My studio

The time has come to reveal my new studio. My We 3 Quilters friends, Debra and Mary have been begging me for photos .... so here goes! :o)  Be prepared for this long post with lots of photos.

From our foyer, we go down the stairs.  There will always be eye candy for you to look at along the way ..... I make sure of that!  :o)

At the bottom of the stairs, turn right and a chair is always on hand with a quilt drapped over the back.  You can sit down here to catch your breath or we can continue on.

 Ah, now we are seeing the start of my studio.

As you enter the room, there are a few quilts on display.  The door that you can see, leads to a bedroom/exercise room.

Now, you are right inside my studio.  My lazy boy chair is where I sit and do hand quilting or hand piecing/applique work.  There is plenty of room on the wicker love seat if you want to join me for an afternoon of sewing.  What is behind those white curtains?  Read on ...

The hanging lampshade, by my chair, is one that I crocheted for my Mom many years ago and recently my sister gave it back to me.  It is my pride and joy to have it hanging in my studio.

From my chair, I can turn my head and look at my design wall.  Still no borders on my Trip Around the World top .... I just enjoy looking at the design.  Love it!  Behind the wicker love seat, on the table, you can just barely see my sewing machine.  There are lots of those storage drawers that are hiding behind the loveseat on the floor.  They don't get used a lot and the loveseat is easy and light to pull out if I need to access them.

If I need a better view of my blocks, etc., then I can slide my design wall to the right (I can do this to block DH and the girls from coming inside my room) covering the doorway.  :o)

 

In the photo below, you can see my storage area that was hidden behind the design wall.  When I'm done looking at my design wall, it slides back to the left once again.  I slide my design wall back and forth by hand.  It is made from rigid pink 1" thick stryoform boards (24" x 96") that are taped together and covered with Warm/Natural batting.  My design wall is not attached to anything ... it just slides easily on the floor.  Mind you, it does tend to wobble a bit, but a steadying hand helps it from flopping over.

Behind the door, my rulers and quilting frames are stored and my measuring tapes are hanging on the door knob.

From my sewing area, I can now watch T.V. 

In the cabinet below, are some of my tops from my previous post that have been rolled up with batting and backing ready for hand quilting.  Now, these tops are no longer out-of-sight, out-of-mind in my battered old trunk.  Besides, they do look nice displayed like this and are great inspiration to get them done.  :o)

When all the white curtains are pulled back, you can see more storage areas.  I like to keep the curtains drawn to help keep me calm and from jumping from one thing to another.    When I don't visually see my stash, I'm not tempted to start something new.  To access my stash, the curtains open with just a swish of my hand.  Easy peasy.

Shown below, some of my UFO's are on the shelf at the left.  Way too many for my liking.  They are being dealt with one-at-a-time and I'm dealing with those that need borders first. 

On the shelf that is closest to my chair, is where I store my hand quilting (just to the left of the crocheted blanket) and is close at hand to easily grab when I'm in the mood to hand quilt.   Gotta keep up my daily hand quilting challenge.  You can't see a quilt frame because I fold my quilt all up because the girls like to climb in there for a snooze and I don't want them chewing on the quilting threads. 

Speaking of napping cats ..... can we say princess and the pea!

 

There you have it .... my studio.

I'm so very happy with my space and it truly is a great place to get those creative juices flowing.

When I first started sewing, my sewing area was a corner of my wee bedroom.  I've come a long way!  Thanks, DH, for giving me a special space once again!

Have a great day!

Tops galore

Since I have been on a mission lately to complete UFO's, my battered old trunk is becoming too full to store any more tops along with their backings.  Plus, you know the old saying:  out-of-sight, out-of-mind. 

It was time to take stock of what was in there since it has been a while since it was last opened.  When we moved, everything remained inside the trunk. 

So, what do we have?   The tops were sorted into seasons.

First, there is a (twin-size) petal plate top and a (queen size) basket top.  These will be lovely for the spring/summer.
 

These two (full size) tops are perfect for Xmas and the one on the left for Canada Day next year. 

 These are definitely for fall/winter (left is queen size and the other is full size).

 My latest (queen size) completed top will be perfect for late summer into fall.

So, which one do I work on next after I finish these two? 

Since Xmas is slowly creeping up on us, I'm thinking of the red/green tops to finish and to hang them up for our first Xmas in our new home.
Oh decisions, decisions.  Also, do I hand quilt them all or machine quilt a couple of them myself or send a few to a LAer?  Ugh!  On the positive side .... I will be enjoying some of these quilts soon.

Have a great day!

