Classic

After the Spring Clean

Martha
Quilting

This weekend I participated in the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog hop. Actually I’ve been working on the big clean for about 2 weeks. I got about 80% of the work done that I wanted, but with my date early in April, I needed to get what I could done and post on time. I have really been enjoying what feels like a completely new studio. I can imagine my mother smiling because of how neat the room is, although I will admit to a little bit of what she called “on the top pinky, underneath stinky” – if you open a lot of those bins and drawers they are still pure chaos. At least I can move around in the room and I can easily cut and iron without having to shuffle things around. I’m going to work hard to keep it this way.

With all the stuff that has been going on lately, I have more evenings with no commitments. I’m focusing on time at home (my dog is thrilled, the cat not so much) and finding myself sewing in the studio a lot more during the week than usual. I have dived into the Bonnie Hunter Unity Quilt project with my center medallion done. I can’t wait to see what she has for us this week for the next round. If you want to join in, go to www.quiltville.com and look for the Unity Quilt tab. You can also follow the hashtag #unityquilt to see some of the lovely things that are being created.

I keep reminding myself during this time to be kind to others, be kind to myself, be supportive, and learn how to keep my mouth shut. I’ll just keep sewing, that’s the best thing I can do. I hope you all stay safe and healthy – I’m know I’m going to have a lot of things to quilt when this is all over.

If you’d like to keep up with the Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop – here is the schedule and links to all of them. Take a virtual tour of a lot of studios this month!

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

Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop!

Martha
Quilting

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

Spring Cleaning is HERE!

Martha
Quilting

I’ve teamed up with a bunch of quilters on line to do a Spring Clean Your Studio Blog Hop! Starting April 1, every day a different quilter will post on their blog before and after photos of spring cleaning, discuss their favorite parts of their studio, things they’d like to change, and some tips for keeping ahead of the clutter.

I’m scheduled for April 4, so I will have an out of sequence post on a Saturday, but I will publicize it the Monday afterwards as well. I will also be posting the list of participating blogs so that you can visit other blogs to see what they are doing. If you are on on social media, follow the hash tag #springcleanyourstudio2020 and #springcleanyourstudiobloghop to keep up with what folks are doing

This is a great opportunity to follow along, get to see a lot of different sewing spaces and maybe tackle your own studio in the process. I hope you join us!

Interesting Times

Martha
Life

I saw this post on line earlier in the week. I don’t know if it’s really by First Lady Coolidge or not, what struck me was the words in the post. The last half especially, about taking up a needle has provided me with stability in difficult times.

This approach has been used multiple times over. At the end of world war 1, soldiers with shell shock (what we would now call PTSD) were successfully treated using sewing and knitting as a stabilizing therapy. At the end of the 19th century, sewing was used to treat emotional disorders in women. More recently I have read multiple articles on how knitting and sewing are good for brain health and help people live longer lives. I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but for me these articles have always resonated deeply with me.

In times of great distress, sewing or knitting does several things for me. First of all, the repetitive motions associated with both are calming, much like a form of physical meditation. Second, I am creating something, which gives me a feeling of control. Some times a feeling of control in times when there is little control to be had.

We are now in the middle of figuring out social distancing for the COVID-19 outbreak in the US. There is a meme on facebooks that introverts have been preparing for this moment their whole lives, and I have to giggle – so have quilters and knitters. I have enough yarn and fabric to keep me busy for MONTHS. I also have patterns and projects in work and ideas galore.

I know this is a difficult time for many. I am approaching this the only way I know how. I am being careful with the things I do and the people I am around, and I am trying to find the silver lining in the cancelled events as they mean more time at home to sew and knit. Hopefully I can get a couple of things completed as the world works through this and we can get back to a more familiar life as we know it. I’d also like to think that I will use this break to reset my hectic schedule too, to gain more time to slow down and wield my needles, but I’ve said that before and life always takes over. I need to take this opportunity to slow down. I hope you can do the same.

Little Steps to Big Progress

Martha
Quilting

The cover photo to this post may not look like much, but it’s the hanging sleeve going on my quilt for the Dallas Quilt Show. The quilt has to be dropped off on Wednesday, March 11, and this photo was NOT taken Tuesday night at midnight.

Most of my life, I have managed deadlines by waiting til the very last minute, then burning the midnight oil. This is not a good plan for a number of reasons, obviously, but I never seemed to be able to get myself in gear earlier than the night before something was due.

A few years ago I started to notice a shift, and this past year it’s really been noticeable to me that my planning skills and execution are getting better and better. I’m doing things well ahead of my deadlines, and leaving myself time to adjust and handle unexpected bumps in the process. So here is my show quilt, and it’s Saturday and I’m putting on the sleeve rather that late Tuesday night.

