Feb
29
Yep, I know, it’s about time! I redid the sewing room um, well I forgot how long ago. And here, for your enjoyment (or amusement) are the photos.
Most of my ideas for changing the room were inspired by a book: Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space by Lois Hallock. Not that I’m much of a quilter. I mean, sure a few here and there. But not really… I needed more of a multi-purpose crafty space. And I’m super anal about neat and tidy shelves.
One of the best suggestions from the book was about drawing your room and it’s furniture to scale and playing with the pieces until you found a furniture arrangement you could live with. When I did this, I realized that the daybed had to go. It was taking up too much room. So it was off to craigslist. It lasted all of about 4 hours on craigslist before it sold. With the “profit” from the sale of the daybed I managed to buy the Murphy bed you see in the above photo. So now my mother-in-law (who I love dearly, really) has a place to sleep, that isn’t too comfortable, and I have floor space to spread out all those quilts I’m supposed to be making.
Underneath the daybed there were boxes. LOTS of boxes. Most of them filled with fabric. First order of business, empty the boxes and get rid of anything that I wouldn’t buy off the shelf today. That was most of it. You can see all that remained on the two top left shelves of the bookcase. The book also gave great instructions for how to fold all that “quilting” fabric uniformly so that it stacks neatly. So neatly that I felt I could stand to have it out on an open shelf. Which actually works out well, because now I can see what I have without crawling under the dust ruffle and pulling out six other boxes to get to the box with the fabric that I think I want.
One thing that I wanted to do that actually got done, was moving the Bose iPod dock thingy into my room. Woo hoo! Tunes while I work. Trust me, it’s better than my whistling.
I love that my serger and sewing machine are just an arm’s reach away. And all my thread is stored either on the keyboard tray of the desk or in that drawer you can see. And I love the new lamp from Ikea that lights the machines as I work. I wonder how I ever worked without it. That little appliance bulb in the sewing machine puts out about as much light as a firefly.
The closet. Which here looks over stuffed and unorganized. Really, it looks much better in real life, but perhaps I should consider some curtains. You can’t even see my most ingenious idea which involves Ikea pants hangers and yards and yards of fabric. All of my Etsy inventory is stored on these shelves. Most of it in the two red baskets on the bottom.
And you get a glimpse of the big fabric covered board on the wall. This is one of those pin boards that everyone seems to be making these days. Not even one of the tutorials on these things mentions what a pain in the butt it is to find homasote. We had to drive clear to Georgetown to even find a piece. And on the way back, with the damn thing flapping on the roof, I had to sit there and pull DOWN on the string going through the cabin of the car to keep us from literally sailing off the highway.
There is the rest of it, with the one lone pinwheel block leftover from the quilt on the back of the chair. Cool thing was, the blocks stick to the linen covering the board, and I laid out the entire quilt on the wall. No more crawling around like Gollum on the floor rearranging block after block until I get a “random” look. Yeah, I know I need help.
And you can see my easel. With a really roughed in sketch of my friend, Sarah. I haven’t touched it in at least 6 weeks. Maybe this weekend. If I can get enough crap done at work. The easel is great though. It’s beautiful on it’s own, and as an added bonus, I can lower the “shelf” enough to sit on the floor and work. I don’t know about you, but sitting on the floor is usually more comfortable than a chair in my experience.
You can see the little tiny part of my magnet board which holds a few pieces of inspiration cut from magazines. What isn’t showing is my medal from last year’s danskin.
I absolutely love this new room. I love the color on the walls (it used to be YELLOW… like really really yellow). I love my new furniture. I love all the storage. But most of all, I love that it is my room where I can go and hide out. And THAT is why there are no plans for another baby anytime soon.
Feb
28
The weekend’s spoils.
I know when I started liking pink and pale green/turquoise together. When I was about 12, my gymnastics team got new uniforms. Previously we’d been wearing all lime green leotards with two diagonal stripes. One gold, one white. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much say in the design of the new uniforms, and they ended up being a dark green, a minty blue green and pink. I was sure they would be hideous, and they were, but most leotards (or leos as we called them) were pretty hideous in the mid-eighties. Still, the colors bring back good memories.
