More work to be done and already done.

I had a new customer drop off a quilt for me to finish. It is a t-shirt quilt and I am to quilt it and bind it. It is pretty big at 88X106". That is the 2nd quilt dropped off this week. Things are picking up again. Woo Hoo.

I went out to take a peek at the ice dyed fabrics. There is still a layer of ice in the center that needs to melt but they look like they are going to be gorgeous. I can't wait to pull them out and gaze upon their loveliness, then to wash, dry, iron and fold all that loveliness. Another woo hoo.

For the rest of today I am going to work on my studio clean-over, then this afternoon I am going to make a trip into Boardman, with Tina, to pick up 3 bolts of bamboo cotton fabric at Joanne's Fabrics, that they are holding for me. That will give me plenty to work with for a little while. Another woo hoo.

The backing fabric for C's quilt is done and ready to baste together. I worked on K's quilt while the other was dyeing, washing and drying. I got a good portion of it quilted. It is going to be stunning. It is a wallhanging taken from Alex Anderson's Neutral Quilts book. Very elegant, understated and gorgeous without any quilting so I know the quilting can take it over the top to spectacular. I hope I can do it justice. So far so good.

As far as the clean over is going this is what I got done yesterday. Along with all the fabric dyeing that helped clean out one full shelf in one cabinet I sorted folded and organized 2 boxes of monogrammed linens that had been sitting on the floor in front of my hand dyed fabrics cabinet for a good year.

See the 2 boxes on the left side of the picture? Those 2 boxes are now this.

and this.

That bottom shelf holds all the linens that were in those 2 boxes. I'm loving it. Another big woo hoo for the home team. This studio just might get organized after all.

Now is the time to get back to work. I still have that big to do list to get done in which this studio clean-over is just a small part of. Let's crack that whip and get back to work.

Have a great day and remember to be thankful for the unexpected. You never know where it might lead you.

A step backward while making progress...

I am excited about everything I got done yesterday. I will share the before pictures of the studio clean-over as I finish each area. So you will have to follow along to see the transformation as it will take several weeks I am sure to get everything done but then I will have a truly functional space with everything put away. Grandma Briggs' favorite saying was "A place for everything and everything in its place."

I had help with this step of the project. The hanging of the quilted ceiling panels. Let me tell you why I needed these. I had (operative word there) a finished basement studio. The ceilings were drywalled and everything was good. I loved working in my studio. Then we had an electrical problem and DH tore the ceiling out to fix it. Enter the dark light absorbing ceiling that made me want to cringe everytime I went in there. Not very conducive to creative work. So I hung white sheets on the ceiling as a temporary fix. I wanted something else but what? as DH does not want a permanent ceiling in case of other problems. He wants to be able to get to any area so he can fix it. Ok. So my solution: quilted ceiling panels that can be taken down if need be. So I have 2 panels done and most of a 3rd one. This is the before and the after once one panel was hung.

Before.

and After.
Here are some close ups of the quilting on the panel.

The next panel to go up is a light blue same as the wall color. I hand dyed it and I am going for a cabana stripe effect. I think it will be really cool. This project will definitely be a work in progress for some time.

I did go get my groceries which then required me to debone a rotisserie chicken to use in our dinner. It turned out great. Yummy. Easy skillet chicken enchillada.

On with the rest of the work I got done. I dyed a new backing for C's quilt after speaking with her. She wants me to surprise her with what I do so can't tell you about that till later. As I was cleaning up stuff, I found a full bolt of the bamboo cotton fabric that I use for dyeing. Score one for the team. Woohoo.
I also made room to put away some of the things that were sitting around on my floor. You can't really tell that much was done since once you start one of these types of cleaning projects everything looks much worse before it gets better. You know that "It looks like a bomb went off in here." kind of moments.

Another thing I got done was to mark K's quilt so I can start quilting it. It is going to be phenomenal. I can't wait to work on it. Did I ever mention that I just love quilting custom pieces. It's my favorite. Love, love, love it. C's piece and K's piece are going to be a dream to do.

So my plans for today are to do another tub of fabrics using the ice dyeing technique. I found lots of scraps (while cleaning) that will get a second lease on life. Score 2 for the home team. Once those are reclining in the ice bath, marinating in the juices of color, I will wash up C's backing and get that quilt basted together and will work on getting some more organizing done. Sounds like a full day. I better get going then if I am going to get everything done that I want to.

Have a great day and remember to do kindness today and be thankful for the mess that you have to clean up. It means you have been blessed enormously.

Thanks Heather for your help. I couldn't have done everything yesterday without it.

Real progress made...

Yesterday, I made up that ridulously long to-do list so that I could get everything out of my head and release the creative energy to figure out the how's of doing that which needed to be done and it worked. I managed to finish #8. the laundry, it is even folded and put away and not sitting in a basket waiting to be put away. A big high five for #13. I finished E's quilt. Now to get it back to her. I can't move ahead yet on C's quilt which is #14, so I pulled one of J's quilts out, #12 and managed to get it completely quilted, didn't expect to get that far but I am so thankful that I did. I have one more for J to do. I also added to my list paying my business taxes and did that too, so that would be #26. I forgot that I also watered the plants, that was #23.

So even though I still have a list that is 22 items long I feel that I made really big steps yesterday in getting things done. So today, I am going to focus on my quilt studio, I am going to have some help this afternoon with organizing and cleaning it out. I would like to try to get the quilted ceiling panels hung and if I can do that it will be a major task marked off my list. I am excited about that. For this morning though, I am torn between going to town and getting a few groceries or marking K's wallhanging and prepping it for quilting. It would be best to do the shopping run as I then won't have to worry about K's piece being out while I am cleaning up the studio. I guess I just talked myself out of doing what I really would love to do into going grocery shopping, not something that I love to do. LOL.