I really wish the rest of this blog post could tell you what fantastic tips and process I have used to effect this change, but honestly I’m not really sure how I came to make the change. I’m keeping my calendar and my lists the same way I always have done. Looking really closely at what I’m doing, the only thing I can put my finger on is that I’m getting much better about not getting distracted by bright shiny projects on the way. I’ve noticed I’m able to tell myself that I realize something is very appealing but I have something else I need to finish first. Who knew this old dog could learn such a useful new trick. I need to get better at planning out my blog posts next!

Doing the Dishes – the mundane tasks in life

Martha
Life, Quilting

One of the great disappointments of adult life, is that absolutely everything you do has two parts – one the great fun, and one the mundane maintenance. Like doing the dishes. I love to cook, but it makes dishes. Lots of dirty dishes. I love having a variety of clothes to wear but wearing clothes makes for lots of laundry.

Sewing is no different at all. Sewing anything means cutting stuff out, which I hate, and cleaning up the sewing room when I’m done, which I also hate. Oh and don’t get me started on ironing. I tolerate all these things, and do them somewhat grudgingly because I enjoy the primary activity enough to make it worth while.

The last couple months, I have been metaphorically doing the dishes on my website. A friend helped me do a major overhaul, pulling out things that I don’t use, cleaning up stuff that has broken, and fixing really weird stuff like how the header would insist on staying on the screen as you scrolled down. I couldn’t figure that one out at all.

You, my dear Reader, will probably really not notice much difference at all, other than that stuff WORKS correctly now, but it took rather a chunk of time and effort to get it to that point. I know going forward that I will have to do the dishes on the website regularly to keep working smoothly, that’s just part and parcel of having a blog and website. It feels pretty darned good to have this done. It’s like after a long weekend, getting the kitchen cleaned up to where I only have one or two things to clean makes it seem so much easier.

In all things, I am learning that keeping up with the dishes as you go is much easier than doing nothing for 3 days and having a Mt. Everest of dirty dishes to over come. I know this but putting it into practice is tricky. I do tend to procrastinate (I know. You are all shocked. Thank you for that.) so I have to push myself to do just 5 minutes worth now, so that I don’t have 5 hours worth later.

So in life. Keep doing the dishes. Do them often. Keep up. Everything has dishes.

Gaining Focus

Martha
Life, productivity

I’m one of those people who wants to try and do just about every single form of fiber arts available on the planet. I’m sure when we finally meet aliens, I will want to try their fiber arts too. I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. I will seen what friends are doing, or see an article on line, or something in a book and my hands literally twitch wanting to feel how that process works.

I know I am in good company in this, I have a lot of friends who are multi-craftual. A lot of quilters also knit or crochet. I have a couple of friends who are weavers. Believe me, that is a rabbit hole, down which I am DESPERATE to fall, but it takes up space in my house and time out of my schedule. It’s not just crafts, it’s music and games too.

There is so much out there in the world and I want to do it all. The problem is I am bound by the fact that we live on earth, a planet which has 24 hours in a single rotation, and I am a human being so I require 8 hours sleep a night (long long gone are the days when I could get by on only 2 or 3 hours sleep) and in order to pay for all of this stuff I have to keep a job which takes a minimum of 45 hours every week. All of this leaves me very little precious time in which to do the things I want to do. So this means I have to make choices, and limit myself.

I am binary when it comes to time management. I can always get myself ready and plan for traffic and be on time for things and I ALWAYS plan too many things. I get over committed and even though I get it all done, I end up tired and worn out. I need to figure out how to manage a sweet spot where I do enough to keep my hands and my brain engaged, but not so much that I can’t keep up and things start falling by the wayside.

I am taking a long hard look at this year, and I am realizing that there are a handful of things, that I really enjoy, but that are too difficult to keep up and I need to cut back. I don’t want to do that but I know it’s the right thing to do. So decisions have to be made, then it’s off to the sewing room to work on a myriad of projects. It’s nearly faire season again, which means all kinds of garment sewing for a bit. More on that in another post.

When there’s not enough time in the day

Martha
Technology

I keep making the joke that I need to live on a planet that has more hours in the day. Between my job, and keeping the house going, and taking care of myself and the pets, there are days when the time I have left to sew a few and far between. I try to always have something ready to hand sew if I’m not in a position to spend time at my machine, but there are days when I wish I could just throw it all out the window and just go sew.

Yes this is a Monday blog post which means I had a whole weekend which should mean I had time to sew but there were things to do and scheduled events and I find myself on Sunday night (really late, technically I guess it’s Monday morning) and I’m writing a post while I wait for some things at work to happen. That in itself is an exercise in waiting, but I need to be at my computer, not at my sewing machine.

