Sewing Studio Update

Work is progressing on my sewing studio... not much sewing happening though....

From my Getting It Done List for January:

7.  Rennovations - This room is really long... its almost 30' by 10'6" at one end, and 8'9" at the other end.  It has 4 doors (one to a cold storage room, one to the bath room, and two to hallways) and is a weird shape!  But it will be great to have all my sewing stuff all in the same room (not 3 rooms plus the hallway!)

• Empty both Rooms  DONE

• Remove carpets, wall, one door  DONE

• Rewire, possibly adding a sub-panel for the room and better lighting.  Wiring Done, sub-panel ready for wiring

• Frame in closet, buy a closet door. Closet framed, need to buy door.  I have just enough of the flooring from the hallway to match the flooring.  It will mean some piecing, but its only 6 square feet!

• (I think there is some discussion about insulation and the ceiling.... but.... that takes time....)  No Insulation, just another layer of drywall

• Patch Drywall, Repaint  Currently Patching walls, and re-gyprocking the ceiling.

• Re-floor (maybe some in-floor heating?)  No infloor heating, but a new baseboard heater.  I will install new laminate wood flooring with cork underlay.

• Move Stuff!  This won't happen in January!!!!

My 9yo daughter was a great help today... when
she got bored she started drawing on the wall....

New Ceiling -- 5 sheets of new drywall.
Looking towards the longarm area

The New Wall -- its a closet into the hall
We took out the "extra" doorway (didn't need 3 doors!)
And it'll give me a storage closet for winter clothes.

Looking towards the area that will home my sewing machines

2013 Q1 Finish A Long

1. Finish Quilt from Sew Happy Quilt's Quilt A Long 
2. Finish a skirt for my older daughter.
3. Finish a top for my older daughter
4. Finish my Dresden Quilt Along  4 Block Quilt
5. Finish the Dresden Quilt Along Octagonal Table Topper
6. Finish my Sewing Studio

This week progress

We have started remodelling our basement so I can have all my supplies in one room. It started with just one part of the room, but after thinking about it, I thought, why not remove the wall and have one large sewing area, instead of one room for the longarm and another for the sewing machines (down the hall). As it turns out that was a good decision, as with 3 doors in the room and it being fairly narrow (8'9") I wouldn't have had much storage around a 10' frame for the longarm machine.

Last week the kids and I started by removing carpet and one side of the wall, and this week we have all worked together and now the room is apart and we are running electrical lines and installing new lights.

Today I was going to do some running around looking for some items needed for my new sewing studio, but my husband suggested I stay home and sew...  Great Idea!  But the first task was finding the sewing surface. This room was a mess due to not cleaning up and from adding all the buckets of fabric from their old storage location....  So the first couple of hours I organized and found some of the projects I wished to work on....

And for tonights Quilt Guild meeting, I completed the following Block of the Month. Unfortunately I didn't win the 16 completed blocks... they all looked great!

At Quilt Guild tonight, we had a Jelly Roll race Challenge!  My partner and I finished our top....  These quilts will be donated to the hospice for the beds.

Our completed top!

Some of the other tops

Our Top

Fabric for Starburst Quilt A Long

I also chose some fabrics for the Starburst Quilt A Long over at Happy Quilting. I'm just trying to decide on a cream or white background fabric....

Getting it Done - January!

As 2013 begins, I'm going to try and stay organized and on top of my projects....  And I will be joining many other bloggers out there both completing projects and starting new ones up!

Lynne at Never too Hot to Stitch has a great challenge going, encouraging finishing one project before starting new ones...  This sounds like a great idea!

Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts and Melissa of Sew BitterSweet Designs are hosting 2013 ~ A lovely year of finishes. For this challenge, my January challenge is to finish my daughter's skirt. Sorry its currently lost in the sewing room... Here is a photo of the fabrics - it the blue plaid, and the blue woven solid underneath....

Fabric from Our Social Fabric Sale

Judy over at Patchwork Times is hosting a Getting it Done Challenge in 2013...




As well as joining Leanne at She Can Quilt! for the 2013 Finish A Long 





So what is on my list?   Its going to be a simple list, sewing items anyways, as my main goal is home renovations and moving my longarm machine to my new studio.

1. Start the Starburst Quilt A Long by choosing fabrics.  
2. Load the Quilt from Sew Happy Quilt's Quilt A Long onto the lonagrm.  (UFO)
3. Finish a skirt for my older daughter. (UFO)
4. Embroider a blanket for my son's band fundraiser.  (DUE Jan 15)
5. Block for Quilt Guild BOM (January 11)
6. Jelly Roll Race Quilt at Guild Meeting (January 11)
7. Rennovations
   
   • Empty both Rooms
   • Remove carpets, wall, one door
   • Rewire, possibly adding a sub-panel for the room and better lighting.
   • Frame in closet, buy a closet door.
   • (I think there is some discussion about insulation and the ceiling.... but.... that takes time....)
   • Patch Drywall, Repaint
   • Re-floor (maybe some in-floor heating?)
   • Move Stuff!

I am also considering Quilt Sampler QAL to practice my free motion quilting....  but really don't need  another project right now.... so I really think I'll skip this unless it has a longer time schedule...  I also was thinking of doing the Dare to Dresden Blog Hop over at Sew We Quilt!

Finishing some projects

I am out of town with my kids at Piping Hot Summer Drummer.  My girls have been dancing and my son has been piping.

