BougieNights 4: half done

Somewhere in there, I found the time.

Half the blocks are now quilted, using the simple 2 inch cross-hatch I planned. It’s one of my favourite textures for a quilt that has a lot going on visually, which is certainly true of Bougainville Nights. It also has the great virtue of being quick, both to mark and to quilt! This isn’t going to be a large quilt, 48×60 inches, but it’ll look gorgeous draped over my sofa in front of the book cases, and it’s quite large enough to snuggle under for a quick snooze…

You can tell my new room is larger, because I now have space to move far enough back to take a straight-on photo of the design wall. It avoids all sort of contortions and leaning sideways over thin air to try and get as straight as possible. On the left, you’ll see the big block which is going to become a cushion cover, as well as the last Hatbox block, waiting for me to join the others in their box somewhere in a pile of three big black tubs.

I now have a lot more stuff unpacked, and have assembled another two storage units to house it. I have baskets lined up on the top of one of the units with some of the WIPs/forthcoming projects in them, just to remind me not to start anything new… Well, OK, to be strictly picky, they are new projects, but ones I’ve already planned, rather than new new projects. Slowly, slowly, patches of clear floor are emerging.

I’m still gathering my strength/waiting for the Husband to be available/ hoping for a dry spell in the weather in order to dismantle and bring over the beautiful but quite astonishingly heavy oak Cupboard of All Colours. I have its spot ready, and its contents already packed and waiting to be reinstalled, it’s just the thing itself. It’s not that I don’t know how to do it; the cupboard has been disassembled and re-assembled four times already, it’s just that it’s at least a two, and probably three person job. But once it’s here, o joy. It’s beautiful, it’s capacious and it’s lined in cedar. I miss it…

I also miss my tool board, cutting table, desk, iMac, books and bookshelves, but that’s a whole other story.

In My Work Room 1

I’m joining Anne in the first of her In My Studio series.

Mine is mainly a sewing space, but it also holds equipment for drawing, painting, knitting, crochet, gilding, pyrography, pattern cutting, beading, felt-making and photography. As well as that, it contains my old Mac computer, now rather slow and clunky, which has many years’ worth of images and records of my work in iPhoto and a huge iTunes music library. I’m extremely lucky that I don’t have to share this space with any other functions or people.

There’s a Visiting Chair, for when the Husband comes up to spend time with me while I’m sewing; he can play games on his tablet while I stitch and we’re not isolated from each other in separate rooms.

Under the window is the sewing table, clear space to the left for the project I’m working on, and on the right a clutter of tools, coasters for the inevitable cup of coffee, scraps of paper and fabric with notes and stitch samples on them, and occasionally, a timer to remind me to stop and do something else!

To the right of the sewing table is the cutting table, which I’ve raised on special feet to make it a more comfortable height to work at while standing. Here’s where the early part of my patchwork pieces start life, where I trim out paper projects, audition colours and fabrics, and where my quilt notebooks are assembled. Above it is my tool board, with everything I need close at hand.

On the opposite wall is a floor to ceiling bookcase, taking up the whole width of the room apart from the space occupied by the Cupboard of All Colours. The bookcase contains not only a large library of fiction but also all my craft and quilting books, back copies of magazines I’ve kept for a specific reason, and storage of clothing waiting to be recycled into something else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, the aforementioned Cupboard, a beautiful hand made American oak item which I designed and which was made by my brother in law, a talented cabinetmaker. Inside it’s all cedar shelves, on a system which enables them to be positioned at any level. It’s one of my most treasured possessions. As it’s incredibly heavy, it’s fortunate that it comes apart with just a few screws!

On the innermost wall of the room is my design wall, a flannelette sheet hung on a rod on hooks. It will just accommodate a queen size quilt, which is the largest I’m ever going to make. This wall allows me to lay out the pieces for an entire quilt in one go, so that I can be satisfied with the arrangement and colour balance before I start to sew it together. In the short term, the fabric pieces will stick to the flannelette; longer term, I pin them on when I’m happy with the arrangement; the air conditioning and ceiling fan tend to blow them off otherwise!

So that’s my creative space.  At present, it’s fully occupied with my latest project, the Cloths of Heaven quilt, which my followers know as a long term piece I’m hoping to have finished by the start of May next year. Around the margins of that I have three blocks a month for the F2F block swap, and also a ‘scrappy’ post on 15th of each month.

A problem shelved…

For four months, I’ve been staring in frustration at a pile of boxes in my sewing room.

