Sewing Studio Tour

I've been following the Sewing Studio tour over at Ellison Lane Quilts and felt inspired to clean up and organize my little sewing space. Those who have followed my blog for many years know I used to have a whole room for quilting and sewing, including a quilt frame set up to the King size. Last summer when I found out I was pregnant with our second child, I knew we needed the space for the kids, so I put my quilt frame down to the crib size and sold off/donated 12 huge totes full of sewing and craft supplies. I am now down to my UFO's, some background fabric, a small bit of sewing themed fabric, and lots of pink ribbon fabric. I inherited a lot of sewing supplies when my mother passed away two years ago, but I had my own full sewing studio already, so I consolidated. 
The quilt frame is in the kids room and I quilt when my amazing husband Paul watches the kids during races or while watching TV, usually on weekends. I sew in the corner of our bedroom. This is my little space at the end of the bed. It's about a 3'x5' space.

I have a Janome 6600 and table which I normally use, but recently was given my mom's Bernina 730 and I am trying to bond with it. I've sewn for 25 years, but adjusting to a new machine brand is a bit of a challenge. I do love the option of doing machine embroidery though, so that is the big plus. I need to figure out a better table, but for now I am making this work. I will have a big cutting table once we get it moved back from my dad's in the next few months. The pack and play in our room will be put up to make room since we no longer have a new baby sleeping in it. Mathew is 8 months and has moved in to the crib in the other room. The blocks to the left of the ruler rack are from a friendship block swap we are doing this year. I have about 8 of the 16 I will receive, so I have them hanging there for inspiration as to how I will set them.

I keep my rulers on this ruler rack my little brother Ed gave me for Christmas one year. I absolutely love it. It's over flowing and I even got rid of quite a few. At one point I had 100 plus rulers. I probably have 6-8 at work, several in my travel bags, some in the closet, and I still have this one over flowing. I'm a huge Creative Grids fan and am slowly replacing my older ones. The "Create" sign on top was a sale purchase that inspires my creativity. The Aurifil empty thread spools are from quilt retreat. My friends and I finished these at retreat and we're collecting this year to see how many we can acquire. The quilters picture on the bottom right is a mug rug I have hanging up. I made my friends these from a panel for quilt retreat one year. My knee lift hangs from the rack for quick access, since it doesn't fit with my chair under the table.

My ironing board is a covered piece of wood that has semi-naked firemen on it. I covered it with cotton batting and thinsulate fabric before putting the cotton on top. It's all stapled to the back for easy removal for washing. I also have a small fan on it to keep me cool while I work. Since I work mostly after Paul goes to bed the bright Ott Lite is essential. It's the perfect amount of light without keeping him up. I also have a couple other smaller ones when I don't need it quite so bright. The end of the ironing board holds my purple notions bag that Jen B. made for me when attended quilt retreat in 2009. Jen and I have known each other since 2005 when we met through blogging and we've had a chance to meet a couple time since then. She lives in Milwaukee, WI. This bag holds all my "gotta have" notions for sewing. I know if I'm going to sew somewhere I can grab the bag and it has everything I need.

The wall hanging is one I made for 6 close quilting friends. It says, "Good friends are like quilts, they grow with you, yet never loose their warmth". The bottom one is the excess HST's I had after making all the wall hangings from my Buggy Barn scraps. Hanging off of the light are the 2 name tags Jen B. made for me. One was for the retreat and the other was just because. I love seeing them as they remind me of her daily.

To the left of my machine, under the TV is a wall hanging I made after attending the bloggers retreat in 2009. It's made from fabric I bought while we shop hopped around Ohio. We met in Cincinatti and there were 11 bloggers and 8 friends who came to the retreat. It was the first time we had met and was such an amazing experience. This quilt became a siggy quilt for my local quilting friends. I have a much larger one that all the blogging ladies signed. It's in my office at work. Next to it is the granny square quilt Emilee made me for our Christmas swap exchange last year. We each brought a bag of scraps, swapped them and made something for the person out of their scraps. It was so much fun and we are doing it again this summer. I also have a ribbon I won at the fair and my name tag that my friend Jenn from Rapid City made me. She made them for our local quilting friends when we attended a retreat in May. The Bernina feet box sits behind the machine.