I keep trying to figure out how to squeeze more time out of my day, how to be more organized, how to make all the ideas that are crammed in my head, and more seem to show up on a regular basis. I have gone through periods where my creativity was at rock bottom so I’m glad my brain is coming up with new ideas, I just don’t have any time to work them out. I’m not complaining. I’d much rather have a wealth of ideas and no time, than all the time and zero motivation. I’d just like to figure out how to find a spot somewhere in the middle.

Making Something Out of Nothing

Martha
Life, Quilting

One of the things I have always loved about quilting is how a whole lot of stuff comes together to make a lovely quilt. Thanks to a group who loves swaps, I have really come to appreciate the really scrappy quilt. We have exchanged a lot of things: hourglass blocks, 5″ squares, log cabin blocks, lots of stuff – and since a number of people have been involved in the swaps, the stack of stuff I get back tends to be a very random, unrelated stack of things.

The last few years, my eye has been drawn to really scrappy quilts. I’m using patterns that focus on the contrast between light and dark more than a specific color or style of fabric. I have been cutting up my stash (that’s a long term effort for sure) and more and more, I am finding fabrics that on their own, don’t go with anything, but when cut up fit right into my scrap quilts

I am also noticing, while working on several projects at the same time, that there is a whole lot of chaos and nothing for a long time, then all of a sudden there are blocks that can be sewn together as a top. I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching all of the chaos and destruction of my cutting table suddenly coalesce into a stack of blocks that are enough to make a quilt. This is the one and only are of my life, where my effort directly translates into taming the insanity and creating something good. I seem to really need that a lot of late.

One of my projects is a quilt made up of 256 6″ squares with a circle appliquéd on each one. When I started it was a stack of pretty fat quarters in a plastic box. Then it was a stack of circles cut out and a stack of squares. I’m about half way through the applique process and all of a sudden I have a box of finished blocks and I can now start to see what the finished quilt is going to look like. It’s so exciting to see it start to come together.

Another project is 169 6″ pineapple blocks. So far I have 26 completed, but that’s enough to see my happy little stacks coming together and I can see the promise of that project coming together even though there is a long road of strip cutting and piecing ahead of me.

I know no matter what all happens out there in the world, I can continue to make something out of nothing happen in my sewing room.

When Quilting Goes Wrong, Have a Ripping Good Time

Martha
Quilting

There is a running joke about me and seam rippers. I even have a mini quilt on the wall, made by a dear friend, that is a paper pieced seam ripper. I hate to rip. I will do a lot of things to avoid ripping. That being said, there are times when it is just necessary and I have to suck it up and do what is right.

I tried a new design on the long arm over the holiday. I have wanted to do a nice Baptist Fan for ages, and I got a design and gave it a whirl. I need to note that this is a tricky pattern, as the rows have to nest exactly for it to look right and in 14 years of owning a long arm I have never been successful at doing this.

It was with great trepidation and excitement that I got a pattern and of course, started it off on an important quilt, not on a practice quilt. I’m not sure what is wrong, but it wouldn’t sew off. Keeps saying there’s an obstruction and it stops. I think somehow it’s a combination of the speed of the machine and the long sweeping arcs of the pattern because the error always happens on the outermost two bands of each fan. EVERY TIME. Oh my lamb chops, I was tearing my hair out. One third of the way in to the first row, I realized that I was not going to be able to figure this out right now, and that this wasn’t the quilt to do the figuring on. So I started over using a design that I know my machine loves to sew out and it went without a single hitch (which is another sign that it’s something with that design, not a problem with my machine alone).

So now I have a completely quilted quilt, with 1/3 of the first row that includes a badly formed baptist fan. Heavy sigh as I contemplate the seam ripper. I spent 4 hours last night sitting in my big chair with the TV on while I painstakingly removed the quilting stitch by stitch. I know for me it is much easier to do that when I can manipulate the quilt instead of leaving it on the farm and picking it out there, but what a nightmare. I’m probably about 75% of the way done picking out just that 1/3 of a row, but it will be so worth it. I keep telling myself that over and over.

I’m going to have to go back with something that matters far less and try to figure out what is wrong with the fan design. When I just trace the pattern (computer only, no needle running) it traces fine, so I suspect that the speed is too great on the longest arcs, so the needle drags just enough to make the machine think it has hit an obstruction so it throws an error. I have some ideas on how to counter act that problem but it’s going to take some practical testing to figure that out.

This hits the big question in my quilting life. I want it to be easy. I don’t want to have to test on 3 different quilts to figure out exactly how I have to hold my mouth to sew this pattern off. On the other hand, knowing how to combat this behavior for a pattern with long arcs that could move too fast would be really useful knowledge. I need to suck it up and do this but I need to do some research first so I have some clue of what I’m doing. In the mean time, I still have a lot of ripping to do…..

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