That’s about to change. Yesterday, I’d had enough of scrabbling in boxes, and got out the spirit level, cordless drill and screwdriver, pencil and stepladder. When the Husband got home, he found me hard at it and dived in to help. I finished up this morning. Now, at last, I have shelves for the novels, reference books, quilting books, sketchbooks, quilting magazines, project boxes, boxes of tools, rulers, scissors, folders, files, baskets… oh, I could go on. The great thing is that the space available on that wall is exactly the right size for the length of the shelves, tracks and brackets we brought with us from the old house, so I don’t have to cut anything off, and it looks nice.

The shelves of books have the added value of insulating that wall, which faces due west and gets warm to the touch in the heat of the afternoon. It will keep my workspace cooler, tidier and more organised. I will rediscover whole sections of floor, and be able to lay my hands on things without a frustrating hunt amongst still sealed and half emptied boxes.

And best of all, I’ve rediscovered tools, books and equipment I’d forgotten I own. It’s like my birthday all over again!

 

Back in the groove

It’s definitely a groove, and not a rut; my work is running smoothly and harmoniously.

The electrician came today, and we are now blessed with working air conditioning, more power sockets than we know what to do with, and the power supply to install a garage door lifter. I’m grateful I won’t be jumping out of the car to lift that heavy thing much longer. What I’ve also been able to do is get my workspace up and, well, working! It’s pressing time up there right now, 35 WOF strips to press the creases out of so I can start stitching them together.

The bare wall at the left of this image will contain floor to ceiling book cases, and the wall above the cutting table on the right will have pictures, a pinboard, a mirror and hooks for rulers and tools. I desperately need to do something about those dreadful curtains, too, a legacy of the previous owners…

Outside, things are progressing too. My beans have germinated and are sprouting, less than a week after I put them in the ground. There are tiny lemons on the tiny lemon tree, flowers on the tomatoes and capsicums, and the sweet potato vine is twice the length it was a week ago. Summer’s on its way; it’s hot again, and I’m happy we’ll be able to cool the house down efficiently.

We got bookshelves up, a dresser constructed, our desks organised and the flyscreens installed in the bedroom windows. I’ve unpacked 7 or 8 boxes of books, and the living room is finally starting to look dressed.Of course, we haven’t even started with hanging pictures or unrolling rugs, but that will all come. I have a mountain of cardboard boxes to deconstruct, many of which will be coming in useful out in the garden as mulch under raised beds, but most of them will just have to be slowly recycled on yellow bin day (green bins for general waste, yellow bins for recyclables). Meanwhile, they can go into the shed, out of sight, and out of the way.

Back to work.

 

The waters are rising

No, we aren’t having a flood here, despite the fairly torrential thunderstorm we had this morning.

The bottom of the sea!
Now I can see how large the quilt is going to be.

The waters I mean are those in the Tree of Life quilt. The bottom row of 9 blocks is finished, and wonder of wonders, 99% of the seams match up. This is not  usually the case when I’m working fast, and I shrug it off, since perfection is reserved for the Almighty and I’ll content myself with getting it done.  However, I find that the more quilts I make, the more particular I’m getting, and even more so now that they’re out there under the public gaze, so to speak.

Two more rows of 9 blocks to do, and I’ll be halfway through the background.  Once the Sea section is done, I’ll set out the Sky half above it on the design wall, and away we go again.  And then after that, the tricky stuff starts.  I’m grateful that at least this quilt isn’t a queen or even double size. It’s going to make working on it in my small space a lot easier.  I’ll show you what I mean:

Left side of the sewing room, with the ‘design wall’ hanging from a pole across the top of my bookshelves

Right side of the sewing room, my desk and computer. What you don’t see is the huge cupboard to the right of my desk, which houses my stash…

My work room is about 2.7m wide (around 8’6″) and 4m long (about 13′). Into this space I have crammed two tables, my computer and printer, a set of floor to ceiling shelves about 3m or 10′ long, a huge oak cedar-lined cupboard for my fabrics, a typist’s chair, an easy chair for the Husband, an ironing board, my sewing machine, tool box and a couple of lamps. Oh, and a few other bits and pieces of course, but that’s the main contents.  The ironing board gets used a LOT as a subsidiary table/ cutting surface/ dumping ground/ quilt rolling area.  But I’m truly grateful to have this room to call my own. It’s air conditioned, comfortable, I know where everything is and can reach it, and the Husband visits frequently when I’m working or blogging, and listens to my thoughts, comments on my writing and keeps me company.

Cherry pies before

Cherry pies after

Hurry up with the photo,
someone wants his pie!

One final braglet.  I made a couple of cherry pies this morning, and they were.so.good!  Canned dark cherries in a medium syrup, which I thickened with arrowroot, encased in a sweet, buttery shortcrust pastry, baked till golden and served drowned in a small lake of cream. Life is too short for low fat dessert.