new and improved

22 days ago, I started my craft room remodel. Today I'm excited to proclaim that it is D-O-N-E, done! I don't know that I've been this excited about a finish. Ever. It was a TON of work, just like I had expected. But the final outcome of the room exceeds my expectations about 100 times over.

Overall, my goals were to keep things simple, clean and light. Of course I wanted to do all of this without spending much money. I bought paint and hardware and hinges, which set me back about $40. Sweet!!! I only used furniture and storage items I already had. My hubby wanted to take me to IKEA and buy a new desk, but I love my little "grandma table", as we call it.

Painting the wood work was the most time consuming thing. My husband is a gem. He's in the 1-5% of men that actually prefers white trim over wood. I am actually working on painting the trim throughtout my house. (My brother-in-laws are aghast that I would do such a thing!) It's a HUGE pain in the hinder, but the results are AMAZING!

The closet was cleaned out and organized, too, but it isn't very photogenic. It holds my stash, my WIP boxes, my quilt tops, scraps, more stash, more scraps, remnants, and various supplies/projects.

This is a little shelf I made years ago and it holds most of my pin cushion collection. I love how sweet it looks tucked up above my closet doors.

I really debated about hanging my thread storage on my wall. I also debated painting the shelf white, but I we (husband and I) decided to hang it and keep it as is. Hurray! One less thing to paint! I had so much fun arranging the thread in color order last night. I'm such a geek. And because I know someone will ask, I did a whole post about thread here.

I'm using a lid from an IKEA storage box as a tray to hold all my tools and gadgets. Keeping things tidy and in control is the goal. I think the tray will help! The little tin cans are screaming for fabric covers. It's on my to-do list and it has been for quite a long time. The coil pot was made by my son and it makes the best seam ripper holder ever.

I'm looking forward to spending many hours planted here. I'm also dreaming of making a quilted cover for my very blue chair.

My thrift store chair used to look like this. It had gotten quite grubby since I refinished it, so a new cover was in order. I used some ticking that was my grandmother's. (My stash knows no bounds!) I love how easy it is to change the look of this chair. I've done it many times over the years. It's currently holding a few WIP's, but it's ready for a visitor at any time. :) The huge green bowl is something that I picked up from Target several years ago.

I  placed a few containers on my desk to help keep me organized. My cutting scraps will go in the box to the left. I will sort it when it gets full. The container on the right is for ticker tape pieces. I may end up moving these to my cutting area, if I have room. I haven't fully broke in my new space yet, so we shall see!

The pattern for the circle box is from the book Scandinavian Stitches. It is such a cute and fun project! I should note, I made the sides a bit taller than the pattern calls for. After I made it, I just happened to discover that a recycled food container fit inside it perfectly, which helps hold the shape. Such a happy accident!

The buffet was my grandmother's, and it's going to be my cutting station. I wish it were deeper, but I'm going to make it work. If I have to do some larger cutting, I plan to use a bigger cutting mat on the floor.

My red polka dot "hold everything boxes" have been used in 3 different rooms of my house now. LOVE that! Currently, they hold my pre-cuts and fabric bundles.

The little drawers on the left hold some fabric scraps and little things...snaps, tools, all kinds of stuff.

The mini quilt was made by Anne Day, and I received it in a swap her and I did. I just love it and love how it fits in here so well!

The buttons on the top of the buffet are color coded. It's a sickness.

The jar on the right holds fabric scraps. (Imagine that!)

It was a huge PAIN to paint the french door, but it sure looks pretty white!

This is probably the only time my desk will be this clean. I love, love, love having my desk beneath the window.

Here's my floor to ceiling design wall. I used a king size flat flannel sheet and I attached it to the wall with thumb tacks. Previously, I had attached it with staples, which worked, too. This looks cleaner and neater. When I took the sheet down to paint, I washed and dried it, so it's almost thread free again. Yay! What a nice side effect to this whole project.

Here's one last shot. I was going to try to be brief, but that was an epic fail. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the tour. ;) I'm excited to see the results of all my hard work! Now it's time to get busy and mess it up again! Speaking of messes, I still have a bunch of stuff that I took out of the room that I need to toss/donate/find a new home for. I don't want to appear on the show hoarders anytime soon!

I was telling my husband last night just how thankful I am to have this room. So very thankful! I love having a place where I can leave everything set up and waiting until I have a chance to get back to my work, because we all know how many interruptions a mama has. :)

Just a few more details...

I used Zinsser Bullseye 1-2-3 primer for the walls to cover the red (and the woodwork, for that matter). That stinky stuff does wonders! I had no trouble covering the red at all. Oh, I am so thankful!

