Tuesday, May 15, 2007

My Sewing/Craft/Quilting/Family Room

I am very lucky to have a large house. We have turned one of the upstairs bedrooms into a family/work room to avoid having the constant mess downstairs for everyone to see.

Here is my work table before I straightened it up. Actually it is straightened up but I hadn't put anything away for awhile, just kept folding and stacking. In the back you can see my design wall, just a flannel piece of fabric tacked to the wall. Am getting ready to put those log cabin blocks, from a swap, together for a wall hanging. If you look outside the door you can just see my book shelf that I keep all my craft, sewing, quilting, and home decorating magazines in. The most organized place in my house. Each type of magazine and book is labeled as to what craft and the name of the group of magazines. Wish the rest of my house was that organized.Here is the table after I cleaned it off and put everything away where it belongs. I made this table myself from a sheet of laminate board, put some old legs on it from a broken table then set it up on cinderblocks to bring it up to the right height. I love my table. I think I cut about a foot off of it so it is 7' by 4'. Under the work table are the rolling carts/5 of them/ that I keep papers and files on one side and more fabric on the other. Also my trash fits under there, and on the end I have a trunk of quilts and it gives me a place to stash things out of the way. Need lots of those spaces.
Here is the other side with the carts I use for fabric. Had to use 2 drawers for all my blue fabric, one for novelties, one for animal prints (have 2 rooms decorated with animal prints so needed lots of fabric for that), one for muslin and white, one for unused blocks, one for flannel, one for scraps, and one for just misc. Also I have 2 baskets hanging off the table to scrape stuff off into when I need more room on top. Lol! Here is one of 3 large shelves I have to keep all my stuff in. Got all these shelves from an old doll museum that closed down. Have about 3 more of them I think. They are sure handy. This one holds all my boxes I plan to cover some day, and a few baskets on the top shelf, misc. on the very top, then the next 2 shelves are devoted to my tubs of fabric. the first shelf of tubs is my cotton fabrics. The next two are fancy fabrics and a few project boxes. And that big tub on the right is all my Christmas fabric. Or most of it anyway. All these are sorted by color, cottons and fancies. My granddaughter is allowed part of the bottom shelf for her games and then a box of tax papers. In one of the closets I have these 2 hanging shelves that are full of more cotton fabrics and UFO's (unfinished objects) from sane quilting projects. The rest of this closet and another the same size are full of Christmas decorations.
Here are the other 2 big shelves and they are full of craft supplies, upholstery fabrics, ribbons, more cotton fabrics, and who knows what else is in those shelves.
Here is my sewing machine and table and in the background is my computer desk. In the background on the right is another future project, a doll house. There is a small bookcase and a large book case behind my desk I keep bolts of fabric on one and dollhouse furniture and office supplies on the other. Oh, and butted up against the sewing table is my Granddaughter's computer desk and messy work station, not included in the picture.
And last but not least is my work station to do my sit down CQ work. I hated getting up and going behind my chair to get this or that beads or ribbons a hundred times an evening so have arranged all my stuff around me. The little bookcase is a special one I have always used for this sort of thing. My Dad built it for me my senior year in high school. It has a pocket on the end for pens and one for magazines. In it are my little tubs of special threads, hand dyed lace, dmc embroidery thread, special yarns, appliques, etc. On the first shelf I try to keep what I use at hand, such as scissors, patterns, embroidery hoop, pin cushion. On top I have 2 of the little drawer cabinets with beads and sequins in them. My ott lite sits on top of that side. I have another of the little drawer cabinets in the floor with more beads, buttons, etc. I also have a couple of tubs under the chair with stuff I don't use very often. On the foot stool and side table I keep the plastic organizers. I have the ones with seperate boxes for the beads and the ones with dividers for my threads on spools and silk ribbon on spools. I keep my inspiration notebook at hand. Loose ribbons go in the clear plastic round container on the side table. there is also another one of those rolling carts at the end of the book case at my elbow with all my venice lace, appliques, and special ribbons and things. Oh and over there on the left is our coin collection and my DH's knife collection.
I love my space. It is a very crowded room but is all so functional (except DH's area, Lol! no pics of that messy part either, sorry!) that you don't notice it being crowded unless it is very messy. The only thing I would change would be to have a better floor, and the only way it could be better would be to have built in cabinets floor to ceiling to put everything in. That is not likely to happen. Hope something I have done with my space helps you with yours.

Update on White and Peacock Blocks

I haven't had a lot of time to work on my own things but did add this crocheted doiley I made to a peacock block and added shell beads around with some rhinestones, big turquoise button and flower to the center.
This is the 4th shades of white block and I practiced my sre flowers on it by using a pattern from a sre book. I like the way it turned out. also tried out some bead flowers, which I will add more to later. did a seam treatment with bugle beads and embroidered flowers, and started another of those feather seam treatments. Plan to use beads on it this time and see how that looks.

And finally, I finished the pillow top I was making. I added a paisley, beaded roses surrounded by some venice lace that I added beads to, a spider and her web, a button cluster, some sre roses, a sunburst of beads, the print on silk, and several seam treatments. Now to purchase a pillow form and put it together. This is the one I am going to try and sell to see how that works out.


Round Robin and Swap blocks

I have been swamped with my own work and quite a few Round Robins I joined so am just now getting around to posting pics of things I have been doing. Will have 3 seperate posts, I think to catch up on the past couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy seeing what I have been up to.



This is a block from a CQ for Newbies group RR that I added the paisley, 2 seam treatments and a simple dragonfly.




this is a Round Robin from the Kaye Woods group. Thought it was so pretty. I added the last red row with white hearts. I added a chain stitch heart in the corner hearts in pink.



this is another from the Kaye Woods group. I added the scattered flowers and the flower on the hat. Cute!






This block is one for the CQ for Newbies Spring Fling swap. This one I used some appliques and things I had with some seam treatments of chain stitch, flowers, fly stitch, which I finally figured out how to do, and a button cluster.









The second block for the Spring Fling. I did a couple of sre roses, a row of sequin flowers, an embroidered birdhouse with sre flowers, a metal butterfly with beads, an applique butterfly, decorated ric rac in pink and silver, accents of butterfly beads, a feather look seam treatment which is my favorite seam treatment, lazy daisy seam treatment, gathered ribbon with beads, a flower of hearts on the big pink flower and a couple more appliques



Third Block for the Spring Fling. On this one I put a little spider and her web in the corner, a chain stitch seam treatment, fan seam treatment, ribbon yarn seam treatment, flowers in a row seam treatment, and a chain and another fringe seam treatment. I also added the starburst in pink and a metal basket of flowers. Embroidered a birdhouse and decorated it with flowers. These 3 were fun to do.

A Little About Me

Hi and Welcome! I am 50 years old, married with 2 girls Andrea and Crystal, and 3 grandchildren. A girl, Jesi who is 13 that we are raising and a boy, Christian, who is 6 and, lives with Mom. Andrew James or Peanut is 6months old and brother to Jesi. We live in a house built in 1897 that is not in the best of shape but we are working on it and we love it. It is a 2 story colonial style with big columns and a big wrap around front porch. We also have 6 cats, of which only part of are allowed in the house, and 5 dogs. A Momma dog and 4 puppies. She had 9, we gave one away, then they all came down with parvo. I lost 4 but was able to save 4. A heartrending experience but was just glad to be able to save any. No help from the vet as they want so much money but found some homeopathic remedies that actually worked. I also have a 7 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that is my baby. She goes everywhere with me, sleeps under the covers with me, and is just the cutest thing ever.