But, I digress. I spent the weekend making this new needle roll because my first one was already falling apart. That, and it really wasn’t well designed anyway. I actually sat down this time and measured everything I wanted to fit, and planned and drew sketches to scale and finally cut and sewed this sucker from 2 1/2 fat quarters. And I’ll tell you, all that’s left of the blue floral is the selvage edge. I managed somehow to squeak out all the pieces I needed. Which is actually a miracle in itself as I really didn’t plan the cuts.
I love that everything I need fits neatly inside, and I don’t have to go running down the stairs juggling a ball of yarn and knitting on the needles in order to fetch a crotchet hook to pick up a dropped stitch. I love the little zip pocket that holds those end caps and size tags perfectly. And all of my needle tips and DPNs fit, with room to grow. I also added a couple of strips near the top for hanging stitch holders and stitch markers (on binder rings – Target has the coolest colored ones!)
So, it’s not the really cool needle book idea I had planned out before. I’ve been working on that, but I might give it up as it is kinda cumbersome, even if it is really neat. But it works, and I like just looking at it all rolled up. Maggie Righetti, who taught me to knit through her book Knitting in Plain English, says to always take time to stop and admire your work, because it will give you satisfaction, and encourage a job well done. And there really is nothing more satisfying than seeing something completed.
Feb
20
Meet Loki
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This little girl has been taking up a bit of our time for the past few days. Now don’t get all excited, she’s my cousin’s dog, and we are only keeping her for him until he and my brother can get a place with a yard. She’s a pit bull terrier, and it’s a good thing she’s cute, because she just ate one of my shoelaces.
Feb
19
Snuggly Soft
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Finally! Something for me. For my always frozen hands.
The pattern is Daisy Stitch Handwarmers from the Purlbee, but I didn’t use the yarn they suggested. No way was I going to pay $12.50 a skein for 4 skeins of yarn that I would probably only need about 1/3 of. If I can’t even knit the second sock without doing both at the same time, do you really think I’m going to make multiple pairs of hand warmers? So during my first trip EVAR to Hill Country Weavers, I got some pretty generic 100% merino yarn in the suggested colors. It only cost about 1/2 as much as the other stuff AND I didn’t have to wait around for it.
Unfortunately, I did have to wait around for the DPNs in size 7 & 8 to show up from Knit Picks. I’ve pretty much decided I’m not gonna buy needles anywhere else. I really love how smooth and sturdy the Knit Picks needles feel. So out with the old and in with the new I suppose.
The daisy stitch is really fun. It works up quickly, and keeps my mind just occupied enough to not be boring, but easy enough to pay attention to the television. I’m trying to figure out if I could make a sweater using it.
Feb
12
Alexis does this thing that totally cracks me up. She’ll be sitting upstairs in the loft happily tearing the place apart and watching TV when all of a sudden some infomercial catches her attention. A few seconds later I hear “I WANT <fill in junk product for $19.95 here>!” Every. single. time. it makes me giggle. I’m not sure why.
She’s even gone so far as to bring me the 800 number written in orange marker on the back of my credit card bill. I stared at it and wondered how she remembered such a long number when she can’t even remember her birthday. Without me even asking she spouts, “I paused the TiVo and wrote down the number for you momma so you can buy me this.” Never mind that it’s for Betty Crocker’s green bags, a product that keeps your vegetables and fruits fresh for up to 40 days! (She informed my mother and I of that little fact in the car on the way home from San Antonio on Sunday.)
I now have a stack of 800 numbers written by her that is at least 10 deep. I don’t even know what any of them are for because she only writes the number, never the name of the product. Yet, I can’t throw them away because pausing the TiVo to write down the number is just too ingenious, and I know some day I will look at those papers and laugh even harder than I am already.
I know at least one of those numbers is for another Betty Crocker product. Some sort of cake decorating kit. We tried to explain to her that we already own everything that they ship in the kit. She looked at us and said, “but if you order within the next 15 minutes it comes complete with a storage box!” She might be watching too much TV.