The studio is tidy

The studio got tidied up, which is as good a reason as any to share some pictures with you. I love this space very much. It feels very peaceful. I love it that my whole family can be up there with me if they desire, but I also love it that I can be upstairs sewing while the children are happily playing downstairs (I can hear what's going on, and they can hear the familiar hum of the sewing machine so we are all happy). I love my cupboard full of crates (from the local salvage yard - I think they may have contained flower bulbs in a previous life). I love it that the ex-dining table now takes centre stage in the studio, the perfect space for cutting out fabric and spreading out quilts-in-progress. I love the shelf full of art supplies, and the wrap around desk where I sit and sew at one end while Aaron and Hannah play endless board games at the other. I love the green couch which I regularly day dream about lounging on with a good book, but never do. I am conscious of how blessed I am to have this space, and thankful for the time I am able to spend there.

Our pencil pot centrepiece

 

I love it when we can find one solution for two 'problems. I've always had a pot plant on my dining table as a bit of a centre piece, but because we are always busy doing something or other here, the plant pot was always being shifted around. In addition, our colouring pencil situation was not working for us. The pencil tin would be carted from the cupboard to the table and back many times a day (and dropped every so often too) and the small pencils were impossible to get to at the bottom of the tin.

 

So now we have a pencil-pot centrepiece instead of a plant-pot centrepiece. I'd hoped to find a glass cookie jar (reasonable wide but not too deep) but this trifle bowl also does the job rather nicely.

My goals for 2012

I love this time of the year for reviewing and refocussing on my various regular tasks as well as my ongoing list of things to do. Lisa Call's blog post this week prompted me to put into words the various ideas, wishes and goals that were swirling through my mind. I'm not entirely comfortable sharing the complete list here (and it would probably bore you completely) but here's a little overview...

I'm always reviewing my regular daily and weekly routines. I use the calendar program on my computer to schedule all my chores and recurring activities. This includes daily computer time for checking and responding to emails, updating facebook and flickr, and catching up and commenting on blogs I follow. Following Brenda's example, I bought a timer this week to manage this time.

This year, in addition to maintaining this blog, which I love doing, I also hope to spend regular time each week (also scheduled in my calendar) on developing the business side of my artwork (not so much fun, but I will use Alyson B. Stanfield's book and blog to help me along the way). I already have a long list of tasks to tackle here, one at a time.

While last year was spent working away at a body of childhood-themed quilts, this year my focus will be on exhibiting those quilts! The exhibition is titled 'To Be a Child'. Stay tuned for more details.

I'm going to make a point of visiting a gallery/exhibition at least once a month this year. I used to do this before Aaron and Hannah went to school, but found it challenging when Caleb and Daniel were babies. I'm ready to start this again though, and I'm hoping the boys will enjoy this too. This too has been scheduled into my calendar in order to make sure it happens. I am flexible with my calendar and will move things around if I need to, but I try to enter all my planned tasks and events into it as it's the best way to make sure I get around to them.

And of course I hope, the Lord willing, that there will be many more quilts in the making in 2012 because that is what I love to do the most!

Art quilt storage cupboard

 

It's about time I share my quilt storage cupboard with you. Sometime ago I asked for suggestions from the SAQA membership on how to store my quilts. (Ideally, quilts are best stored flat or rolled, rather than folded, as the fibres of the fabric tend to deteriorate more quickly along folds). I got some very helpful responses, including this helpful article by Ellen Lindner and here's the quilt storage cupboard we came up with as a result. 

On one side of my studio, under the sloping ceilings I store all my quiltmaking and other sewing/craft supplies. We incorporated the quilt storage cupboard into the end of this storage unit. You can see it below on the left. Opening the (handle-less) doors, you see this (the right picture):

 

Well, actually, in front of those quilts I keep my roll of quilt batting. This is very handy as I can roll of as much as I need without removing the whole roll from the cupboard, just like in quilt shops!

 

The quilts are rolled onto cardboard rolls (two or three quilts per cylinder). Thick dowels are inserted into the cardboard cylinders and these rest in the notched MDF attached to the two sides if the cupboard. The large number of notches in the MDF gives me a lot of flexibility as to where I place the  quilt rolls and allows me to store many quilts here if necessary!

 

(For those who are wondering, the inside of this cupboard is a bit over 90cm deep, and 158cm wide),

 

(I attached the notched MDF, and in my naivete, never considered where the door hinges would go, so Phil had to hack a piece of MDF out).

