Home Improvement – Hip To Piece Squares

07Aug 2013

re-re-arranging

I’m constantly trying to rearrange my sewing room. I tend to think that I can never find a perfect setup because the room is small, but logically I know it’s just because I have a lot of stuff. But, since I’m not getting rid of anything major anytime soon, a reorganization was necessary.

My sewing machine table is, for me, the best part of the room. Not only does it house the actual machine, but my husband, Ben built it for me with his mad woodworking skills. It’s even got cherry inlays on the top to look patchwork like! The problem, however, has been where I can put the table comfortably in my space, without sucking space away from my large cutting table that takes up one whole wall when completely opened. Before, it sat at a 90° angle from the cutting table, and I felt like it wasted a ton of space in the corner. Now I’ve got my sewing machine across the room for the cutting table (with my small sewing machine set up in one corner of that) and my small ironing board in between on the third wall.

There’s not really much room on the fourth wall. The closet takes up most of that space, and due to our house’s original furnace chimney that snakes up behind the wall next to the closet, the remaining part of the wall has an extra corner that’s not very useful. On that wall, I placed two sliding drawer bins that I use for fabric storage for pieces that are less than 1/2 yard cuts.

For cuts of fabric that are at least a 1/2 yard, I store them in Ben’s childhood bookcase. Five of the shelves are tall enough to use comic book cards to wrap my fabric and the top shelf I use for leftovers. I’m actually at a problem here, because 1.) I’ve run out of comic book cards and 2.) there is no more room anywhere on the shelves to put anymore fabric. I have a pile of fabric that won’t go anywhere else, so for the time being, it’s going to camp out of=n my cutting table. Maybe I’ll cut it up, maybe I won’t. I sometimes wish that I could make the bookcase a little larger, but it fits well there, and I probably shouldn’t buy much more fabric until I use what I have anyway.

cat. comes with the room reorganization whether I like it or not.

Also, I can’t find a place to put the cat. I should work on that next.

11Jan 2011

a little better

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 6 Comments

Organization, you are a cruel temptress.

It still looks messy to me, but I think this is much better than where I was at this weekend. There’s still too much stuff stuck in one small room, but I have to admit, as much as I think I’d like a light, airy space, I love having everything at my fingertips, shouting colors and patterns at me while I work. It keeps me on my toes.

If you came over to visit, I wouldn’t open the closet for you. Just saying. But everything else isn’t too bad–the fabric is put away, notions are in their spots and the floor is even pretty clean. I was even able to keep my Nana’s rock table set up (and mostly clutter free) and I’m very happy about that.

Now…can I keep it this way for longer than a week?

08Jan 2011

reworking the mess

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 3 Comments

I’m trying to take a sewing break for the weekend so that I can get a few things accomplished in my sewing room. For the past few months I’ve been so busy working to get things ready for shows and Christmas that I’ve neglected keeping up my sewing room. It’s time now to get things back in order.

Oh my. I’m so frustrated with the set up in here right now. I moved my cutting table to where is presently is this fall so that I could open it up the full length, but I’ve never been happy with where I have it.

Last year I inherited the small table in the bottom left of the above picture from my Nana. It’s made from a collection of pretty rocks and was made by another member of my dad’s family. It’s one of those things that I admired in my Nana’s house as a child, and was promised that I could have later on in life.

As much as I love having it, there’s just no place for it in my house. I felt I needed to put it out somewhere, but other than my sewing room, it just doesn’t fit. When I put it here in the room, I had to reorganize the way I had things set up, and I just haven’t been happy with it ever since.

My goal for the rest of the weekend (and before I start on anything else, including binding the machine quilted quilt) is to finish and fix this mess of a problem. I love having a sewing room, but this isn’t helping me be creative at all. It’s just a headache.

16Aug 2005

New Kitchens are Good

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 5 Comments

Look at all the goodness our new kitchen has produced! I made these yesterday for my sewing group and I don’t think anything I’ve ever baked has turned out this good. (I’m a terrible cook!) Mmmm.
We’re just about finished with the renovation. There’s still trim to be put up, I have to make a curtain for the slider door, and in place of our old pantry we still have to install two cabinets and a countertop for a mail cubby that we’re planning on putting in. But overall, we’re so excited to have a working kitchen again that’s not only functioning again, but also pleasing to be in.
Here’s a look at the before and afters of the room:
East Wall, Before
Before: East Wall of Kitchen

East Wall, After

North Wall, Before

North Wall, After

Southwest Corner, Before

Southwest Corner, After

I’m still kind of in awe when I walk in and see everything. I was starting to get used to that panneling. (HAHA!)

