Here and There

A Spoonful of Sugar offers a tutorial for making these beautiful pattern weights!  I love them!  What a great use for yoyo s!

I've had so much fun visiting some of the links for the pictures of "Where I Sew" -- a series hosted by Pink Chalk Studios.

Fall Cleaning

I'm still not doing much in the creative line, but I did begin a clean up of the studio. I've made some progress, but there is still much more to do. Not only cleaning and straightening, but organizing...and clearing out.

Have cleared a lot of stuff from my cutting table. It has become the place I pile everything when I want a quick clean up in the rest of the house--it is usually piled with books, but they have been removed and shelved. At least what is now left is related to sewing in some way.

Still...there are all kinds of bits and bobs, left over pieces, projects in progress (or neglected) that need a home.
You can see where the fabric that cluttered the table has gone. Tossed into the already messy space here and elsewhere. Amelia wants some scraps for a project, so I've gathered some together to take to her when we have lunch.
I'm not showing the stuff that now resides on the floor because it unnerves me to think of the time involved in organizing and finding a place for these boxes and baskets. They all had shelf space at one time, but now the shelves must be straightened to make room to replace items that have ended up on the floor.

Daryl-The-Wonderful-Appliance-Repairman (and my hero) once again saved me from having to buy a new appliance. He replaced the relay overload thingies and my refrigerator is humming with happiness; I am sighing with relief!

Meeting downtown this morning, then lunch with Amelia. After lunch, maybe I'll get some more cleaning/organizing done.

Bright Spots

I put this design board over my cutting table. It is a little difficult to get to, so I put some cheerful pieces on it just to brighten things up. Slowly, but surely, the room is coming together.

The little pennant in the middle of the top row is from Marie of ZQuilts, who sent me a wonderful bunch of gifts in the mail last year, the rest of the are some of my small pieces.

I didn't notice the shadow when I took the picture from the door to the hall. The larger, messier, more frequently used design board is behind the door--easy to access.

A little embroidery that I played with last night.
I read about the Orbital Rotary Cutter Blade Sharpener over at Ginny's Quilts. What a great gadget! Do any of you have one? I have saved a bunch of blades, and I plan to get one of these gadgets to sharpen them up.

Frugal Fridays:

Paula, the Quilter has been busy with her Frugal/Creative Friday sewing and has busted 6 yards of polar fleece. Love the project of dog beds for her local no kill animal shelter.

And Michele of With Heart and Hands made a Frugal Friday Finish of 4 UFOs.

Finn has also been busy on Frugal Fridays (I think she is the originator); I especially like the Frugal Exchange.

And remember when I posted about The Orphan Trains documentary? Michele pointed me to Finn's other blog (Riding the Orphan Train) about her Orphan Train Quilts.

I'll be checking in with the Frugal Friday bunch Frequently.

Treasure Hunt

Sunday saw some progress, but no work got done yesterday as I was gone all day. At least no work on my room because I was too tired when I got home to think about it.

I'm finding all sorts of things I'd forgotten about and re-connecting with ideas as I sort through and organize.

Folded up among finished projects, I discovered this quilt from almost two years ago. All finished except for the binding. I think I should get that done!
Organizing threads.View from my window yesterday morning. Not only does it provide wonderful natural light, but it will be a pleasant view of the garden.


Guess I'd better get busy...

Thursday Thoughts

Pinks still in the garden:

The trees have turned and are in such glory, but isolated elements in the garden still remember summer.

Great yoga class last night, not strenuous, but lots of twisting and stretching--very relaxing. I was a bit concerned about having problems because of two weeks absence, but the class was a perfect way to get back into practice.

I managed to get a lot done in straightening the studio yesterday; now, debating about what project to work on. Lots of choices from projects that need to be completed, to new ideas.

"Morning Has Broken..."

I'm getting in a little computer time before Miss Mila wakes up. I found this cool activity for making paint splatter fairies over on Lapaz Home Learning via The Crafty Crow. After the unit of fairies was complete, a Fairy Notebook was compiled--what kid wouldn't love this! Ahem...and the fact that I want to make a fairy is only a coincidence.

Always interested in education, I love visiting home schooling and unschooling blogs. Although I was part of the education system (mostly on the upper end of the spectrum, as my students were enriched and advanced placement seniors), the idea of home schooling fascinates me because it concentrates on adding art and craft and imagination to learning. While I was still in the system, the direction that education was taking was counterintuitive to what I believe--and that makes my fascination with Montessori and Waldorf Schools, home schooling and un-schooling that much greater. They are so much fun!

Checking on Miss Mila... where did she go?
Ahhh, here she is taking a little cartoon time while waiting for waffles.-------------------------------------
The Domestic Diva continues her series on Sewing Room Organization. Are you as fascinated with creative spaces as I am? With storage ideas? With work stations and cutting tables and design walls? The Diva leaves nothing out and provides plenty of pictures and links.
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Time for a bath and today's activities! Miss Mila wants to see Matthew and Maggie and Baby Bryce and Aunt Mimi and go to the library and go to SciPort and paint and sew and...

Currently Cleaning...

For some reason, my cutting table becomes a place to gather and pile materials. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if I worked on one project at a time...
Regardless of how or why this happens, fact is that it is currently an awful mess and must be cleared.

Friday's Note from the Universe:
Would it be as much fun, Jen, if you never stopped laughing? If there were never any clouds? If you were never challenged? If you were never alone? If you never heard the whole truth when it hurt? If you always knew what would happen, what to do, and where to go?

Or would you be like, "Beam me down, Bro!"

Yep, The Universe

Relish the quiet, Jen, enjoy the mysteries, and welcome the whole truth.


