sewing room

Sewing Room Change

by Karen on April 13, 2013

in Inklingo, Lucy Boston--Patchwork of the Crosses, quilts, sewing room

I know a lot of you have a smaller space to work in than I do and a lot of you have a much bigger space! Some of you have your kitchen table and a shelf in the closet and others have a whole great big studio – I am in between those sizes I guess. My quilting frame takes up so much room in this small 9.3″ x 11″ space that I have – I just have to work around it. But I felt crowded and was due for a change. So Thursday night I got to rearranging - A year or so ago I had gotten two tall skinny cabinets for the room to store odds and ends in and the tops came in handy to store things on too – I had one on each side of the cutting table which meant I could only cut from the front of the table. – but in the end – it was just too crowed.

Before:

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After:

I know I bet you can’t see a lot of difference but I moved the cutting table and I put one of the tall skinny cabinets in the bedroom – all of the same things are stored in it but I just have to get up and walk to get things – that is good – exercise you know. I put a tall stool in the sewing room instead. I can now move around the table and access from three sides and if I really need more space the stool can be moved out and the table leaf can be extended for more work space. The sewing machine still gets put away when I am not using it and then the sew ezi table is just a computer desk.

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the other cabinet is moved to the end of the quilting frame with the dvd player/dish receiver on top of it and the plastic file cabinet that was there is now inside the closet.

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The other cabinet is here in the bedroom.

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And yes the sewing machine is put away once again now last night and the nine patch quilt top is finished – I decided this was as big as it was going to be – finished at about 80 x 82 I think just the right size for the camper bed. I will start quilting on it soon I think – but not this week Smile I will machine quilt straight lines when I do. I have too much hand work going on right now to tackle another with hand quilting. The sun was shining on it as you can see and shade in other parts – one block shows up white – well it isn’t of course – must be a light color block of course but there is color there!

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Yesterday I also got busy prepping more of the 90 degree hexagons for the Patchwork of the Crosses – I needed a lot more white pieces and more color to mix in. If you look closely you can see the templates printed on the fabric – you don’t want the ink too dark and of course you can see it much better in person.

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On the white you print it even lighter. Now to get busy finishing with the cutting. Then I can get back to sewing.

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Hope everyone has a great weekend!

{ 12 comments }

Fabric Neater

by Karen on March 2, 2013

in Scrap Organizing, sewing room

I was going to take a before and after shot yesterday of the fabric that I was going to roll up on bolts but forgot until after it was on my table to I kind of just stuck them back up there so you could get an idea of what it had looked like and then another photo after it was neat Smile Not quite the arrangement it was in but close.

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Now nice and neat and brushing the top of the slanted ceiling in this room. Now I know what I have. My bright white fabric came today from Fat Quarter Shop – that is the bolt on the top – with what was still on the bolt (4 yds) and what I received it is now a nice big fat bolt again.

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I think I will stop by Hobby Lobby this coming week and see if they have some more empty bolts I can use and put some of the larger folds that I have in this area on them also to neaten it up somewhat. Of course that means I will need to rearrange these shelves a little bit but that is ok, they need it. I might even cut some pieces of cardboard that I have to fit some of the 1 yard pieces and wrap them on that to have it neatly stacked.

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In between my hand piecing and hand quilting I will try to get to the shelves and refold things – it does tend to get a little messy after awhile and I really don’t need to start another new quilt immediately – I have plenty that I am working on. One day I really need to start cutting more of the scraps up and get them in the boxes also – so many waiting to be taken care of. Some of these stacks look like they could topple over at any moment!

Have a great weekend everyone.

{ 4 comments }

Sewing Machine

by Karen on January 9, 2013

in sewing room

The servicing of my sewing machine was very quickly done! I dropped the machine off in Fort Smith at about 9:45 and they were calling me letting me know it was ready for pick up by 1:00. That worked out great for me because I am not much of a shopper and didn’t really want to spend my time aimlessly wandering through stores.

I had a nice lunch with my niece Kristy and her 9 month old baby Jesse – stopped at Kohl’s and found a new purse and Sam’s to stock up on a few things – then off to get the machine and home.

For Christmas one of the things Mike got me was a stick on light to enhance the lighting on this machine – I do not know why they put such tiny lights on these machines – the olds ones always had better lighting – of course they were hotter too.

I didn’t stick the light on when I got it because I didn’t want it on the machine when I took it in. This is without the extra light turned on

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with the extra light – much better I think.

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Just peel off the backing and stick it where it will work for your machine.

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That’s it for now – maybe more later.

{ 10 comments }

Constantly Busy

by Karen on December 21, 2012

in Baking/cooking, Bow Tie Medallion Quilt, Lucy Boston--Patchwork of the Crosses, quilts, sewing room

tn_FreeVintageImagesofChristmasClipArt39_jpg I can not stand to sit without doing something. I rarely just down and stare at the walls Smile I have to have something in my hands – fabric or books (kindle) are my preferences.

Mike works some long hours sometimes, we are in the country and I do not always feel like running into town to do something so normally I am at home a lot.

Yesterday Mike was working long hours – he left by noon and wasn’t home until close to 11 at night. I got the cookies done, I finished a book and a load of laundry – and then I set in to quilting.