This is my "WIP" cupboard. I allow myself to work on the projects in here and limit myself to these. If I start working on something else, I have to make room for it to fit. This keeps me controled and the room stays cleaner. With a 2.5 year old, everything has to be put away or out of reach at night. My grandpa build this for me in college so I had a place to store my food. It reminds me of him and I wish he was still around to do such amazing woodwork.

Inside I have a few boxes of thread. These are approximately the size of fishing tackle boxes and they hold my Aurifil and King Tut. They are within easy reach. I also have the bag to the right with Aurifil thread that is ready for travel. The next shelf holds the fabric for my Swoon, my scrappy swoon that needs a few seams fixed, and my pink box with my "Ahhhh's" fabric. This is the fabric I have pulled to make them all and I use this to make up the "kits" for my prepped ahhhh's so I can work on them when travelling. To the right is fabric for a tumbler quilt. I found an inspiring pattern on pinterest, so I may just finish making this quilt after all. On the bottom self are books, a Happy Hour quilt for a friend, and the fabric kit for my Rubic Star quilt. I also have a B/W/Pink quilt I am working on.

This wall hanging was made by my Aunt Jane for a quilt retreat I planned in 2012. Everyone who attended signed the back. The blocks hanging from it are my "orphan" blocks. I didn't think I had any, but once I started finishing some UFO's this year I have a ton! Not sure what they will become, but it's fun to see them.


This wall hanging was made by my college roommate and friend Angie after my mom passed away in 2011. It's so very special to me and reminds me of my mom. Mom and I quilted, sewed, shop hopped, taught, and spent a lot of time discussion quilting. She was my best friend and I miss her so much. Everything I do with quilting reminds me of her in some way.

This is my awards box from high school. It's all the pins and letters and different medals I won in high school. My grandpa Jim made the shadow box. It's been 15 years since I graduated, but I still love to be reminded of all I did back then. On top is a little sewing sign that reminds me of Jen and one of my Willow Tree collection given to me by mom. There is also a mold of my daughters hand from when she was 7 weeks old. The sheep was given to mom by a close quilting friend, so I keep it there to remind me of moms friends as well.

A close up of the pieced sewing machine for my name tag. I'm a purple girl through and through and my friends know that about me.

To the left of the sewing area is a big 2" piece of foam with grided flannel. I use it for a design wall. The TV is up there too. I never actually watch it, but have it on more for noise than anything else. Last week I made my 6th Swoon block. Slowly I will get them done.

So that's my sewing space in a nut shell. Eventually I would like to have a larger space, but for now this works and I am able to sew each and every day. I work full time, teach 1 night a week, and am working on my masters degree, so sewing is my stress reliever after some very long days! Thanks for stopping by my sewing space. It's been fun to organize and show my "new" space.

March Quilting Accomplishments

March was an extremely productive month for me. I feel like I accomplished a lot, even though it didn't feel like it sometimes. I made lots of progress on finishing up some lingering UFO's that have been hanging out for the past year. I figure if I finish a UFO a month, I'm farther ahead then when I started.

March Goals & Accomplishments!

2 Thangles BOM blocks - DONE! I have a total of 4 of the 12 done, so I'm feeling good about doing 2 per month unless the mood strikes and I may do more.

6 Snowball Blocks (Quilt Along) - DONE! About 3-5 months more and I should have a good sized quilt for my niece for Christmas. I'm loving making these blocks. My brother & sis-in-law informed me on Sat. that she is almost ready to be in a twin bed, so I'll have to start making her bigger quilts. She's started to put words together into sentences, so it's fun to listen to her. Luckily we get to see her quite a few weekends in April, including this weekend again.

