Rainbow storage solutions

Hello, hello.
 Is this thing on?
 tap. tap. tap.
 Er hmm. Yes I'm still here. Yes i'm still sewing. No i'm not blogging about it. I will admit that Instagram aka IG has taken over much of the online posting I do about my sewing. But I thought a blog post would be in order. If you don't already have instagram I highly recommend it. I prefer it over other online venues and while Bill Maher might think it's twitter for people who can't read! er hmm (I love you Bill but really you are being short-sighted!), Instagram works marvelously well for a medium which is primarily visual, like quilting or sewing or other art forms. You can't tweet about that nearly as effectively. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that.
Ok so here's what I have been working on...
I'm still trying to get my sewing room put together and really done, done! Ya know what i mean? It'll always be a work in progress but i'm trying to get a few more bits and pieces organized. To that end I've been stitching up a bunch of storage baskets. No one ever said they had too much storage. Am I right? So here are my newest sewing buckets.

I wanted a rainbow feel so i dug into my precious Henna garden stash and put these baskets together. They are big, 8"x12"x12" so they'll hold a lot. Again, the more the better right? They are deceptively easy to sew up.
And before you ask, I know you guys want a tutorial.
 As soon as I figure out how to do that effectively, I'll put one together.
 In the meantime you'll just have to appreciate the photos. The bottoms are all Essex yarn dyed linen (Kaufman) which works super well with the rainbow of henna garden.
Some of these will go to yarn storage but the rest? Who knows. They'll fill up sooner than I'ld like I'm sure. This storage ought to keep me for awhile. Let's hope.

Happy sewing!

The great sewing room reno

Right after the Christmas holidays my husband and work-for-free contractor started working on my sewing space.   I have been perching on this makeshift sewing surface for years and it wasn't really working well for me. If it was left up to me, I would've perched, makeshift-style, for decades because I'm a go-with-the-flow kind of chick. He decided that I needed a new desk.  Who was I to refuse?  I'll sacrifice.  Ha!

So I gave him my list of must-have features, and he started a design.  We decided that it sometimes needed to be a large work surface for when I'm quilting those really big quilts.  But since it's a small room we wanted it to be retractable because there isn't room for an 8 ft table most of the time.  I also wanted to stow away the machines when not in use.  I used to do a lot of garment sewing, so I have a several different kinds of machines, most of those don't get used daily, so they don't need to be around collecting dust.  So he built a huge set of drawers to contain the machines and provide storage for other things as well.

Since I was getting new furniture, I decided that a new wall color was in order. I had been wanting to update to blue anyway, so this was the motivation I needed. Change the trim out from brown to white and voila!  I love this shade of deep teal blue.


The table itself is pretty cool. The retractable desktop pulls out when needed to a full length of over 8'  but is tucked away when not in use! Handy no?



Those 2 giant drawers are actually big enough and strong enough to hold my machines when not in use.


And the upper cabinet holds all my supplies. I'm not big on clutter, so I like to have everything neatly stored away when not in used.


The new surface is fantastic to work at! I'm so pleased with my new space. The hubs is pretty handy with the tools which makes me one lucky lady indeed. He even added an handy little notions drawer for all my machine feet and oft-used notions all stowed away neatly.

 Here's an iPhone pano of the whole space. It definitely still needs some work, but it's getting there. I feel so much more productive already.


The room used to be an office and reading space. So we had these handy drawers for CD storage.  Well let's face it, since the invention of the iPod who uses CD's anymore? We packed them off to storage and low-and-behold the drawers work perfectly for fat quarters! Woot!  Bonus! And best part is that they are out of the light and packed away when not needed. Love that.



The new space still needs some tweaks.  I need to tackle some big piles that need to be destashed and relocated.  It needs some sewing baskets, some new wall art (that poor old Matisse print is faded beyond recognition) and I need to redo my sewing chair.  All in good time. Well, I'm off to tackle that gigantic pile of knits I need to destash.

Happy Sewing!
 

And the Whovian Winner is...

…. Drumroll for …..Julianne!

Julianne, you will be receiving this lovely collection of spoonflower Doctor Who fabrics ( and a couple others when they finally arrive)




 Congrats Julianne!


Meanwhile I have been working on the back of the Doctor Who Quilt.
A sneek peek



Happy Sewing!