My new sewing area

A couple of weeks ago Don and I decided to convert our back bedroom to a sewing area. Until then, I had a desk and some on-the-desk shelves in the corner of the living room. I did my cutting and ironing on the dining room table, and had to constantly put everything away and take things out.  But I managed. Now it's so much better!  Every time I walk through the room I smile - I sometimes stay in there all day!

This is my pride and joy.  When I was still teaching in a classroom (before I became president and moved to an office), I had this drafting table I used in front of the room. It's tall enough to stand behind and teach. I moved it into this room and just love it. It has the largest cutting mat on one side, and a large ironing pad on the other side. Behind the iron you can see a red thing - that's my printer, covered by a red plaid cloth, topped with a little doll my son made when he was 9. (He's 28.) There's still room for a large basket of neutrals, and work area between the ironing pad and cutting mat. There's a long narrow drawer I use for some supplies, and my rulers all fit in the wide skinny drawer. As you can see, there's room underneath for even more stuff, including the stool I used in my classroom.  As I stand and cut or iron, I have a wonderful view outdoors.

 In the bookcase next to my drafting table I have 3 shelves of books and notebooks, and this shelf. The two cardboard file boxes hold some of my strings - separated into lights and darks. (After the most recent donation of strings and crumbs, I've had to cram a bunch of strings into two large ziploc bags.)  The little drawers hold squares.  As each drawer gets full, I pull them out and put them into bags. But with the drawers right next to my cutting mat, it has gotten so easy to cut and sort as I go instead of all at once.  I can also reach into a drawer and take out a bunch of squares when I need them for a project.

 This very messy area is my sewing desk, my Featherweight, and a couple of shelves that hold my smaller than FQ/larger than crumbs scraps. I have more storage drawers on each side of the shelves, where I keep assorted papers, patterns, templates, and such. I have a view out the window from here, too.

This little chest of drawers is full of completed small quilts, stacks of blocks waiting to be pieced, a few projects kitted out ready to sew, and a bunch of "made" fabric (fabric made from sewing crumbs together).  The TV is on a lot while I"m in there - but I can only listen most of the time since it's behind where I sit.

This is about 80% of my stash. The shelves are built-ins behind the door. I just recently got the comic book boards, and there are 96 of them on that top shelf. The next shelf down is fat quarters, and then  3shelves of assorted sets of pieces - I know what they are : ).  The next-to-the bottom shelf is all solids.

This is my happy place!

Liberated Round Robin 2, Step 1

Just call me a joiner. If there's a swap, quilt-along, BOM, or some other joint effort that I can participate in, I'm probably going to give it a try. I just joined the Liberated Round Robin blog and finished my first step today.

Unlike regular round robins, no fabric or blocks are sent away.  You receive a set of general instructions for each step, make it yourself at home, and share your steps on the blog. I'll be sharing both there and  here.

The first step suggested starting with an orphan block and doing a little slashing and inserting.  Since there are really no rules, you were encouraged to do anything else you felt like.

 I started with two orphan blocks. The first was a Chinese Coins block that I made incorrectly - but couldn't just throw away. The other was a leftover pansy from Block Lotto. 

A couple of slashes, insertion of some flowery strips, dividing the Chinese Coins, and adding a little striped fabric, and here we go!

Sibling stars and ugly fabric

Today I tackled part 2 of the Pieceful Quilter's Quilt-Along - four "sibling stars." Shannon calls them that since there are two in each block.

I decided to try to use some of my "ugly" fabric - and yes, I know " ugly" is in the eye of the beholder. But my tastes have changed over the 5 years I've been sewing, and there are fabrics in my stash I just can't bear to use, and can't bear to throw out. So I tried to use some of them today. 

After making two blocks, I sat back and said, "Even the blocks are ugly now."  The rectangles not only clashed with the stars, they made the stars ugly. I decided to replace the rectangles with fabric that either matched one of the stars or matched the rest of the background - it depended on how much of it I had left.

Here are two "before and afters:"

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Here are the other two blocks for this part:

Block received from Carolyn

This came yesterday from my February partner, Carolyn, in the Quilters' Message Board Monthly Bee. Nice bright colors!

Bloggers' BOM - 6 months done

Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works has been hosting the Blogger's BOMs.  We've done 6 months - it doesn't seem like it's been 6 months!  So far, we've done:

 September - from Sherri of A Quilting Life

October - from Vicki of Field Trips in Fiber

 November - from Stephanie of Loft Creations

 December - from Pat Sloan

January - from John of Quilt Dad

February - from Amy of A Diary of A Quilter

A few more things I've been working on

 String blocks. I finished the first top the other day, and decided that my string boxes and bags were overstuffed - so I needed to make some room. In one afternoon I made 20 blocks. These are 6.5" - the ones in the first top were 5.5" (I used a larger phone book this time).

 Six blocks from the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler (Elm Creek Quilts).  This makes 10. Top row, L-R: Sarah's Choice, Dutchman's Puzzle, and Chicago Pavements. Bottom row, L-R: 54-40 or Fight, Mother's Delight, and Churn Dash.

The Farmer's Wife Sow-Along is now called Barrister's Sow-Along. If you want to know why the change, go here.  But we're doing blocks that are in the public domain, so there will be no problems. I have the Farmer's Wife book anyway - and am enjoying doing these in those 30's repro fabrics. 

Here are the three for this week:

Broken Dishes

Basket (I used large ric-rac for the handle)

Churn Dash

Shannon, the Pieceful Kwilter, also has a quilt-along going on her blog. Today I finally got around to doing part 1:

Zig-Zag Star

3 6" Friendship Stars

A few things I've been working on

I've had a lot of time in my new sewing room lately - I just love to go in there and work away.

These two liberated churn dash blocks are for my Sew Bee Wonky Flickr group. Emily asked that they not be squared up, so they're not.

Another Star - from the Solstice Stars Series - for Maureen in a swap on the Quilters' Message Board

9 HST/triangles blocks for Block Lotto

Isn't this a beautiful star? It's called Lone Star Starburst, and it was designed by Anna of Six White Horses Studio in Australia.  She generously has provided a .pdf for this block that you can download and paper-piece. I like the thin inner border and chose to do it in white - but at her site you can see it in a couple other colors.

I decided to do the Granny Squares Quilt-Along - which is actually a do-at-your-own-pace activity. The Flickr group is here.

I chose to make mine "no-two-fabrics alike," and in two colors per square. Since that required a lot of different fabrics, I stopped at twelve blocks. It'll end up being a crib-sized or small quilt.

  

Sue Rasmussen trunk show

We had a wonderful trunk show by Sue Rasmussen at our last guild meeting. The day before, Sue taught a class on curved flying geese.  See her lovely jacket? She's got curved flying geese all over!  In the class, we learned how to design and execute our own curved flying geese - and when I finish the little piece I made that day I'll be sure to post it.

At the guild meeting, Sue showed us a variety of her quilts - so many different styles!  It was fun eye candy and we were in awe of her skill.

Detail from the quilt above. All the fabrics in this quilt are dots, and no two fabrics are alike!

This last quilt was actually a group effort. 5 different quilters were given a photograph and each made a panel. Sue's is the one on the far right.