Show them off

A couple of weekends ago, DH and I met my SIL and her friend at a quilt show in South River, Ontario.  This was our first day outing since we moved north.  We didn't know what to expect and were pleasantly surprised with the venue.  The quilt show was in a barn.  How cool was that!  A huge smile was plastered on my face as soon as we stepped out of the car.  This was going to be a great show!  :o)

This flower garden greeted visitors outside the barn entrance. 

After seeing the barn block, I zoomed in on the hexagon quilt that was draped on the Muskoka chair.

Once inside the building .... oh, be still my beating heart ..... I was a drooling fool when I saw these scrappy quilts!

Here is a beautiful sampler:

A lovely 2-colour Monkey Wrench:

I tried to win the raffle quilt, but luck wasn't with me that day.

There are more photos from the show, but the above quilts were the ones that caught my eye.  It was a wonderful day in the country.  Thank you Almaguin Quilters Guild for putting on a fantastic show.

Have a great day!

Love Is ....

I'm keeping to my personal goal to do some kind of hand quilting every day .... as long as it is on the small size since it is still too hot to have anything large on my lap.  My hexagon quilt (see this post) has been set aside for that reason.

This is the quilt that I'm working on now:

This close-up shot shows what I will be doing for hand quilting.  Nothing elaborate ... plain and simple works for me.
I do all of my markings using Crayola Washable fine tip markers and all the blue markings will disappear once this is washed and dried.

 Have a great day!

Great strides again

Here again is my Ozard Cobble Stone (that is the name of the block found in Blockbase by Barbara Brackman and which is available again to purchase) project. All of the main octagons have been basted and now all that needs to be done is to make the beige octagons and filler squares. Then I can think about what to do with borders, but that won't be for a while yet.  This will be a queen size quilt once finished.

Now that all the octagons have been carefully removed and pinned together with clothspins ....

... I can start the sewing process.  Sewing those long strips is a bit tedious, but a great project to have on hand while watching T.V.

Once my design wall was bare, this is the next UFO that got pinned up.  Borders.   All that is needed is borders!  Yikes!  I am awash with UFO's that just need borders.

Have a great day!

I got mail

Now, I know what it feels like to receive a quilt back from a LAer!  Debra was so kind to pick up my quilt after it was machine quilted and to mail it to me. 

With so many quilt tops getting finished these days, this quilt was a perfect candidate for professional machine quilting.  Also, it was done while I was busy moving and it was a good decision to have it quilted by someone else.

This is the back just waiting to be opened up and reveal what is inside:

Remember this pattern?  I really do love this quilt and will be making another one down the road.  The next one, I would like to work with a colour co-ordinated FQ bundle to give it a whole different look.

Now, there are two quilts that need binding and labels.  The one in front has been hand quilted.    

Have a great day!

Pie in the Sky top

Since we all love eye candy, DH and I try our best to take interesting photos of my tops and quilts.  Here are a few shots of how we get those photos.

In this photo, DH is telling me to shift the quilt top to the left because the right bottom is scrunched up:

Hmmm .... maybe I should tweak it a bit more to make sure it is straight.  We still have to rig up some kind of system so that the pole, that has the top clipped to, is not hanging down over the railing.  That is why it looks like the top outer border is smaller than the others.  Until we rig up something, this will have to do for now.

Now, once I'm happy with the way it looks, I climb up onto a step ladder to get that perfect shot.  If we didn't use the step ladder, the photo angle would be an uphill shot and it would not look right.  Miss Hank would really like to get in on the action, too.  I didn't realize that DH was snapping shots of me in action and once seeing all his photos, I thought that they would make an interesting post.  :o)

There you have it .... do you think it was worth all the work to get this photo?  For us, yes!  We enjoy doing it!

Pie in the Sky is a Kim Diehl pattern from her book Simple Graces.  If you have her book, you can see where my version differs from her pattern.

What can I say ... I'm very happy to have another top ready for quilting.  The number of tops are growing and growing and I will have to buckle down and really get working on them.
Have a great day!

Strides

I've made huge strides since posting about this UFO.  This has been a great project to work on while I've been at our cottage and also while watching the Olympics.

For the outer borders, I've been thinking about doing some applique blocks ... just to spice things up a bit.

I also finished sewing together (completed after the photo was taken) the sections for another of these hexagons.  That makes another two that can be added to the pile.

Have a great day!

Vintage sheets

While at the cottage last week, my sister and I have been sorting through the cupboards and we had quite a few sheets that were not necessary to keep any longer.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them yet .... but you can be sure there is a quilt in their future!  :o)

Have a great day!