20Jul 2005

Softies and Sewing

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 7 Comments

Say Hi To Eddie!

I’m happy to say, I have finally created a softie to submit to A Month of Softies. I’ve been wanting to do this for months, and I just haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. I’m really pleased with my first attempt.
Now on to quilting! I’ve been trying to decide on my color scheme for my Eclipse quilt, and I think I’ve decided on red, pink, yellow and orange. Here’s Fun Quilt’s version first:
Fun Quilts: Eclipse

Here’s some of the fabrics I have pulled up so far:
Eclipse Fabric

I’m just not sure how I’m going to work this though. I want this project to be as much about making the right fabric choices as the quality of my quilting. I think my fabric is really going to be lacking in the lighter hues, especially in the reds and oranges. Does anyone have any good tips for me, or would be willing to do some fabric swaping for some of those lighter colors? Let me know.
And since my kitchen is still taking up the majority of my life lately, (it’s so cool to see everything starting to look like a real kitchen!) here’s another look at the same wall that I showed in the last post. We have cabinets, a microwave, and a fridge that isn’t in the living room anymore! It’s so exciting!
It's A Real Kitchen!

15Jul 2005

No Time To Sleep

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 2 Comments

I’ve been meaning to update for days now, and I’m finally going to sit down and do it. We have been so busy this month, and I’ve had so little time to do anything quilt related. Ben and I have spent most evenings and late nights for the past several weeks hanging drywall, plastering, painting, scraping and laying tile in our kitchen. We gutted the whole thing, and turned an awful, ugly, once covered completly in nasty wood panneling into a halfway decent room!
Here’s before:

Here’s the same wall now:
Becoming Less Barf Like!

The cabinets just came in today, and tomorrow night we’ll hang all of the uppers. I’m so excited to have a kitchen again! Do you have any idea how much of a freak it makes you look like to have your fridge sit in the middle of your living room? It’s bad.
And so after that’s all finished, I’m looking forward to finally going back to quilting full force. I haven’t worked on my wedding quilt in weeks; it’s been impossible to with all of our other work, plus with the heat here in Michigan this summer. And since I love starting new projects, I’ve signed myself up to participate in Dioramarama’s Modern Quilt-Along! I’m so excited! I wish I could spend the money splurge this month on The Modern Quilt Workshop, but with all of our kitchen expenses right now I think I’ll hold off. I’ll instead be working on the Eclipse quilt. I love piecing curves, but I usually piece by hand and I think I might go ahead and try this one on the machine. I’m looking at this project as a chance to improve my machine skills, as well as make a cool quilt. I’m still thinking about colors, but I’d like to try to do a mix of both solids and prints. I have a lot of fabrics that I’d love to use, and haven’t had a use for yet, so I may be able to find a home for it in this project. There’s still a lot to think about!
And before the month is up, I really want to find the time to participate in Loobylu’s A Month of Softies. This month’s theme is Sock Monkeys! How freaking cool is that! Now I just have to find time to make one….

26Apr 2005

Let’s Make A Trade

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 3 Comments

Okay, here’s a question. Last Thursday was my birthday, and my in-laws gave me a new quilting book. Unfortunatly, I already own it, and it’s not returnable. Here’s what I’m thinking though: If anyone is interested in trading me either a book, fabric, or just goodies of any kind, I’d be willing to give away my book. It’s the Encyclopedia of Classic Quilt Patterns. If you’re interested, let me know and maybe we can work out a trade.
I wish I had some new, exciting work to show you all about, but recently I’ve just been out of it. Between feeling lousy from allergies, having crappy weather bum me out, and realizing today is my 2 year anniversary of graduating from college and still not doing what I had planned on doing, I’ve not gotten much of anything done. I’m hoping to have the rest of the Wedding Quilt done by the end of May (mainly so I don’t have to work on it during the summer months in a house with no air conditioning!) and I had thought that I’d have no problem with that timeline, but everytime I sit down to quilt lately, I’m just not able to get much done. It’s making me feel so lazy–I hate it!
We have started a major project in the house though. We began working on our kitchen renovation, and it already looks different. The previous owners of the house loved wood panneling, even in the kitchen. Two of the four walls were panneled, along with the cabinets. We took down all of the panneling on the walls (not on the cabinets, since those are all just going to come down in one big piece) and Ben took down the drywall on one wall. We’re replacing drywall on both of the walls that will have cabinets on them in the final project. It’s been a huge mess though–our stove is sitting in the middle of the kitchen, there’s dust everywhere, wires haning out of an unfinished wall, and scummy, dirty walls that they hung panneling over without cleaning first–yuck!

