Welcome to my studio here at Pinwheel Productions Quilting! I’m excited to be a part of this blog hop for several reasons. First of all I love getting to see how other people organize and manage their sewing spaces. I get ideas of things to try and ways to approach my own studio without ever leaving my house. Second, I always need some impetus to clean up my studio.
I am a pile person. I have been a pile person all of my life. As I work, I make stacks of things. There are stacks in every room of my house, and like dishes and laundry it is a continual battle to keep up with them. I have noticed in my studio, that as I work, I make piles of stuff. I work til something hits a critical mass, then I clean up. I will note that finishing a project is not always a clue to pick up, though maybe it should be. My primary key that I need to clean up is when I need my whole cutting table to square up a quilt. The cutting table and the ironing board are my two worst points of accumulation. It used to be the long arm, but in this studio setup, I’m using my long arm a lot more than before so it stays fairly neat.
This studio is new for me. I built the house last year and moved out here in August. I designed the room specifically to fit the long arm and allow me to have a sewing room in this house, despite the house been a smaller footprint than my previous house. I have hard floors so rolling my chair is easy and so is cleaning up threads. My favorite part of the room are the lights I have in the ceiling over my sewing space and over the long arm. I have noticed that I do more work during the day when the light is good, so in this studio I needed enough lighting to be able to work at night. I have 10 LED can lights and a ceiling light and when they are all turned on, it is BRIGHT in there.
The storage you see is only about half of the fabric storage – it’s IKEA Kallax with drawers and bins and so far it is working well. The other half is in my master closet and we are not going to look at that. The hash tag was spring clean your studio, not tackle that giant mess that exists in your master closet. Good thing too, I’m still not ready to face that after moving. I’ll get there, one project at a time. I’m in the process of cutting up my stash right now anyway; I’m really focusing on scrappy scrappy quilts so having precut strips and squares is a big help.
The biggest change with this studio clean out is that I finally have my pin cushions on display. I love pin cushions. I make them and I have people gift them to me. I’ve always had this idea that I could use the upper shelves of this bookcase to display my pin cushions, but I never got around to cleaning up the junk so that I could do so. I now can present to you my pin cushion display (well most of them anyway, there are still some that aren’t up there because they are too big or they are in use around the house. Yes I have a lot of pin cushions)
I’ll leave you with the view out my studio window of my back yard. I like to tell myself that I’m supporting the bee and butterfly population by leaving the back 3 acres unmowed, but honestly it’s because I’d rather be in sewing than out mowing. This time of year the wild flowers are starting and I already have some wonderful Indian Paintbrush blooming and giving it color.
If you are wanting to keep up with the blog hop, below is a list of all the participants along with the date of their post. If you get behind, no worries at all, you can always go back and check out a post after their date. I hope we can all enjoy the virtual tours, and learn some things about how others manage their studios!
April 1 – Sam Hunter – http://www.hunterdesignstudio.com
April 2 – Marian Pena – http://www.seamstobesew.com
April 3 – Jennifer Fulton – http://www.inquiringquilter.com/questions
April 4 – Martha Wolf – http://Www.pinwheelprodns.com
April 5 – Jennifer Strauser – http://www.dizzyquilter.com
April 6 – Steph Carton – http://www.theelimonster.com/blog
April 7 – Simone Fisher – http://www.simonequilts.com/blog
April 8 – Kate Colleran – http://www.seamslikeadream.com
April 9 – Carlina Moore – http://www.alwaysexpectmoore.com
April 10 – Jen Frost – http://www.faithandfabricdesign.com/blog
April 11 – Leanne Parsons – http://www.devotedquilter.com
April 12 – Becca Fenstermaker – http://www.prettypiney.com/blog
April 13 – Sarah Myers – http://www.quilted-diary.com
April 14 – Mitzi Redd – http://www.reddhomestead.com
April 15 – Jeanette Larson – http://www.Jenonthefarm.com
April 16 – Camille Ainsworth – http://www.stitchinthenw.com
April 17 – Becky Philips Jorgenson – http://www.patchworkposse.com
April 18 – Bobbie Gentili – http://www.geekybobbin.com/category/blog
April 19 – Janellea Macbeth – http://www.janelleamacbeth.com/blog/
April 20 – Lisa Ruble – http://lovetocolormyworld.blogspot.com
April 21 – Debra Davis – http://www.tuning-my-heart.com/blog
April 22 – Rona Herman – http://www.Ronatheribbiter.com
April 23 – Sue Griffiths – http://www.duckcreekmountainquilting.com
April 24 – Sarah Ruiz- http://www.saroy.net/
April 25 – Jessica Caldwell – http://www.desertbloomquilting.com/
April 26 – Tammy Silvers – http://tamarinis.typepad.com
April 27 – Ebony Love – http://www.lovebugstudios.com/blog
April 28 – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com