I should go down stairs right now and take some before photos of the studio so that I can show you some before and afters. Ok so that is what I will do. My to do list for the next 3 hours, pictures of studio and grocery shopping.

I hope you have a great day.

What is next?

I haven't any idea what I am going to talk about today. Usually an idea will come to mind before I sit down here to begin this post but not today. I don't have a lot of pictures to share. I could brainstorm here a bit and write down all those things that I would like to get done, all the projects that are simmering in my head but that would probably bore you all. Well, I am going to do it anyways, so get prepared to be bored. Maybe if I do this my mind will be cleared out enough to figure out what to next or what is the most pressing thing to do first.

My list of projects:
1. paint the master bedroom
2. reupholster chair in MBR
3. clean out the bumpout in the MBR
4. shop the house in order to redecorate the MBR
5. collect everything that needs to be dropped off at Goodwill and do it
6. spray paint the items from the yard sales
7. hang the items on back porch I got at the yard sales
8. do laundry
9. declutter my quilt studio and give it a good cleaning
10. order shutterfly book of photos of Hawaii vacation
11. hang panels in quilt studio
12. quilt J's quilts
13. finish quilting E's quilt
14. quilt C's quilt
15. quilt K's quilt
16. mail W's fabric to her
17. go get groceries
18. clean my office
19. balance my check book
20. finish my dragonfly wallhangings
21. buy fabric for dyeing workshop
22. send in a resume for a job (am I crazy)
23. water the plants
24. plant the flower bed
25. redo the bathroom

Well, that is about all I can think of to put on my to do list. I don't have much energy right now to tackle much on this list except maybe go do some laundry. Later on today I might be able to go get some groceries. Oh and I plan on having #13 done by end of tomorrow. Actually there are a lot of things on this list I can get done soon. I think I will print it off and get myself geared up to work, work, work.

Yesterday, I did manage to finish the binding on my blue and white quilt. I also quilted on E's quilt. K dropped off a quilt top for me to quilt. It's going to be fun to do. C's quilt top is on my design wall layered with the batting but I discovered that the backing is too small so I am waiting to hear from her about what she would like me to do. I finished the small landscape wallhanging. It's the only photo I have to share today.

So I am off to the studio to get to work. It will be a glorious day by the looks of things. I hope you have a wonderful day and get all that stuff out of your head that you are trying to remember to do. Write it down and once your head is cleared out the answers to some of the "How am I ever going to get all of this done?" questions will start to come to you.

Have a great day.

Random pics of weekend work/play

Today I have some random pictures to share with you of things I have finished or played with over the last several days.

Saturday was the annual Georgetown Road Yard Sale. I think it was advertised as 26 miles of yard sales. Tina, her mom and I headed out. We had fun although the weather did not cooperate all that much. We started out with some light showers and finished up with one of those gully washers. Once the rain was imminent we turned around to come on home. I had upcycled one of DH's long sleeved, button down collar shirts that he wears to school. It was white with narrow stripes of blue. I don't have a before photo thus the description. This is what I made it into and I wore it yard saling.

First of all I dyed the shirt to hide all the stains and dinginess it had acquired over the years. I cut off the collar and sleeves, made a ruffle from one of the sleeves added it to the neckline, took it in on the sides and then decided to cut off the bottom curved hemline and straighten it. I found the ivory lace in my stash to add as I felt the single ruffle wasn't quite enough. I think it turned out cute but I would use a lighter weight fabric shirt for the next one. I have another shirt ready to try another style next. I will have some photos soon of the great things I found during our trek down Georgetown Road.

I have been working on a new quilt for myself, the blue and white one that I dyed the backing for last Saturday. Well I got it off the longarm frame Saturday evening and I added the binding last evening and just have one side to go till completely finished.
Here it is.

I have enough worked up blue and white pieces to make a baby quilt or lap quilt. Another project to put on my list to finish.

While I was working on this quilt and another one I am doing on my DSM, I finished up this little landscape.

I shouldn't say finished up as it is just the top and I still want to add borders to it and then I will have to quilt it but I had fun doing this improvisational little landscape. I did not have a pattern I just went with the flow of the piece.

On Friday I stopped at a local antique shop just to look around and I found these little beauties that said they had to come home with me.

Starting in the upper left is a roll of golden yellow and cream tatted lace. This will be perfect to add to one of my linen pillows on my day bed in my office. It is the exact shade of golden yellow that I dyed my antique linen napkins to make the pillow covers. To the right of the tatted lace is a piece of coral and then a sea shell that says Aloha Hawaii. They belong in the soon to be redone master bedroom. You know that blue and white quilt I just made? Yeah, that is going to be my new quilt. I love my old quilt and it is still in perfect shape and I want to keep it that way so it needs to be retired from service for a while.
Last in the photo is a blue leaf dish. I just love the soft aged patina it has and I think it will be great to put on my night stand to hold my glasses or jewelry at night, or even perhaps my cell phone as it is charging.

That is it for my randomness of photos and thoughts. I will be working on finishing the quilting on a customer's quilt today and tomorrow, then to spray baste another quilt together for another customer. I would like to get both of these done by the end of next week.

Have a great day and remember to be thankful for the randomness of life. It keeps things interesting.