First I needed to print out more fabric for the Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses quilt. I get out my ironing mat so I have a harder surface to iron on – I have found it hard to get this Bella White cotton to stick to the freezer paper(batiks work great!) – I have tried everything people suggest and it is just troublesome! I have no problem with other fabric just this one – I have prewash to get the sizing out, I use the hottest setting, a firm surface – most of the time I get a sheet printed out with no trouble other times the fabric starts to come off and a couple pieces are ruined. I will never use Bella Solids again for an Inklingo project.

I needed to join more blocks together – I like to lay it across my lap, line pieces up right and then get started.

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Pin the first area together – matching up the light color lines – two pins does the trick – this in one inch areas.

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Sew from one spot to the next leaving room to turn for your Y seam.

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You can see on the right hand side how the fabric almost turns by itself once you have pinned it – only sew between the pins.

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This block is now connected – pressing will be later today. I tend to press each block when it finished and then each row as it is finished.

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I need to make the 3 patches of the two aqua colors – then I will sew those in place on the bottom of the 4th row and then join the 5th row to the body of the quilt. I discovered though that I was just about out of both the aqua colors that I had printed so today I will need to print out more of those little squares.

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then it was time for a snack Chai and cookies (I normally write my post in the evening and have it scheduled for morning so most of all I post is from what I did the day before)

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This much quilting has been done in the last couple days on the Bow Tie quilt. I have had several ask where did I get this pattern – the Bow Tie quilt using this layout I found in a book called “The Big Book of Scrap Quilts” click on the title and it will bring you to amazon. I added the applique to my design. I love the book and have made at least 3 or more quilt patterns from this book.

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And last but not least all of these fabric bundles have been staring at me and I am trying to figure out what is next!! I love so many of these and I am just not sure what I am starting next even though I am working on two tops right now and quilting two – what to create next?

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And of course this is only one shelf of fabric – it is the bundles that I love (5 at least are things I won this past several years ) but I have several more shelves of fabric to use and those boxes up there filled with scraps and a large basket also that I still have not taken care of – I was going to start organizing all that earlier in the year and I never finished doing it. I really and truly do not need fabric next year!!! (remind me) I even have background fabrics – the only thing I might possibly need besides batting is wide backs. I might have to be a stashbuster next year – is there still a group for that I wonder – well I doubt I will join it because there is no way I’m going to waste my time measuring all that fabric to figure out what I have in order to start to subtract off what I use as I have seen on some sites.

{ 8 comments }

More Stilettos

by Karen on July 5, 2012

in quilts, sewing room

I finished making the whole package of Stilettos. It was a fun 5 minutes or so – such an easy project. I have plenty of beads left over – jewelry is not something I wear much of and I don’t normally make any but I might need to make a couple of necklaces or something with the left over beads so they won’t sit around for years unused.

Right now I have them all standing up in a small pottery mug that I have. I will put one in each sewing kit and leave the rest standing for now as decoration on the cutting table. The mug is tiny but too big for these to show much of – I might need to find something even tinier to show them off a little bit! The stilettos are 4 inches in length so that shows how small this mug is!

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The long stiletto is the only one I ever had before – it is nice, just felt like making more! Just something creative that took only seconds to do for each one.

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I got more quilting done on Joseph’s Coat last night and got started on another POTC block. Mike installed a BlueRay player for the tv that is in the quilting/office room that we used. Now I don’t need to put my computer on the back of the quilting frame to watch shows off of Netflix. I am almost done with “Folye’s War” so I will need to move on to another series soon. One problem I had with watching Netflix shows on the computer is the newer shows didn’t come across well – speed? I don’t know what the problem is but the shows in the last 3 or 4 years – or a good lot of them – I haven’t been able to watch on the computer as they “froze up”. Now I will be able to watch anything that is available. I think when I am done with this current series as I will be soon I will try Downtown Abbey so many have recommended it.

Quilt Group meets tonight I will bring the camera and maybe there will be a bit of a quilt show for tomorrow’s post – this group usually has quit a bit of show and tell. My Friday morning quilt group is cancelled until the end of July as so many are taking vacations and we are a very small group – I think I will be exercising on Friday’s now instead for that time period.

I might not be sticking quite so much in the quilting room though for the next week, the news says we will get a break in our weather soon – I hope so!! It will be nice if we get cooler wetter weather.

{ 4 comments }

Binding Begins

by Karen on May 18, 2012

in Pineapple Scrap Blocks, quilts, sewing room, Star Crazy

I got the machine part of the sewing done this afternoon for the binding on Star Crazy. Working binding in a small room is a bit of a challenge. I have to pull my SewEzi table out from the tight little space it goes in, I get a small fold out table out and put it next to it – I pull Mike’s office chair over so some of it can rest on that – but it got done!

I have it all folded up now so it will be easy to work with and will get to the hand stitching later today or tomorrow.

I had enough backing and batting leftover from Star Crazy (I had cut it way too long) that I was able to cut it and sew it back together again to fit the Pineapple Square Wall Hanging and still had some of that backing and batting leftover! Here it is ready to work on.

This sure is little on the big quilting frame – I don’t know if I have every had something so small on it. Almost the whole this is showing right now. You know I totally forgot I said I was going to clean out under that frame before I put anything else on it!

My space back to being a computer table – Words with Friends – playing two games – one with daughter and one with sis in law.

I got the backing fabric for the Joseph’s Coat quilt – all ready for when it is finished! I like the wide back fabrics from Christian Lane Quilters – if you have never tried them you might want to check out the Fatbacks! Prices aren’t bad – here is what I got for Joseph’s Coat – I just ordered it about 3 or 4 days ago and it came today – what fast service.