Paul's Wolf Applique - Although I didn't finish this, I got it out, traced out the pattern and started cutting out the pieces. I told him I'd be lucky to finish it by our anniversary. It's got a ton of tiny pieces to be cut out, but it feels great to have actually pulled it out to work on it. Some work on it is better than none.
Quilt Club Sandwiches Tablerunner - DONE! I had 6 for this class and it was an interesting mix of ladies. About half got done with the top. We had one finger cut with the rotary cutter, but that was the worst mishap. My mom and quilty friend Darlene took this class, so they were the rowdy ladies of the bunch!

Quilt Siggy Tops - Small & Large  2 DONE! I finally finished the quilting and binding on both of my quilt retreat siggy quilts. I love how they turned out and I'm so glad to have them completely finished.

Sweet Escape Tablerunner DONE! This class is coming up April 6th at The Sewing Center. It's a quick little tablerunner using a charm pack and a bit of yardage. I finished it fairly early in the month, so it's been a sample for a while. There's still room to sign up if you're interested.

Other Quilting Accomplishments:
Quilted and bound Objects of Desire #2 Tablerunner and finished the binding on O of D tablerunner #1

Attended the Wall Quilt Guild Banquet with my mom. We each won fun prizes and enjoyed visiting with old quilting friends.
Made a Pink Snowball 9 Patch Quilt for my online quilting friend Colleen & her new daughter, Annaliese. I love surprising friends with quilts when they least expect it and I think I really surprised her. Quilters are always so appreciative of quilts.

Made 3 Block Butlers for my mom &  two quilting friends, now I need to pick up flannel and make one for myself. They turned out really cute and used up some sewing themed fabric that I had in my stash.

Quilted Mom's Western Boots Quilt
This one has been hanging out since October waiting to be quilted, so I'm glad to finally have it done.

Made & taught a Rick Rack Road Class to Jenn & a few of her friends. It was a fun night and I've seen a few of the finished runners. They all look great.

Made a Fabric Bowl for St. Patty's Day


Made Paul's 5 Yard Quilt for his birthday. Even though I worked on it for the past two weeks, he still didn't realize I was making him a quilt for his birthday yesterday. The binding was put on tonight, so I just have to do the hand work now.

Hosted Girls Night Out at TSC, where I worked on a new tablerunner from the Essence line. I got all 12 blocks made. I cut out a baby quilt for my niece, but now I have to make it into a twin sized quilt. Luckily it's a large log cabin, so I should be able to make it bigger fairly easily.

My stash is going down this year. I've bought 3 yards, received 28 yards, and used 65.5 yards, for a net used of 34.5 yards. I'm doing really well with finishing up my UFO's too. I've completed 8 UFO's and worked on 2 others. I quilted 105 hours in March, which makes for the largest number of hours per month so far.

Other happenings this month included:

Paul's Large Mouth Bass coming back from the taxidermist.

Butchering with the family.
Checking out my Great-Grandma's quilts that were saved from my Grandma's house.

Goals for April

Finish Essence Tablerunner

6 Snowball 9 Patch Blocks

2 Thangles Blocks

Pink Cowgirl Quilt

Purple Snowball Quilt

I'm hoping to start on a quilt for my cousin's wedding. I have the majority of the fabric already bought and the t-shirts, but I need to come up with a plan and get started on it since the wedding is coming up.

We'll be travelling a couple of the weekends in April, so I won't get a whole lot done on the weekends. Mom and I are going on a shop hop, so I'm hoping to get a few new finds to bring home.

Quilt Retreat Siggy Quilt Finished

It's only taken me a year to finish, but finally yesterday, I was able to get it quilted. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. This went from a random idea, where I bought yardage, to a full wall hanging. It's 48" square, so it's really big for a wall, but I'll put it in my studio. It'll remind me of all the awesome people I met while I was there. I quilted random stars in the meadering. I used Aurifil Red/White/Blue thread, so it's not as heavy of a quilting thread. I still have a ton of it left on the spool. I started the hand work today, so within the week I should be able to hang it up. It has a white backing fabric, so I'm thinking I'll use it for siggy's at other retreats.

