Beware of what you ask for!

The painted cupboard is one of my favorite pieces of furniture we own. We bought it a long time ago, when we could ill afford a "designer" piece of furniture. I just had to have it though, and I wish all my furniture could be in this style, whatever you might call it. It holds a television on the top, which I occasionally turn on while I am sewing, and mostly use for the satellite music channels when not using my Mac's Itunes. The grandkids generally watch their videos and kids TV channels in this room, too.

The bottom part used to house a stereo, but now it holds all my computer software and my genealogy books and papers.


This is the most recent quilt my buddy and I have made for a Cancer Action auction (in October). We finished it up this afternoon, and we're pretty pleased about it. I think we work well together - I took the handles to Rochester MN with us, and worked on that part while there, and she worked on the baskets during that time here. She had more work to do, for sure, since she also did the sashings and the 9 patches, but then she had a bit more time (I think) than I did. Last Sunday we got together and worked on putting the top together, and got about 75% of the basket blocks together. Today we worked on the rest. She finished up the top, while I worked on the pre-border sewing and the backing. She'll be taking it to the Iowa quilter we use this next week, and when it returns in August, I'll put the binding on.

We actually combined two different patterns, because we liked the smaller size of these baskets with a curved handle, but liked the triple sashing of another pattern. We sure didn't have much fabric left over from the calculations - less than 1/4 yard of the blue and the red, so that's a good thing. When we purchase new fabric for a project, we always hold our breath when we are trying to make sure we have enough, and that didn't leave much room for even one cutting error!


WARNING!! WARNING!! WARNING!!
The following is not for the faint of heart!
In an effort to make sure I don't give the wrong impression here, I am going to post something I never thought I would share with ANYONE! All I think I've ever shown on this blog is a tidy stewdio, a tidy yard, a tidy garden and tidy quilts. Someone asked in the last post about where's my junk?

JUNQUE? Well, I have plenty of it to spare and to share, but it's carefully hidden away, of course. B e w a r e (cue the spooky music) on your journey to the dark underbelly of my stewdio!

First, you will always find a pile of it, sitting patiently by the door, waiting to be escorted downstairs. (Judy and Libby, the place you will be going to is called a basement in Kansas.)

And don't think you can ride the chair assist to go downstairs, either! The JUNQUE has priority seating! It seems there's always something waiting to go. It can't leave the station until the balcony and lower levels are both full, you know.


EEEEKKKKK!!!!! Dark Shadows abound!
It does help to turn on a light, but I gotta tell you that it's getting harder and harder to even get to the switch!

Wait a minute...is this stuff coming or going ... or going or coming? Who knows anymore. There's some of Mother's things I brought back from her apartment, there's some Christmas wrappings from last year, there's some of this year's future Christmas presents, and of course, fabric. Bags of fabric, baskets of fabric, boxes of fabric, crates of fabric, and anything that will hold fabric will have fabric inside.

You are now looking at the west side of what I call the Mezzanine level as you go down to the bottom of the stairs. Some of this stuff has been brought in and out of here several times over the last year, too. Oh, and of course, while you are there, you can always do a couple of sets of crunches on the exercise ball, too:)


The other side of the Mezzanine will show you just a bit of the custom cupboards that were made to hold....what else...fabric when we moved here about 8 years ago. And they do. But, you know, the floor just holds more and it's easier to see, right? The Inspira quilt frame was a good idea at the time (another long story). It's been been used exactly one time. Know anyone who might want or need a nice 5' frame that expands to 10? It holds ANY sewing machine sideways to let you quilt (on three rolls) easily. Let's talk. It would certainly make my hubby happy to have more room. But who are we kidding here? You know it would make me sad not to have a place to hang fabric to audition it for the next project!

So there you have it, Elaine! Be careful of what you ask for, be VERY careful! HA! (And for those of you will ask - and I know you will - the lamp on the floor is NOT plugged in for me to see the fabrics better, it's just on it's way in...or is that out?)

Time to contemplate

I was on one of my favorite "waste time and money" web sites, Etsy, and I found Allison Strine's page (her username is allisonstrine). I swam around with her a while, and noticed that one of the things listed in her profile is "Favorite Materials". So I just had to ask her how the heck did she use Necco wafers in her work? Here is her reply:

Necco wafers - they go in my mouth. MMmmmm! You've been working with too many new media if you want to add candy in! hee heee!
I guess it's really time to stop playing around with my glop and goo and get back to the business of cleaning and contemplating. So, I've put away everything in it's proper place and cleaned up the stewdio to get busy on unfinished projects that are nibbling at my brain.

In the meantime, I've got some napkins to iron, so it's a good time to contemplate what's going on....do you do that, too? Ironing is a nice activity. No pressure, and quick results. Napkins are about the only thing I iron anymore, though.

I've been contemplating moving my mother's small table downstairs to the apartment. Well, what used to be her apartment before she moved to the retirement center. This is the view looking to the west in my stewdio. The table is right in front of my sewing area.


And this is the view when you walk into the stewdio, looking southwest.


I've kept it here in my studio for about 2 months, now, and hubby keeps telling me it's time to move it so I can have more room. I love this table, and it seems that it draws me to sit at it and write notes, draw pictures, look at magazines, and play with pictures. I've got a lovely desk, but it doesn't do this for me. I've got a lot of space at my new sewing table, but I don't think it does this for me either. So, what's with this table?

I didn't grow up with this table, and it really has no sentimental value to it, either. It wasn't my mother's until we moved it to her new retirement apartment. It used to belong to a mother-in-law of one of my friends before she was moved to an Alzheimers Unit. The near coincidental timing is a bit uncanny, as it is the only size table that would have fit in the corner in my mother's new apartment. It's such an unusual size at 38" square, with two leaves to add to make it a full banquet size rectangle.

I think it will stay here in this room a while longer. It's so heavy that I need to get my son and another friend to move it, so that's an easy answer for now. I might move it across the room next to the design wall and see how it lives there. Here's the veew of that wall - looking to the north in the room. It would sit where the ironing board is leaning now.



Now, I am back to ironing those napkins, and planning my next quilting move. I think it will probably be to finish up Everything but the Kitchen Sink with the 1930's reproductions.