Fabric, Fabric, and More Fabric!

Unfortunately, I haven't been very creative lately. A lot of my free time is being consumed by gardening and exercise. I've been walking several times a week with my friend Kathy. One of the perks of my job is a personal trainer that comes to our office one day a week. Sloane is young, sweet, gorgeous, and an exercise fanatic. She is helping me become more fit . . . no easy feat. I have always been the artistic, not athletic type. So far, I've lost 6 pounds but I still have a long way to go!

Kathy and I have been fabric shopping. I own a wall full of fabric and certainly don't need any more, but that doesn't seem to stop me. The Treasure Hunt is having a going out of business sale and I scored some lovely batiks.

I've already used some of the striped batik on the left. The project isn't quite finished yet, so you'll have to wait a little while to see it.

Color is probably the number one thing that attracts me, but the texture is usually the deciding factor. The fabric above on the left and below second one in from right are not colors I generally use, but the textures were so interesting, I couldn't resist. I always keep an eye out for interesting black fabrics and very light fabrics.

Here's a few more fabrics that I bought at the Seven Sisters Quilt show this past weekend. I generally buy 1 yard of each, so the stash takes up quite a bit of space. Whenever I start a new project, I find everything I need in my own stash. If I don't have the right color, I'll change it by adding paint, dye stick or ink.

Studio Remodel

Yeah, I'm getting a new sewing table on Friday. I currently have my sewing machine on top of a desk. The storage in this desk is wonderful but my shoulders and neck get pretty tense when sewing/quilting for for an extended period of time. I'm hoping that having the sewing surface flush with the cabinet will help this problem.

It's never as simple as replacing one piece of furniture, is it? Of course not! I measured everything, drew a floor plan and rearranged until I had the perfect layout. It took me most of the weekend to move everything out, organize, and move it back in.

My space is more open and friendly and best of all . . . my back is not to the door. I tend to get really involved while I'm working and don't hear people coming in, so I get scared a lot. Not any more, or at least not as much (I hope).

I know I have a lot of stuff and I really Love all my stuff, well, most of it anyways. I've purchased some really ugly fabric over the years and have no idea why. What was I thinking? Well, I'm going to clear all of that out of here. I'm sure somebody, somewhere will LOVE it!

You can see most of the fabric wall in this photo, each rolled up piece is at least one yard. The larger pieces are in the closet, which are also being rolled up. This was taken before everything was put away. It's much neater now.Here's a close up of my fabric wall. The fabric is rolled up, jelly roll style, tied and stored on end. This wall of fabric always makes a BIG impression with visitors.The oak unit is packed with one-half yard pieces of fabric. Each drawer holds a different color and the large drawer on the bottom has a lot of hand painted/dyed/discharged fabric. The plastic drawer unit also has fabric and stabilizers and there are more bins under the table!
As you can probably tell I have a lot of stuff! After my trip to the LA garment district in January, I'm going to stay out of stores that sell fabric, beads or yarn, as much as possible. I can't fit any more in here and I certainly can't use it all in my lifetime.

More Shopping!

Another shopping trip with my friend Kathy, north this time. We went to several stores, asking for donations for the Coastal Quilters Guild challenge "Lights! Camera! Action!". I'm sure we spent twice as much money as we received in gift certificates!
I'm pretty sure I needed a couple of these items and some were such a good deal, I couldn't pass it up. I had a coupon for the sewing machine feet, Buy two, get one free, so I did! I bought the Open Toe Free Motion Spring Foot, Edge Stitching Foot and the Chenille Stitching Foot. I have quite the collection of feet now.

I need the corner marker tool to get the Ricky Timms binding to work right. And my hands are dying of heat exhaustion in the quilting gloves I've been using. A friend told me the Machingers gloves breathe. I'll let you know. I cannot find the Tsukineko ink locally, so had to get that too!

Here's my justification for the fabric. Black is my neutral, it makes all colors POP, and good light fabric is hard to find, so you need to buy it whenever you see it. The others had good texture!

These two are special! I love it when the fabric changes throughout the width. There are two fabrics here, the black line shows the separation. The fabric on the bottom starts as yellow and changes to purple at the other end. The fabric on the top has the different skies. Had to get these! Don't you agree?

Artist's Muse Challenge

The chapter 4 challenge from the Artist's Muse Yahoo group is finished!
The challenge was to cut 12 fabrics into irregular shapes and place them randomly onto a base with fusible web and iron. Then stencil and/or paint on the surface as desired. I followed the guidelines up to the shapes being ironed, then I took a turn.
The piece looked nice, but it was too flat for me. I decided to add some pieces of painted dryer sheets, baby wipes, recycled thread bunches and yarn. I put a layer of Solvy on top and stitched it all down. After dissolving, I decided to stitch more layers on top.

I really LOVE it, it reminds me of the ocean. But, I still wondered if it needed something else. I cut out a palm tree and placed on top. It looked good, but I decided it was beautiful by itself and could stand on its own as a piece of art. I am going to paint a canvas blue and stitch the piece on top.

Do you think I should add beads?

Fabric Store Run

Kathy and I are the organizers of our quilt guild challenge this year. The theme is "LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION! The date is quickly coming up and it's time to request donations from our fabric and quilt shops. We drove south about 60 miles to visit area shops. We received gift certificates from Baron's, Quilters Studio and Quilt Ventura and have two other shops to call back. We have also received donations from Grant House and Craft Essentials. We're off to a good start! We will be heading north in a couple of weeks.

Along the way, many wonderful fabrics screamed "BUY ME" and we did. Here is a photos of my haul today. Quite a bit considering I can't use all the fabric I have in 3 lifetimes. I'm sure I don't need to make excuses to all of you. From what I've seen, I'm not the only one! LOL

My Sewing Studio

Well, my studio was such a disorganized mess, it was long overdue for a good cleaning. I spent the last two days re-organizing everything. What a difference! It is so neat now, I can find everything instantly. I can't wait to get to work and mess it all up again. LOL

This is the area where I do most of the cutting and ironing. There is my beloved HP laptop. This was my Christmas gift from Mike. At the time, I didn't realize how much I would love it.

This is my main sewing machine, a Viking Designer I. I love, love, love this amazing machine, it doesn't just sew, it purrs its way through every project I take on. I have a flannel design wall hanging in front of the closet. Behind the curtain are many shelves with all sorts of fun materials waiting to play. Whenever I run across a good sale, I will buy several yards, and hang it on hangers in the closet. Not shown are quarter to half yard pieces, they are stored in drawers, sorted by color family.

This is my wall of fabric. One to two yard lengths are rolled up, tied and stored on end on these shelves. They are sorted by value, but I can see in this photo that a few pieces are out of place. Oh well, that will have to wait for another day!