Thangles BOM Month 2

My monthly goals are really helping me stay on task and finish up some of the UFO's I accumulated over the past couple years. I decided I was going to try to do 2 blocks a month. I started in February and so far, so good. Tonight I was able to make up blocks 3 & 4.
Block 3

Block 4

Blocks 3&4 together

Blocks 1, 2, 3, & 4 - I'm really pleased with how these are turning out. I still haven't figured out if I'll end up making the full size quilt or just a wall hanging, but I'm enjoying the process of finishing a few at a time. They are quick and easy, and I can put them away in my block butler and they are all neat and easy to find when I'm ready to do another one.

I pulled out the Block butler fabric and materials I have to make them. I decided the fabric I bought to make them needed to be washed, so I threw it in the wash. I should be able to make these up tomorrow. I'd like to be able to give them to my friends in the next few weeks.
My weekend looks pretty open which is highly unusual. I bought lots of supplies tonight to make several recipes from Pioneer Womans cookbook. I haven't had time to cook/bake in a long time. My sewing goals include quilting my big siggy quilt, make 3 block butlers, finish the 9 patch/snowball quilt along blocks (they are laying out ready to sew), cut out log cabin wanna be a cowgirl quilt, and work on Paul's wolf applique wall hanging.

We Can Quilt It!

The first of two signature quilts is done. This is the smaller of the two, so I practiced my stars and loops on it. It's about 28" square, so not real big, but will make a nice wall hanging. I'll have to take better pictures when I'm home, but I quilted it with Aurifil red/white/blue thread on top and Bottomline white. The back is the Keep on Quilting logo fabric. When I was cutting it out, I came up with a plan to use the leftover fabric so hopefully I can get to that this weekend. I plan to have all my quilting buddies here sign it and hang it in my sewing studio. I plan to spend some time in the studio this weekend and get the other siggy top quilted and bound. I'm getting so close to being done with this year long UFO.

February Quilting Accomplishments!

This was an extremely productive month for me, even though I didn't get all my goals accomplished. The only thing I didn't get finished were the project bags, but I need a missing piece before I can finish them. They aren't pressing, so i'm not too worried.

February Quilting Goals:
9 Patch Blocks - 6 - 9 patch blocks done
Notre Dame Baby Bag - Completed and given to Amy & Jacob at the shower Mom & I hosted
Project Bags - Need logo applique
Siggy Quilt - Finished two siggy tops and backings are prepped for quilting
Zoo Animals Baby Quilt Finished - Finished making top, quilting, binding, and label and sent with the grandma to the new family.

I also worked on these projects in February
Valentine's Tablerunner... hand sewing together, so it will probably take me till next Feb. to finish!
Thangles Blocks - I finished 2 and hope to do at least 2 BOM blocks each month so I can finish this quilt.
Valentine's Wall Hanging - This was quickly quilted up and hanging in my office for V-Day.
Baby Chicks Quilt Quilted for Mom - I quilted this one for mom and she put the binding on, then while we were waiting for Dr. appointments, we did the hand binding together and got it all done in less than 2 hours.
Three Tablerunner tops - Club Sandwiches, 2 Fast Food - I made three tops and practiced my quilting on one of the Objects of Desire tablerunners and got the binding on it.

Other things in February
Tough Enough to Wear Pink at Stock Show
My 30th Birthday
NEW Janome 1600P Quilting Machine - I quilted my 70th quilt on my frame with my new machine and the tension was perfect! I'm in love with the new machine.
Spring Sewing Party

March will be a busy month as we head to my parents two weekends in a row to butcher steers, but also fun because I'll get to play with my beautiful little niece. I'll be attending the Wall Quilt Banquet with mom, so we'll get to enjoy going back to the guild we used to belong to a few years ago.

Time to think about some goals for March...
Paul's Wolf Applique - his birthday is the 30th, so I'm shooting for finishing before then. It's been 1 1/2 years since I started working on it, so hopefully I can get it finished.
2 Thangles BOM blocks
6- Snowball blocks
Quilt Siggy Tops - After a bit more practice with my new machine
Sweet Escape Tablerunner - All cut out and ready to go - Class sample for April
Quilt Club Sandwiches Tablerunner - Class sample for March

Siggy Quilt Tops Finished

February is quickly coming to a close, so I've been focusing hard on accomplishing my goals. One of my big goals was to finish my signature quilt top. Last night I worked on it for several hours until I was able to get the math to come out right. I'm happy with how it turned out, though it's a lot bigger than I anticipated. It came out at 48" square. I plan to hang it in my sewing studio where there is a big open wall. It will remind me of my quilt retreat friends. I also prepped the  backing fabric. I was going to use the emblem fabric, but didn't have enough, so this one will have the white that is on the front.