Isn’t that yellow awful?!? It smelled so very, very badly when the panneling revealed those walls. It’s going to be a long couple of months, while we wait and piece the kitchen together ourselves. We’re looking forward to what all of our hard work gets us, but ugh–it’s not the greatest now!
A Work In Progress

21Oct 2004

Finally!

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 4 Comments

It’s taken weeks to get there, but I finally figured out how to finish quilting the Granny Quilt. I started a pinwheel sort of design in the four corner spot that I was having so much trouble with. The template is just the same as the lemon shaped pieces in the quilt, cut in half and rotated on the same side of each square, like this:

So the cool thing with this is when several of the blocks are done this way, it gives it a distorted Apple Core pattern feeling to it, like this:
Looks Neat, Doesn't It?

(Sorry about the crappy picture)
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it at first, but I think it’s going to look a lot better once the whole thing is done. Either way, it looks better to me than having nothing in that space. Without it, it just looked like I had forgotten to finish that section. Now I just have to worry about actually getting it done!
Oh, and here’s my new kitchen door:
New Door

It’s nice now, but I freaked out pretty bad when this was the sight in my kitchen:
Holy Crap, There's A Six Foot Hole In My Kitchen!

Needless to say, I was pretty happy when I had a wall again.

17Sep 2004

Inching Closer To Finishing

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 3 Comments

No, I’m not ignoring the world of blogs, I’m actually working on projects! We’ve just about finished the room renovation–I’ve got curtains to make and Ben is finishing some trim up. It’s so nice to have a sewing room that I actually enjoy being in from time to time.
See? It’s pretty nice now, compared to earlier!

And yes, I do collect and have a slight obsession with yellow rubber ducks. That’s a small number of ducks on display compared to what my college apartment looked like.
And more good project news! I’ve finished piecing together Granny’s Quilt, and I’ve started quilting it. It’s very approprate, since a lot of the prints are the 1930’s repoduction fabric (I love that stuff). I even used one of the repo prints for the back fabric. It took me a while to figure out how I would quilt the bad boy, but I think I’ve come up with an interesting, and not too over the top way to do it. Now if I can just finish it up by the time Christmas rolls around.
Granny's Quilt

The number of projects for Christmas is growing, but I’m not allowed to share them all here. I know who reads this blog! You people don’t fool me!

08Sep 2004

Procrastination, But It’s Not My Fault!

by Sarah Minshall ⋅ 3 Comments

I really, really wanted to get my latest quilt project pieced by now. I had been moving along on it really well, when we had to start a new project. The difference? This one’s house related.
To describe the condition of my house, one must think back to the days when pressed wood panneling looked nice in homes. Oh wait, that was never. This winter we pulled down the gray panneling in our office (what an awful job, since it was glued to the walls and pulled the drywall down with it) and now we’re doing our guestroom/sewing room. Lucky for us, the panneling wasn’t glued on in this room, but we still have to patch plaster all the holes in the walls and ceiling from nails and screws, before we’re able to paint and move back in. It also means that the only other woody room in my house is the kitchen. Oh, how I long for the day that we’re able to afford new cabinets that aren’t panneled.
Here’s a recent scene from the work in my soon to be nice looking sewing room:

But on the other hand, I still have more done with this quilt than I had planned to by this time. The first four rows have been pieced together completely, and it has only taken me about an hour to sew each row on. I’m hoping the room will be finished in a few more days, so I’ll be able to work on this again for more than five minutes at a time. I’d really like to have this finished by Christmas though, since I’d like to give it to Granny for a Christmas/January birthday gift for her. I never seem to be able to hit my deadlines lately though. I need to get better at it by the time my next wedding quilt is due next year.
I really had hoped to have this done by now:
Waiting On The Couch For Me To Finish

I’m still waiting for my quilt rack. I’ll be sure to post a picture of it when it gets here.

Category Archives: Home Improvement