Tuesday, December 29, 2015

The Progress of Organization

In March of this year, I began the process of really going through all my craft supplies and attempt to put some order to them. I have made progress but I realized that I would be at this non-stop because not only do I go through supplies I keep buying more supplies, the key I have found is when I get more supplies is that I put those supply's away right away.

I cleaned up my fabric shelves so it works better. But I have also finished some projects up as well. I finished quilting and binding my Globetrotting Quilt design from Pat Sloan. And I pieced together another top by Pat Sloan her vacation time quilt. I used a lot of batiks in this quilt and really like how it came out. I still need to quilt and bind it but it is going along.

Below is my fabric shelves that I organized by wrapping my fabric around comic book boards. It really helps a lot.

 I got a new Accuquilt Go for Christmas and it is on its own little stand. I re-purposed an butcher block cabinet on wheels for my Accuquilt Go.
 My husband resized my cutting table again for me so that it fits better in the space available to me it about 36 inches by 72 inches. It works much better as I am short so it was difficult to reach across the table to the window.
 And he built me a nice shelf for my serger and a rack for some of my rulers. It is coming together for me in my sewing room.
Becoming organized is not an easy thing for me as I have so many projects that interfere with the process. The more I attempt to organize the more more projects I begin to think about as I run across stuff. However, I am determined to one day have it well organized.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Living Life on Life's Terms

Between Life which for me is taking care of my family, going to school and building a sewing room that is just perfect for me. Every day I wake up and I get to live the life I always dreamed about as a child. It was a long time in coming for me you see I had to get over my childhood first. Today is different for me, today I have a loving husband, loving kids, I have a home that is coming together that actually fits my husband and I.

I have a small break in between semesters and I plan on making the most of it. I have been working on several projects some are further along then others, however, all have made progress. My current obsession is what I call my Mardi Gras Girl, she was a picture in a coloring book and I wanted something larger than that so I created her out of fabric.
 Then at first I attempted to cut the design out of freezer paper and realized that I was doing a lot of extra work when what I really needed to do was trace the design on the heat n bond and adhere that to the fabric and then cut out the design.
 This is the fabric that I chose to go behind the main design. It is really nice fabric but it does have a few problems the silver in it is like tinsel for a Christmas Tree so it is very delicate and can be difficult to work with but I did manage to keep going at it.
 I cut the design out of a heavier denim like fabric with an exacto knife that took about a week to do in between my classes.

 I then added a white satin for the face and a green sateen for the eye color and red cotton fabric for the lips. I then proceeded to zig zag around all of the cuts so that they would remain fairly intact. That took me approximately 9 days to do. It was really difficult to get the zig zag around all those crazy curves. At first I used a blue thread and I really didn't like that so I had to take that out and then proceeded with the black so that it would blend in with the main background fabric.
 This is a semi close up of the eye. Not bad for never having done this before.
 A look at the face.
 This is it under my needle on my sewing machine.
 Here is where I have attached some straight ribbon but then I got the idea that I really wanted some spiral ribbon on here. So that began the search on how to get the ribbon to spiral and someone gave me the perfect method to do it.
 And here are some of my spiral ribbons.
 here I attached the spiral ribbons and I like it but I am thinking that I want to do a combination of spiral and straight ribbons so she is still hanging on my design wall until I figure out exactly what I want to do next with her.
 And here are two wall hangings that I completed for our dining room and the fantastic quilt hangers my husband built for me to display them with. The quilt hangers are made from Knotty Alder and they are just perfect as quilt hangers and they give me some additional shelf space for my smaller knick knacks.

So I have a few weeks before my next semester starts and the second to last at the community college. Then I will know by March if I have been accepted at the university of my choice to continue on to get my bachelors. We shall see. What I do know is that I will be spending most of my time in my sewing room until the next semester begins.