I do love receiving my daily Notes and miss them on the weekend when they don't arrive. Even the Universe needs the weekend break... Not that I would welcome the "whole truth" too often. Occasionally is quite enough. :)

Improvement

I'm calling the cleaning and organizing done. There are a few things left that I'd like to do, but they are relatively small in comparison. Everything is back in the room that I want back in the room. Some things went into the trash. I'm a compulsive collector, but I'm working on that.

Need to label these little drawers.My Fringe Festival posters. I so love them.Cleared off some of the junk that was cluttering the design wall.Labels should help me locate things, right?Desk area needs some work.Had yoga again tonight. I'm slowly improving. Slowly. But improving. I'm really enjoying the classes and the two different teachers. I can do more than mountain and corpse poses now, you'll be glad to know. I balanced in crow for about 30 seconds tonight and didn't fall on my head even once.

Current reading - The Mindful Woman: gentle practices for restoring calm, finding balance, & opening your heart by Sue Patton Thoele. Love the title. I'm reading it slowly and trying to keep precepts in mind. I love this quote at the beginning of the book:

"I'm alternately appalled and amused by just how elusive mindfulness can be, how incredibly easy it is for me to be seduced away from simplicity and focused awareness into multi-multitasking and rampant mind-mucking."

"Multi-multitasking and rampant mind-mucking"! Boy, do I know those feelings!

Room In Progress ..

just realized that is RIP - a scary thought.

I've been re-vamping and organizing, cleaning and trashing here in the chaos of my sewing room. This had been an AmaZingly time-consuming process. In spite of the fact that I knew it would be, the time it is taking continues to surprise me because there are so many decisions, and my poor brain gets overloaded.I have things scattered all through the house now, as I try to put like with like, decide what to keep and what to trash, and determine where to put things for the easiest access. I'm not showing the floor with its piles of stuff to go through - fabric, tools, freezer paper and stabilizers, etc. That is too much chaos for me to contemplate right now.
I have no choice now but to continue. In the meantime, I can't use my machine, although I can still do some hand work which calms me down in the evening.

These design boards have become just another place to store stuff and have pretty much lost their practical applications. So they, too, are on the list of things to clear.

And WIP's -- I am realizing how many things have been started and left unfinished. I guess that will be another post because now, I'm going to tackle this mess again.

Time to Organize

I need to re-organize. Although this is true of the kitchen and all of my closets, especially needy is the sewing room. It will be a big undertaking as I want to get rid of my metal shelves (too deep, too wide) and completely re-do the computer area; these shelves are about 48" wide and 18" deep and take up a lot of my small space. I'm trying to accept that this will require boxing and removing a lot of fabric,useful tools, embellishments, etc. as a temporary measure.

What I really wanted to do is to for this post, however, was to share this link dealing with organizing those messy items: ribbons, trims, and lace. The Domestic Diva has given some excellent options- both handmade to purchased. I'd never seen ribbon clips or roll buddies, but they are pretty cool.

Here are some wonderful craft rooms that can provide more ideas for storage and organization. Warning: this one can eat up some time!

So - one thing that I'll be attempting during March will be clearing clutter, organizing, and finding things that I know I have, but don't know where they are. I will also be working on some WIP's and doing more work on this:

click to enlarge

because it is relaxing and requires no thought, allowing me to ponder the thoughts that come to mind or to watch television as I choose.

Miss Bryce will be arriving to stay with Jenny Claire until tomorrow. Amelia and Chris are going to Lafayette to see a comic who is appearing in a club there, so we will have the care of the heir apparent.

Sunday

I'm still working on the Complaint Free Challenge, but I'm not sure what day I'm on -- and that doesn't seem to matter any more. Realizing that I can observe and track my tendency to complain (read: indulge in whining and self-justification) has had a subtle, but positive effect already.

I was gone most of yesterday and didn't have a chance to do any sewing. I did, however, make a significant dent in the chaos of my sewing room late in the afternoon. What a disaster area! It had gotten to the point that the only choice was to straighten and clean in order to get on with my various projects. It is such a satisfying feeling to see most of my fabric folded and neatly stored, to be able to locate all my notions and tools that have been scattered about (now hopefully, they will not require a search to find where they are hiding), to have a clear space on my cutting table without just sweeping everything to the side; it isn't all done, but enough progress has been made to encourage me to continue.

Ideas are coming thick and fast. Notes about what to make and what to use and how to go about it are burgeoning; sometimes too much information and too many possibilities, but since deciding some time in October to try to do some sewing/felting/fiber stuff every day, no matter how little, most days have resulted in just that. It might be a half hour of hand quilting at night, or playing with the embellisher, or having fun with the baby items, but most days I've been able to work on something fiber related. Don't you think cleaning and organizing the sewing space is fiber related?

And so--because there is already not enough time to do all I want-- I subscribed to Fiber & Stitch a couple of weeks ago--which has provided more ideas, techniques, and possibilities. Then Tonya offered Lazy Gal Winter Class, and I just can't resist it either.

Birthday Girl

Today is Amelia's birthday! We will be going out to eat tonight at Olive Street Bistro. Mmmmm. She is still excited about her walk on roll in the new Luke Wilson and Jessica Simpson movie. On Wednesday, they were filming next door to the Beck Building, and Amelia walked over and stood next to the extras. All of a sudden, someone took her arm and moved her into the scene with Jessica Simpson. She ended up in 3 scenes, before going back to work!

I'm still busy running organizing the sewing room. And finding all kinds of goodies I'd forgotten about- trims and beads, seam rippers and needle threaders, books and patterns. And discovering that I won't have to buy batting or muslin again for a long, long time.

Christmas...no decorating so far. Things have been hectic around here for a variety of reasons and then I decided to organize the sewing room which means total upheaval and chaos until I finish.