Studio Kit

Remember back in November when I was teaching transfer paints at And Then We Set It On Fire? This was one of my experiments.

I always liked it and thought it would make for a great, moody, sort of atmospheric background. But I couldn't leave it alone, so....

I cut out an interesting shape and laid it on fusible batting....

And then I selected several more pieces of transfer painted fabric that I had made during that period of time and cut them to the shapes I wanted to make the background I saw. And then I fused 'em.

What next? Find out on Wednesday!

I was working on something I'm going to show you sometime this month, and had some leftover paint, so I decided to paint some fabric with it.

I really like this one! (approximately 30 x 30, silk twill.) And then I did this one:

First 2012 Finish!

This little lovely (48 x 40") all cotton, is the end result of my experiments with the prior "unhappy living together birthday blocks" ...

Which were then cut into slices and incorporated with other strips of coordinating fabric from my stash. I tested a lot of different fabrics, found the right ones and then laid them out (on my new design wall. Love it!!!!)

Normally, I would have stopped there and quilted it, but because I was working with Rayna Gillman's technique (through And Then We Set It On Fire), I added the slashed inserts. Totally not my thing, but I really like it just the same. Hope you do too.

But now I'm on to some of my own work. Looking forward to showing you the process!

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend - I'm feeling sparky and happy and had a productive weekend. :)

When I left you last with this project, I had sliced up those odd birthday blocks I had received into two inch widths, and then I chose some fabrics from my stash to add to the project.

I fussed with the layout until I was satisfied with it, and then sewed it together with the additions from my stash.

And I ended up with this, but I didn't stop there!

Check in later this week for the big finish! :)

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. :)

As most of you probably know, I am one of the contributors to a technique-teaching group surface design blog called "And Then We Set It On Fire"

This month, we have a guest artist/teacher, Rayna Gillman, and the work we're doing as a group is based on techniques in her book called "Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts".

I started with some blocks I received from a birthday block exchange I was involved in a couple of years ago. I had requested blue or purple stars and received mostly blue AND purple stars. In retrospect, I should have requested black and white stars and I would have had blocks I could actually make a quilt out of - live and learn, as they say!

However, they were perfect for the purposes of this month's technique - as there was very little I could do with them on their own. Just sliced up and rearranged is already a great improvement!

Stay tuned...

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