that's good or bad), hung the hooks slightly above my 90" measurement, then hung up the batting. Not sure what happened, but the batting hangs well below the top of the trim.  Thankfully it doesn't puddle on the floor.  I will have to buy a step stool or ladder or something so that I can reach the top since leaving a dining room chair in there really isn't feasible.
But, hey, it is hung and it works!  My son and my husband were amazed that fabric would stick to the batting.  I immediately laid out this quilt top that has been hanging around for a few years (because I didn't have a place large enough to lay it out and leave it while I work on it).  One thing I noticed when trying to take these pictures is that the lighting in my laundry room is not ideal for photos.  Like, REALLY not ideal.
Bought at Cottonseed Glory in Annapolis, Maryland.  Pattern is called Brick & Mortar by Pat Steiner.
It will have two borders as well.

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