Too clean to mess up!

An unfortunate side effect of all this house de-cluttering: now my new sewing room is too neat and clean to mess up! I was up early so I took the opportunity to assemble a few rows of blocks in my latest project (Carrie Nelson's Double Duty). But every thread that hit the carpet was picked up immediately!

I love having a dedicated sewing room now, but I'm going to have to do something about the lighting. You recall the layout (final proposed floorplan - I don't have that sewing or cutting table, nor the wall lamps yet): Right now I have an antique (rickety) oak table holding the sewing machine. My OTT light is sitting there for additional illumination for sewing. My old articulated desk lamp is sitting on the bookcase at left, providing light for the ironing board. These are in addition to the usual semi-flush mount ceiling fixture you'd find in a bedroom, which is good for providing enough light to walk into the room but not much else. Overall, the lighting is adequate but not good. I need to research wall-mounted articulated lamps for either side of the window to provide more even light at the sewing table, and I'll have to buy some type of clamp-on lamp for the cutting table, because standing there I wll be casting a shadow from the ceiling light on the surface of the table.

The one good thing about sewing in the kitchen was the lighting. The 300 watt total hanging fixture over the table was great, and the undercabinet lighting where I put the small ironing board made pressing easy.

Oh well, all these things will work out eventually. And my stash closet still makes me smile when I open the doors.

Sewing room

I'm way too tired and bleary-eyed to take a decent photograph, but here are two views of the room so far. The other two walls are complete chaos, as you can probably guess, so no pictures of those!

BTW, the stuffed bear sitting on my sewing basket is the World's Best Bear. He has a medal around his neck that says so! I've got teddies here and there in the house, posed in small teddy-sized chairs and even in a little red Radio Flyer wagon. One has a little wing-back armchair, just his size. A silly hobby of mine.

I put up that wallpaper 17 years ago. Back then, I liked it. Now - not so much. But I like it more than I would like the work it would take to remove it. I do need to take down that valance. It's SO 1993. Maybe replace the traverse rod with a simple brushed nickel rod and rings to match the ceiling fixture.

That picture over the bookcase is crewel work, which I used to do until I burned out on it. I did needlepoint and cross-stitch too, but nothing has kept my interest like quilting. The old gold framed mirror is a remnant from the guest room days.

Cleaning closets,. . .

. . .thinning out the bookshelves, gathering clothes to donate to the shelter, picking out new flooring for the master bath, ordering a new couch for my husband's computer room. Man, I've been busy. And, of course. . .

SETTING UP MY NEW SEWING ROOM! (Big cheer!)

The guest room is going to become my sewing room. Last weekend, my sister-in-law and her husband drove down from Kentucky and took back the bedroom suite from the guest room. It came from my mother-in-law's house to begin with, so that's fair. We ordered a sleeper sofa to go in the third bedroom, which my husband uses as his computer room, so we'll have the guest accommodations covered. And now I'm researching sewing and cutting tables. A bookcase from the other bedroom and two old cabinets have been relocated for sewing room storage, and the new floorplan has been drafted. I still need to move out an old rolltop desk, which is going to be donated to charity, and decide which brand tables I will buy. In the meantime, an antique oak table I have is standing in for a sewing table because Quiltville is starting a new mystery this month and I don't want to miss it.

Here's an idea how it's going to be laid out. There's one window (top) and two closets with bifold doors (left side). The sewing table under the window has a dropleaf to double the size if needed. I will install swingarm lamps on the wall on either side of the window. The brown item on the left wall between the closets is an old bookcase which will hold projects, thread and such. The cabinets flanking the sewing table are entertainment center components my father-in-law built. The one on the left has shelves behind door (used to hold stereo components) and will store tools, templates and rulers. The one the right is open and used to hold a TV; right now it's full of folded quilts. A design wall will be mounted on the right wall, above which will be a curtain rod with clip rings from which I can hang completed quilts for photographing. The cutting table will fold up and store in front of the design wall. It's shown unfolded and in place for work. The item on the bottom is another cherry bookcase which is in the room now and has to stay, but it holds my quilting books. Unfortunately, the treadmill stays too! It folds up so it doesn't take much room. You can see that there's space for my big ironing board to the left of my chair. This will be so handy. I can adjust the board height to be used while seated, and pivot in my chair between the sewing machine and iron. Now my fabric stash closet needs to be relocated from the third bedroom to the guest room. That entails a lot more than it sounds. All the stuff in the guest room closet needs to find a home. Some of it will go into the closet where the fabric is right now, and the Christmas village decorations will go in the workshop out in the closet. But, before that can happen, the workshop needs to be decluttered and room made for them. It's a mess! A moves to B which moves to A and C but C has to be cleared out before the whole daisy chain can be put into motion.

But, all the work aside, I am very, very happy about this!

Pinwheels, interrupted

Just when I think I have myself convinced that I don't need a separate sewing room and I'm getting along just fine sewing in the kitchen, something happens like today and I flip-flop faster than an Olympic gymnast.

I finished all my pinwheel blocks and was joining the rows. I was pinning row 5 of 7 when my husband came in and remarked that if we decided to make more than the planned salad for supper, maybe we should call and invite our friend T. to eat with us. Now, T. is a good friend whose family lives 120 miles away. He works in our town, so he rents an apartment where he lives during the work week, and commutes on the weekends. He also has been sick recently. We try to invite him often for a home cooked meal that he didn't have to fix. Considering how he's been feeling, I thought that asking him over for dinner was a good idea.

So, I folded and put away the quilt in progress, unplugged and removed the sewing machine from the table, put away my ironing board and iron, packed up my sewing tools, swept the threads off the floor and stowed my cutting board and rulers. Then I could set the table and start preparing dinner. My husband and I could not have prepared a meal or eaten in the kitchen with all my sewing stuff spread out everywhere.

Tomorrow, I will bring all the stuff back into the kitchen, set up the sewing machine and ironing board, unpack my tools, get the quilt blocks out of the bag and in order, and start anew where I left off.

How much time I could save if I had a dedicated sewing room where I could leave everything just the way I dropped it and shut the door!