If You Give a Quilter a Studio.....{Studio Makeover}

 If you give a quilter a studio....

Before photo

She'll ask you for new floors to go with it.

Maple Country by Home Legend

If you give her new floors,

She'll ask for the walls to be painted.

Paint:  Behr Bon Voyage

If you paint the walls,

She'll ask you for new window treatment fabric.

When you hang the new window treatments,

She will notice the fan blades don't match the floor, so you'll flip the blades around.

Since you are standing on it, she will probably ask you to move the island back towards the windows.

When you move the island, she'll notice she has more floor space to take pictures of quilts and blocks.

When she notices how clean the room looks with more floor space, 
she'll decide to she'll need some closet organization.

When she has more room in the closet, 

Cart from Country Door (vintage shopping cart)

She'll realize she has more space and store her rolling iron cart in it.  

She'll like the wire closet drawers from the closet so much, that she adds a unit with pre-cuts, 

When she realizes she likes to see her fabric, 

She will decide to rearrange her fabric and add her fat quarters with her mini bolts. 

She'll like the rainbow order so much, 

She'll organize her thread and buttons. 

But then she'll say she needs rainbow storage for her fabric scraps.

When she makes the storage bins, she'll say she needs to use up the fabric scraps.

You suggest she makes some more quilts.
She spies some empty areas above her cabinets.

When she thinks about minis, she'll want to go in the studio...

But if you give a quilter a studio.....

She'll want a longarm studio to go with it......

(To be continued)

It's Bad When.....

1) Your Facebook page reminds you that you haven't posted on it in a month.

2) When your friends ask you what is wrong because you are so "quiet".

3) Your email box is filled with inquiries and requests that have been neglected.

4) When you see your to do list and wonder if there is a special governmental department you can make an appeal to.   My proposal would be to extend the year 2014 several weeks past December 31st.   I mean, a extra month every year would be nice, right?  We could call it Catchyourbreather. 

Ironically.  I have no sad news to share.  No amazing story that has kept me away.  No fabulous trip to keep me away from the studio.

Nope.  

The studio ITSELF has kept me away. 

  The very organized soul in me just could not see past the massive clutter, chaos, and disorder to work on anything.  My computer was unhooked.  I didn't know where anything was.  Or rather, I did?  But it took about 6 hours to get all of my stuff out, I knew it was going to take longer to get back in.

However, the GOOD news is that is 98% complete.  A few fixer-uppers are needed here and there.

   I also found time to focus on some projects for the studio itself.  Especially my scrap bins.

They are COMPLETE!  

My lovely scrap bins.

In case you've missed my past post, these buckets are from the book, Sunday Morning Quilts, by Amanda (co-author) at Crazy Mom Quilts

I could not leave them in their original size, however,  I needed them to fit inside my cabinet.  So skinnier, longer, and taller were my goal.  

I also skipped her vinyl pocket to put the color of the bins.  I just pulled out my embroidery machine and played around.

The things I love about the project are:

They are custom made for my cabinets. 

I could take off the doors to my cabinet and look at this beautiful sight!

I used up strictly stash for this project.

 

Even the some of the interiors are pieced so I could stick to scraps/stash.

 I have been able to stick to my pledge of no new fabric because I already had so many stash busting projects to complete this year!

However, I must be completely honest. They seemed like they would be a really quick project.  I could not understand why so many quilter friends were not getting them done in a speedy manner. 

Project started in October

Twenty-eight weeks later,  I finally have it all figured out.  Approach them as if you are putting together a nice sized quilt.  Improv pieced blocks, quilt-as-you-go, construction of fabric, and fabrication of inserts are time consuming. I recently timed how long it took me for the last three and they took about an hour and a half each.  HOWEVER, that was including the fact that I already had all the fronts done, batting cut, and inserts prepared and fabrics chosen.  Otherwise, my guess is upwards of 2- 2.5 hrs each.  

Buuuuuuuuut..........

Can we reiterate?  

All my scraps are inside scrappy bins!

As for the rest of the studio makeover....stay tuned.

Save Me From Myself....

Yup.  I am having THAT kind of week.  For some reason, I decided to move things. This is sorta how it went.

Doesn't make sense?  

It really doesn't make sense to me either.  All I DO know is that while the boys took over my studio for school projects on Saturday (4 projects that took SEVERAL hours), I hung out in case they needed me and became over involved with moving my things around.

It started with the first stage: DISTRUST. I really wanted to figure out a better scrapbook storage system. I had trays and the plastic things you see below.  I gave the trays to a scrappin friend and bought more of the other ones to hold all of my paper.

 I then was able to consolidate a bulk my scrapbooking into the tall cabinet.

It freed up a lower cabinet in the island.   I left it empty for two days. It mocked me.

Enter second stage: INADEQUACY.  

I hunted around the evil empire, better known as Pinterest. 

 Ideas abounded.

I decided to just move the the items from the bottom right corner cabinet into it because I didn't feel like painting, redoing window treatments just to look like a "Made for IKEA" catalog spread.   I refocused on organization!

The empty space made room for my printer and Cricut (from an upper cabinet).

I used to have my old printer under here and am not sure why I moved it in the first place?

I'm tired of Mr. Grubby hands turning it off and on, not to mention he loves to mess with the paper! 

Moving it also allowed me to chuck the old falling apart table that was holding the printer and paper to the curb.

It allowed me to add my favorite new addition.  Pre-cut storage!

Yumminess right at my fingertips and the top one empty for the WIP I need to quickly clean up to get out of the way for laundry and homework time.

Oh.  When I moved the cricut? It freed up space for the paper, labels, and my binders so it could be more accessible to my fingertips.

Here is the big joke.  I basically ended up moving a bunch of things around which left two free shelves for what?

  Nothing.  

  Stage 3: FRUSTRATION

I had a plan, but it all it seemed to create was the need to move MORE things around.

  Which caused me to attack my closet.

   ENTER Stage 4 and 5: VICIOUSNESS.  Fabric was gathered that I will NEVER use.  Yearbooks were moved to the boys rooms.  I'm not even clear why I had them in my room?  Empty bins and baskets are piled up in my garage.  Things are nightmarish at this point, to be honest and REALITY quickly set in.  

It all has to be dealt with.

 I vowed I will not work on a project until I get this done and reach Stage 7: HAPPINESS

 In the meantime, I'm stuck at stage six: 
OVERWHELMED!!!

My room is my definitely my WIP this week!!!