Studio Kit

Well, good morning everyone - and welcome to my sewing room! I'm so glad you decided to come for the tour! :)

As you walk in to my room you'll see the predominant feature is the thread wall - hanging on the back on a pegboard. On the same pegboard, you'll find my rulers, some templates and a little bag I hang around my neck when I'm working that has scissors, tweezers, etc. in it.

Behind my chair, you'll also see that Charlie's aquarium got upgraded - in fact, Charlie's not even in there anymore - I got him some friends, he didn't like them, so Charlie got moved upstairs and the friends (plus more of their friends) now live with me.

As you turn to the left, you'll see:

Some of my fabric stash - yardage of 3 or more yards folded 12 inches across in the white boxes, and yardage of 1-3 yards folded in small lengths in the boxes. You can also see my drafting table, and under it a basket containing some WIPs and batting. (The cushion in the window is for the day supervisor.)

Inside my drafting table are my acrylic paints, watercolour paints in tubes, watercolour crayons, coloured and black charcoals, fabric dye crayons, pastels, micron pens and "gilt" pens in gold and silver.

If you look along that same wall you'll see my stretcher frames in various sizes which I use when I'm painting on fabric as well as a little bookshelf , which is just inside the door.

All of those shelves contain baskets with craft paints, the rest of my thread, and assorted bits and bobs (buttons in containers, beads, all kinds of things). On the top shelf is a portable container that has all of my various rotary cutters, scissors, marking pencils, regular pencils and pens, measuring tapes and small rulers that can't hang on my peg board (without making it look insane, that is.) The smaller containers to the right have in them a small colour wheel, and saftey pins, and the round black container with the white bow on top has my pins in it.

If you swing around you'll see almost all my dressers from Ikea. (Wait to see why narrow profile dressers are great idea in a sewing room!)There are 8 of them in total - four are stacked two by two on either side of the bookcase. In the bookcase are all books related to quilting, surface design and sewing, along with magazines of the same theme. There is drawer in the bottom of the bookcase which has another one of those black baskets with ribbons in it, and the rest of the drawer is packed with patterns.

On top of the dressers to the left are three of my seven (!) sewing machines and the aquarium, and on top of the others are more quilt magazines, a plastic container with all of my various kinds of brushes/ tools for using soy wax, a clock, a plant and of course, my selection of Barbie-dolls. ('Cuz every once in a while, to entertain myself, I make Barbie clothes - which eventually get given to my great-niece.)

And what's in my drawers you ask? The rest of my stash of course! Every drawer contains its own colour:

Or kind of fabric (in this case, tulle and mesh); and in one drawer I have oddments like blocks that never got incorporated into anything, or sketch quilts that haven't actually been quilted yet.

Under the table is this little basketry/shelving contraption which contains all of my dyeing things:

Like the above - each shelf has it's own thing.

And from this angle, you can see my design wall and my Judy. If you look to the left of the photo, you can also see peeking out where my rolls of steam-a-seam, stitch witchery, stabilizer, pellon and fusible interfacing live, and my iron is tucked in there too.

and that's my perfect-for-me sewing room! It's not quite finished yet - I need to add some more lighting above the thread wall, the drafting table and the design wall - it's purchased but not yet installed; and I need to make a new ironing pad as I killed my last one when I was doing all of that transfer paint/disperse dye work in November. (I also killed my tables - the heat actually cracked and split the melanmine surface, so I had to buy new ones!)

But I figured it was close enough to bright to show it to you. Maybe it'll give you some ideas for your sewing room too!

Hope you'll come by and visit some time! Maybe this weekend. :)

Several months ago (when I tried parfait dyeing) I mentioned that I got the idea from this great process blog called And Then We Set It On Fire where every month, someone shares a surface design technique, and then everyone who is part of the blog (plus readers who want to play along) try the technique and then post or share their results.

Some of you may have noticed that I added a link to and Then We Set It On Fire last week. That's cuz I was asked to be a regular contributor to it! My first post to the blog about Fugitive Media went up today.

And the second piece of new is....

In addition to being a long weekend, labour day weekend most often falls on my birthday. This year, I spent a lot of time in my sewing room, but for the most part, not sewing:

I was re-organizing my sewing room and stash, building furniture from Ikea for my sewing room (those dressers will be red soon, as will the dining table [six feet long!] I bought at a yard sale about a month ago), but I did find time for some sewing - namely those sewing machine covers at the back of my sewing room.

Here's my Wednesday post!

I'm currently laid up in bed, cuz the throat infection I had last week became a sinus infection over the weekend which became a chest infection this week (oh joy!) So meds and bed rest are all that is in store for me, but hey, speaking of joy, look, just LOOK at these lovelies that came to me from over the sea today!

These stunningly beautiful hand-dyed lengths of scrim came to me, for no reason other than that I mentioned I had gotten Nif, from the generous (and clearly, fabulous) Deborah O'Hare. She has a lovely blog called The Blue Hare

I first became aware of Deborah just about two years ago. I was clicking through blog links and came across this:

and was totally gobsmacked. (I especially loved her incorporation of actual stones and pebbles!) I started following her blog right away, and was later inspired to make my own grey quilt

Which though not at all like hers, had some similar quilting motifs. (clicky to see)

But back to Deborah:

In addition to making lovely scrims such as these.

she also has beautiful hand dyed and hand painted fabrics for sale as well as art quilts and templates for sale at her shop called Quilt Routes (on Folksy). (click there too!) For example:

I mean, how beautiful is that !?

She also has a website called Quilt Routes, where, if you should be lucky enough to live near her, you can find information about booking Deborah for workhops, talks, or find a link to her Flickr, where you can see even more of her amazing work.

And as for what she so kindly sent me,

Oh, I have plans for this!!

Until then, go visit Deborah and enjoy what she has to offer.

Thank you Deborah! You have definitely brightened my day!

Today when I came home from work, I collected the mail, and amongst the usual bills and importunate letters seeking my time, vote and/or charitable donation(s), there was a squishy package.

Now, ordinarily, squishy packages are a cause of much joy in our house, but I wasn't expecting anything, so glancing quickly at it, I saw that it was addressed to me and said "important documents enclosed".

I didn't think anything of it and brought it into the house with the rest, putting the mail in its accustomed place, (a large, flat, ceramic bowl on the kitchen table). While I was taking off my outerwear, BSP sorted through it and inquired "Oh, did you get a present?"

"No." said I. "I don't know what that is."
"It's a present" replied BSP.
"Really??!!??" I asked excitedly.
I gladly grabbed it and sure enough, it was indeed a present, from Elaine of Ultra Violet Yarns at La Belle Helen.

Inside I found the cutest little hat! (Which I am modelling above.)

After trying it on several ways I've decided to wear it with the ruching on left side of my head above my ear. That's probably exactly the wrong way to wear it, but I think it looks quite saucy. *s*

BSP prounounced it "Very french." It's chic and adorable at the same time.

Thank you so much Elaine! I have two coats and a jacket that this petite chapeau will provide a lovely contrast to.

I love it!

Lovely readers, please take some time to visit Elaine's shop and her blog. You won't be sorry you did!

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