HAPPY NEW YEAR

New Quilt

 Here's the new gifted quilt, made for my brother and sister in law. All the water themes reminded me of them and whaddya know, Holly just won a guitar in a contest, so the guitar playing mermaid is very appropriate. I love these blocks, they are so pretty.

 I kind of outlined the shapes in each square loosely.

This is the happy couple, Steve and Holly, enjoying the warmth.

Holly speaking:  Steve and I could not have been more surprised by the beautiful quilt Debby made us.  I see new paint, sheets and a water theme for our bedroom.  We love to be on the water in our kayaks, the theme is perfect for us, such a wonderful and thoughtful gift!

We love it!  

The Real Studio Tour Part Three

What does your studio REALLY look like?

 Before I begin I must thank Vicki Welsh for the delicious and wonderful fused glass art piece. Do I have to say, I LOVE IT? Well I do, and it was quite generous and kind of her to give someone she doesn't know something so special, which makes me think she is someone special for sure. I feel so lucky. Thank you again

 Okay here it goes, this is what it looks like when you walk in the door. It is a spare room, about 10' x 10'. It is really small. There is not much room to maneuver around. You can literally walk in about 3 steps then turn right and walk one step and turn right again and walk two steps. That's it. My sewing table is in the center of the room.

 When I am sewing I face this wall, a dresser full of fabric, and various art supplies above.

 This is the second wall, my cutting table (messy!) and various sewing supplies above. My husband made this table, it is really nice, has a shelf underneath to hold, what else....more stuff. I really like it, but I wish I could move it away from the wall. BUT. NO. ROOM.

 So now I am turning right that ONE STEP and beginning to face the third wall. In the corner is the iron and more sewing stuff. The upper walls of this side of the room is mostly all books, sewing, knitting, etc.

 Here is a better view of that third wall. You can see most of my fabric storage below in the Ikea shelf units. These drawers work perfect for me.

 As you turn back towards the doorway you can see I have more fabric storage (that is my hand dyed fabric). Behind that unit is actually a small closet that we do not have access to unless we shift things around. Next to that is a tiny design wall with a few things stuck up there. I now have a super large design wall that is in my sons room next door. He'll be back home next month so that will have to go somewhere soon (but not in here!)

 Detail shot of my mini design wall with random stuff up.

 This is the sewing table that sits in the center of the room. I am getting ready to quilt that green and blue pile that's folded up right now. That box contains all the homemade washi tape that I've created in the last couple of months and some stamps. (gosh, I really need to organize)

 Under the sewing table: air compressor to blow out my sewing machine, paints, gelli prints, texture plates.

 Under the sewing table: paints, stuff.

 Under the cutting table: papers, paints, spray bottles, who knows?

 Markers

 Stamp pads, BARGAIN ALERT, I got those distress pads for $1.75 from Joann's on Black Friday.

Closer look at the fabric. I LOVE FABRIC. SO . MUCH

That's it! I am so jealous of Vicki, who apparently has about 2,500 square feet to work out all her crafty addictions. Thank you Vicki for your excellent tour of your space this week. I am going to enjoy looking at everybody's tours this weekend. When I feel sorry for myself that my space is so small I try to remember when I didn't even have this space and try to find some gratefulness. I actually feel very lucky to have it.

The Real Studio Tour Part 2

 I tried so hard to find something new under the sun in the way of storage but.......nothing. I have the same stuff that everybody has, Ikea racks and drawers, plastic drawers, under table stashes, dressers, etc. And it is a mess right now!!!

 But one of my favorites is this library stand with drawers, an old card catalog that our school was getting rid of one day.  It is pretty small, only 10 drawers and it holds all my buttons, which is a lot. I think I am going to reorganize it when I am on my winter break from school next week. I don't use buttons that often and now I am getting an extensive supply of various markers that all need to be stored laying down, and the drawers would be perfect for that. We'll see how  industrious I am in a week.

I HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF!

This is a gift for somebody so I won't show too much of it.

The Real Studio Tour

 On this tour we are sharing nontraditional tools we use while sewing. I wracked my brain trying to think of something I've used in my studio that I haven't seen anywhere else and this is what I came up with. If you scroll down you'll see I just completed a mandala style log cabin, trying to use up scraps. In order to keep my scraps sorted out by color I grabbed some of these hooks from the kitchen and hung the grocery bags full of strips on my fabric shelves. They sat right next to my position at the sewing machine so I could just reach over and grab the appropriate color while I was sewing. My studio is SO SMALL I really don't have room to pile the scraps on my sewing table. So this worked out great!

You may recognize those fabric shelves from Ikea, I love them (those are my hand dyed fabrics in the drawers, hence all the solids). Well the coffee cup hooks are also from Ikea! 

Click the The Real Studio Tour button on the right to see all the creative ideas people have!