Boredom Management System

 

School holidays officially started at 12 noon today for us. At about 1:42pm I heard the first 'Mum, I don't know what to do'... So I put my other activities aside and set up our Boredom Management System. It involves a selection of craft/drawing/sewing/lego books made easily accessible on the computer table...

 

...and three little 'booklets' attached to the nearby pillar...

 

...one with jobs to be completed...

  

...one with activities to do together with me (like ride around the lake, visiting a playground, baking, or a sewing project)...

 

...and an 'entertain yourself' booklet which basically lists all the things I always suggest when they are bored (although, often "I'm bored" actually means "I don't feel like doing anything")...

 

My aim is to tackle a holiday job and a 'together' activity most days (jobs before morning coffee, and fun stuff after morning coffee and before lunch). Then I can have 'time out' in my studio after lunch while Daniel sleeps and the other kids entertain themselves. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see how it works in practice.

Towel rails in the studio

Well, I do apologise for that little blog break! Last week was devoted to being sick, and then this week... well, I don't really know what my excuse is this week... student free days? a day shopping (sans kids thanks to my mother-in-law)? various end of year activities?... probably just laziness...
I have been sewing, I just haven't been so good about taking pictures along the way. One little project this week was these new towel rails in my studio. These are GRUNDTAL towel rails from IKEA. We have them in our bathrooms, and now they are in the studio too - the perfect place to hang quilt-in-progress.
I don't like to put quilts into my quilt-storage cupboard until they are completely finished. These ones hanging up are waiting to have labels stitched on and photos taken.

I haven't forgotten that way back I promised to share more photos of the studio. There's a few little things to finish still, and then lot's of mess to tidy up! I'll also put together a post about my new quilt-storage cupboard, and once I have my new quilt-photography set up all sorted, I'll share that too. I can't promise when I'll get to it though, what with summer holidays coming up real fast!

Tackling the list

I have a rather extensive quiltmaking to-do list at the moment. It includes pieced quilt tops which need to be layered and quilted, piles of quilt pieces which need to be pieced into quilt tops, completed quilt designs which need to be cut out of fabric, unfinished quilt designs which need to be refined and finalised, and quilt ideas which need to be developed and drawn up. I try to assign a task (or couple of tasks) to a week, keeping my goals realistic so that we still get dinner at night.This weeks task is to cut out one of the new quilt designs (working title: 'Boundaries'). With a full day at home today, I made a good start on this task.
I don't think I will ever get sick of seeing piles of hand-dyed fabric.

On being organised and trying not to forget too much...

I got this filofax for my birthday last year and I don't know how I would ever manage without it. It contains most of my lists and important things to remember. Just recently, in a bid to clear out valuable mental space for more interesting things, I made myself some 'housework' lists (four different weekly lists, to fill a month, so that I never have to think about what needs doing for the week). Phil laughs at me, but I am rather pleased with these!
In my bid to remember everything, I can't seem to get enough of lists, and my visual diary is also filled with various lists of ideas, projects on the go, potential quilt series, and things to try. I rediscovered the list below this evening - it's inspiring all over again to revisit old lists!

My new sewing box

I have a new large quilt all cut out and ready to be pieced. I am looking forward to getting stuck into the piecing but always find that I can't seem to get started until I have done a spring-clean and a bit of home organisation. Not sure why that is...So today we visited one of my favourite shopping precincts - the second-hand and antique shops in Guildford and Midland and I now have a new sewing box. This is something I have never had any particular wish for before. It was more born out of a need for a new storage system for my collection of Schleich animals. Up till now they have been stored in a basket on top of our piano, which looked quite nice. But the paint was starting to come off where the animals rubbed against each other when the kids rummaged through the basket.

Now they are housed rather comfortably in the new sewing box and there is still room for more. I have my eye on more marine animals at the moment!At the same shop we found this box, perfect for housing my yet-to-be-printed recipe cards. Perhaps one of the nicest finds of all was unfortunately too big to fit into our car along with two small children. It was two old lidded school desks joined together with an attached school bench. Since it was 'leave the children' or 'leave the desk' it now awaits another happy customer. Hope it goes to a good home.
Anyway, it took a bit of mucking around but we think we have found a good spot for the animals on top of the ammo box that holds our Quadrilla set and our basket of handmade toys.