After I finished the first top, I still had the other panel left and wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I was inspired by the modern siggy swap going on, so I made the same blocks and outlined the panel. It didn't come out perfect, but I'm happy with it. I decided to add the triangles in the two corners to make it look like the ribbons are going out. What do you think? Does it make the quilt? What would you do?  I plan to quilt this as soon as I play with my new machine a bit and get comfy with it. I'm so excited that I got two siggy quilt tops out of the fabric I bought on retreat. I plan to have my quilty friends here sign this one when it's all done. I will use the Keep On Quilting emblem fabric for the back of this one.

More Siggy Blocks

Tonight I got busy again and worked on more siggy blocks. While I was working on them, I put up the other panel piece on my design wall. I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with it yet, but I love it.

I finished the block with all the peeps friends on it.

Then I finished Becca's block.

Finally, I finished my block, the middle part of the twitter conversation on my siggy quilt. I worked on squaring up the center and putting the blocks together, but it was getting late, so I decided to finish it later. I pulled out my zoo animal baby quilts and got my stuff ready to go for the weekend.

I also played around with finding thread to go with this... the fabric that goes with my Valentine tablerunner. I just don't have the perfect thread, so I'll have to find some on Sat. and get the wall hanging quilted up next week.

Another Siggy Block

Tonight after finishing up the first 2 blocks for the Thangles BOM, I decided to work on my siggy quilt. I can't believe how this is coming together. I still have to remake one of the block centers, but I got Trish's block done. Even with all the HST's I dealt with tonight, I really was excited to work on this quilt. It only took me a few minutes to finish this one. I must have done too much visiting at Jenn's to only get 6 done in 3 hours, when I got 1 done in 15 minutes!


I decided to put up the center to see how it would look and give me incentive to work on this quilt. It's going to be a big quilt for a wall hanging, but it will have great memories for me, so I'm excited.

January Quilting Accomplishments

This is the first month I've actually accomplished all of the goals I had set for myself.
My January Goals included:
Crazy Eights Tablerunner - DONE!
Quilt Jenn's quilt - DONE!
Run-around Bag - DONE!
Western Boots quilt (Range Riders) - DONE!

I also finished the Crown Royal quilt. With any luck I should be able to give it to my brother this weekend.
I made 6 snowball blocks done for the snowball/9 patch quilt along.
I made 3 fancy project bags and then added 2 more fancy project bags. Jenn and I now have fancy UFO bags!
I participated in the Valentine Sewing Party and made the Toast Points tablerunner out of Candy Kiss fabric from the Atkinson Designs book, Let's Do Lunch!
I spent countless hours basting all my hexigons for the tabletopper I'm making using English Paper piecing and the L'Amour fabric Jenn's sent me. I'm not sure I'll finish it in time for Valentine's Day, but it provides me hours of enjoyable sewing when I can't be near my machine, so I'm okay with slowly finishing it.
Quilted the Giraffe Quilt for mom.
Made 6 blocks for my Siggy quilt from the retreat.
Started making a baby bag in blue/green/gold.
Received an awesome care package from Jen!
Fabric City opened in The Sewing Center building!
I taught Fast & Furious Quilt as you go baby quilt and Professional Tote classes and my first Janome Basics class.
I bought 3 yards in Jan. and used 21.75 yards, finished 3 UFO's, and had 100 quilting hours!

My goals for February include:
ND Baby Bag
Finish Siggy Quilt
8 Project Bags
6 9 Patch blocks
Zoo Baby Quilt

I'm hoping to finish 2 UFO's per month and so far so good! February is shaping up to be a very good month. I'm having a big birthday celebration and