I brought along a few projects that needed finishing up....
This is the the top I finished two weeks ago that i didn't get a photo of...

3rd Quarter Goals

Realistically I won't get much of these done... I'm out of town most of the next 2 months....

Projects I hope to complete this Quarter

• Green & Brown Challenge Quilt
  Piece, Quilt, Bind
• Air plane Donation Quilts (x1)
  needs binding
• New York Beauty Top
  finish blocks, set blocks, back, quilt   & binding
• Sew Happy Geek QAL Quilt
  prep quilt  & binding
• UFO #5 Quilts (x1)
  apply binding
• My step-fathers Birthday Quilt
  need to make black bias tape, apply, quilt  & binding
• My Stars on the Mountain Quilt
  finish top, backing, quilting  & binding
• Sewing machine Cover
  finish bind, add ties
• Garment Sewing UFOs - Top for me,  skirt for my oldest daughter
  Various stages
• Dresden Quilt
  Finish quilting 2 of 4 blocks, sew together & bind
• Dresden Table Topper
  add borders, backing, quilting & binding

Some BOM that I will continue on

• Hello Sun Quilt A Long by April Mae Designs
• Craftsy BOM 
• Just Takes 2 QAL
• Wonky Logcabins BOM

2nd Quarter Finish Along ....

So how did I do? Not was well as I'd hoped, but got 4 UFOs done!

• Air plane Donation Quilts  - 1 Quilt done and donated to guild
• UFO #5 Quilts - 1 Quilt done and given as gift
• Garment Sewing UFOs - top for my youngest, tunic for my youngest -- Sorry no photos of these until Saturday as the garments are at home, and I'm on the island....

Project Updates

OK I've had this up for a few weeks to post... I think I'll just post it as is....

Project	Name	Stall Point	Status
1	Stars on the Mountain Quilt	Piecing	Still need to finish Mountain Blocks
3	Animals - UFO #5	Longarm Binding	1 Top Quilted, binding applied, needs stitching 1 Top on Longarm, need binding
4	Sew Happy Geek QAL	Backing Longarm	Quilt Top is Completed with Borders ON Backing and Binding is Ready
5	Wonky Log Cabin Blocks (Colour Challenge BOM)	Piecing	January and February Completed
10	Just Takes 2	Piecing	Done some blocks, but not enjoying... might just turn into either a lap quilt, or pillow...  Or let it sit for a while...
13	April Mae Designs - Sun BOM	Embroidery	January and February Completed March's has been Started
16	Craftsy BOM	Piecing	January and February Completed
28	BMQG - Preemie Donation Quilt	Longarm	One Quilt Donated, Another Quilted and waiting for binding to be sewn on
31	Quilt for my Husband	Piecing	Most of the Fabric is Cut Out
32	Sewing Machine Cover	Binding	Quilted
33	Quilt for my Step-Father	Longarm	Whole Cloth Quilt Ready to go onto longarm
34	New York Beauties Quilt	Piecing	7 blocks finished

Friday Night Sew In (Part 2)

These mice were made at Sparks (Girl Guides) for our Valentines Party! The Pathfinders hosted a party for both the Sparks units in our district, so we made mice Valentines for all the units.

Solstice Stars Quilt Along - All blocks Completed!

I chose these fabrics from my stash to make a baby gift for my sons teacher... Because the Solstice Stars Series only had 5 blocks, and I needed 8... I added a few others.

HST Block (from January)	Sew Happy Geek Block #9
Solstice Stars #5	Blazing Star
All 8 Completed Blocks

And the Completed Quilt Top!

And if you haven`t voted yet, please stop by the Quilting is Murder finalists and vote for my leprechaun quilt...Please head on over to Quilting Gallery to vote for the winner...

Quilts - one for each kid....

A year ago, I finished all the quilt tops for each of my kids.  Here is a post from Nov 2010 of their status...  Unfortuantely I was unable to complete their quilts by their birthdays...  Or truthfully in a reasonable time afterwards. This first quilt was a reasonably large 69 x 91".


Quilt for my youngest was finished Dec 1, 2010... Quilt for my older daughter was finished in February  I tucked it away thinking I would be finished her brother's quilt soon, but it wasn't put on her bed for the first time until yesterday as her brother's quilt is now done! This one was huge at 81x101"

Mariner's Quilt!

Finished and on the bed

My son's quilt...this took me forever to quilt... I started quilting it on my mom's Janome 6500.  Which is a great machine, but really doesn't have the throat space to do what I wanted on the quilt.  The quilt is heavy and every time I'd start quilting it, my back would cease up, or my arms would ache.  So it sat as a todo project heavy on my mind and heart. I was having a problem with its size at 79"x103".

Then I purchased a longarm machine.  And I loaded the quilt top on late December saying it was 50% completed... but it really wasn't.  I basically had some stitch in the ditch stitching done and was probably 10% done compared to what I eventually did.... I spent a lot of time quilting this, practising new techniques... some with rulers, some freehand. There were only a couple of locations at the back that were a little off on the tension.



Blocks in this quilt:
- 24 Flying Geese
- 8 blocks Made from HST&QST
- 16 Stars
- 4 Moose Quilts Block 5 moosequilts.blogspot.com/
- 4 Anchor Blocks - Self drafted
- 4 Sailboat Blocks - can't remember the pattern I used for inspiration
- 2 Lighthouse Blocks (inspired by By the Sea, but I didn't paper piece)
- 1 Mariner's Compass (Paper Pieced), my husband kindly drafted my pattern