The wall color is woven basket (B22-3) from Ace Hardware. I chose flat paint for the first time ever and I loved it! It only took 2 coats, which is pretty normal, from my experience. I LOVE Ace paint!

The trim color is macaroon cream. I had it color matched from an old paint chip. My daughter likened it to the color of cream cheese, which made me laugh and laugh, but she is exactly right!

Ok, now I'm done now.
For real.
I'm gonna go sew.
Happy Tuesday!

flea market fancy quilt top

inspired by this quilt

Alissa was kind enough to share the specifics for her gorgeous Land & Sea quilt (thanks Alissa!). I used her measurements as a guideline for this quilt. Seriously, I'm starting to think I have an extra gene (or am missing a gene, possibly?) that prevents me from following a pattern/directions exactly. The quilt measures approximately 65" x 80". It went together very quickly.

And in order to prove that there are no quilting elves that live at my house (oh, my, wouldn't that be nice???) here's the breakdown of time that I spent making the quilt top which includes cutting time (this is especially for you, Leah S.).

I started yesterday afternoon and I spent:

2 hours (during nap/rest time)

1/2 hour before supper

45 minutes after the kids went to bed

45 minutes before the kids got up this morning

1 hour after breakfast

for a total of 5 hours.

Now I've got to figure out something for the back (from my stash), which is becoming more and more challenging.

a (pink) quilt in a day, part 3

I know I said that my next monochromatic quilt was going to be brown, but after all the disappointment in my quilting this week (see previous post), I took out my pink scraps and got busy.

This is for my monochromatic challenge and my quilt in a day series. What can I say? I like to be efficient. The quilt top measures 55" x 70". What amazes me is how many pink scraps I still have leftover. I think I may need to make a pink version of this quilt.

As far as time frame goes, I started piecing this on Monday night around 8:30 and I finished piecing it Tuesday night around 10:30. The making of this spanned about a 26 hour period, but I figure that's close enough to count for a day. And yes, I did eat, sleep, cook and clean. :)

This is version 3 of the house of girls quilts. You can see version one here and version two here. I think that the third time is a charm. I've definitely got to keep this one. 

Many of you have asked for a tutorial on this type of piecing. Since it is so random, that would be hard to do, but I'll try to explain my process. Basically, I take 2 pretty pieces of fabric, sew them together, press the seam open, and add another scrap of pretty fabric. Keep adding pieces randomly in an arrangement that is pleasing to the eye. Once you have a fairly large piece, set it aside and repeat. When you have several larger pieces, arrange them on the floor (or design wall) and fit them together like a puzzle. At this point, you may need to add in a fabric here and there to make it all fit. You can also chop off some ends that are too long. The more variety of fabrics, the better. But you also want to limit your color palette, so it's not chaotic. There is a fine line in achieving that balance, I think. This type of piecing is very fun and freeing, so if you haven't tried it, I would encourage you to do so.

One more thing: thanks for all your kind words and suggestions on what to do with my batting disaster. I will keep you posted on what I decide to do.

a quilt in a day, day 2

Today's quilt was inspired by this apron, which was ulitmately inspired by Lera, and her love for red & aqua, polka dots, gingham and cherries. (I share the same love for all those things, too.)

This quilt went together super quick. I already had the fabrics picked out, which helped. I started cutting and sewing after dinner, and I finished it up before bed.

The backing will be that sweet aqua cherry print and I'm thinking about red gingham bias binding. To me, this quilt screams "picnic quilt", so I just may have to make a bag to put it in, too.

The top measures 72" x 81". (That's going to be a whole lot of stippling.)

I'm pretty excited to see it all come together.

doing laundry is dangerous...

...because it gives me too much time to think about what I could be making.

I was pairing and folding socks and thought, what if I made a quilt top a day? How much fun would that be? I must have gotten the idea from Martha, who is making a piece of clothing a day.

I don't think that I will be able to make all the quilts back to back, but I hope to make a few each week. I will be starting my own little series here on the blog. So far I have 12 quilts on my list to (try to) do in a day. Each will be a simple design that I have been wanting to make for awhile. The goal is that all of them will use fabric from my stash, which is an added and maybe the only benefit to my hair-brained idea.

Here's the first one.

I started this one yesterday and finished it this afternoon.

It measures 51" x 66".

I think I had better stop doing laundry. Who knows what I will come up with next. :)

edit: since so many of you have asked, I thought I should add that this is not a pattern. It is inspired by Denyse Schmidt, but I pieced it all improvisationally.