Clean up, clean up, put away, put away

     I reached the point in my studio that I had to clean out or scream. I had so many plastic boxes and bins everywhere and especially on my floor. I had to do something. Michaels had 10 drawer rolling drawers on sale ($29.99 and coupon) and I bought 5 (one I gave to my son for his watercolor supplies). Shipped them to me for free. 
     I have to give Michaels a shout out, because one wheel in all of these units was the wrong one. I emailed them with a photo and within a few hours, they had one in the mail. It fit and the unit was useable. I have to say Excellent Customer Service! I thought I was doomed with the wrong wheel.
     I taught my 8 yr. old granddaughter to put one together. She showed her 10 yr. old brother how to do it, and they put all 5 together for me. They did a super job with little intervention by me. Kids need to know how to put things together.
     It was painful to sort through all the scraps and cut pieces. Sometimes I just have to leave the room and take a walk around. Took loads of time. Eventually, all the units were filled and reorganized. I have a whole unit of drawers for batik scraps. Today, I am making all new drawer labels and attaching them. The old ones are from the previous bins and are shabby.
     I have a closet in this room for more plastic boxes for cut pieces and another room with bookshelves for bigger fabric, but this area was out of contol. I love scrappy, but organizing them is work.
    Here is the result of all the effort.

Cutting/pressing counter- all clear, WOW

View from one side of sewing table to counter

From room entrance, no boxes on floor anymore

Other side of sewing table, clear floor, windows to left

Side of table I work the most at for piecing. There is a floor!

      My watercolor room set up is in the guest bedroom. I work on my paintings and sketches here. I have to leave the sewing studio in order to concentrate on painting.

All together now! (mostly)

    My sewing table is all together and in place. I don't have a photo with the treadle and desk back in place yet, but here is the table my husband made. It has a maple veneer plywood top (cabinet grade so it is smooth as silk), solid legs of oak and aspen. It is bolted together. The cord winder underneath is from Ikea, all of  $10. It works great so there is not a snare of wires under the table since I have multiple machines and lights hooked up. The power strip is screwed to the crossbeam. It is 7' long and 38" wide. It is lower than a regular table because of the sewing machine heights. The light fixture gives great light at night, very even and diffuse. What a difference so I can sew in the evening. I bought a couple of Ikea LED small gooseneck lights, which are not in the photo here, but will be in the future.
  First, the room emptied out.

The inspector

Treadle off to side yet

The former living room space

He not only builds tables, but vacuums!!

Power strip on crossbeam

Ikea cord gizmo

Underneath

The sun streams in

Just need the rug and chairs back

Puff light fixture

Studio Redux

     As my machines increase and vary and I make more and more quilts, the studio set up needed to change. The areas of difficulty are lighting and table space. My studio used to be the living room. We have added cabinets and a counter. The machines are in some undercounter cabinets and on an assortment of tables, drawing tables. The tables are not the same size and could not be lowered enough for normal sewing, so the chairs had to be higher. Uneven table tops are an issue. When I bought the Bailey, my husband bought wood to make one large sewing table, 7' by 38" which will have the Bailey, the 15-91, and the 301 and if needed to swap out for zig zag, the 401. The treadle in the parlor cabinet will position to the table on its short side and will be joined by the yet to be refinished treadle and go back to back. The other treadle will have a zig zag machine in it which is ready to go. So today, after our mini vacation to New Haven, we emptied out the space and cleaned it up. My husband is installing an overhead light, which is the best we could come up with, but are not satisfied with, and then the table will go in. Everything is in quite a state of disorder at the moment.

Cleaned and ready for lighting and table.

      I am taking off all the photos from my trip and writing some new posts on that, but the studio is the biggest effort now.

More organizing, it goes on and on...

    Well, as I work, I mess things up. All those scraps, threads, detritus of making stuff just accumulates and then begins to interfere with working. I have to stop and reassess. I put all the surface stuff in a big box to clear and then sorted things out and put them away. I am trying to think about how to put stuff away and how I use it. For example, I make leader and enders as I sew and they end up in a heap. So, I put them in a small plastic crate near the iron so when I press my piecing, I can press them also. When I cut out pieces, I try to cut the scraps into sizes that I store in plastic trays. Instead of sorting them out as I cut them, I am stacking them in a small box near the cutting mats. When I have just a few minutes to work on something, I will take the basket to the bins and sort them into the right place. I keep thinking of few minute jobs when I am waiting on something else and making a basket for them. Bigger fabric pieces I keep stacked in a plastic tray so that I can cut bigger squares, 5", 6", or bigger when have more than 5 minutes to do something. I cut and save- 2", 2 1/2", 3, 4, 4 1/2, 5, 6, and bigger squares for my exploding squares quilts. I use the 2 1/2" pieces as leader/enders by my piecing machine and they are sorted by light and dark so I can piece 4 patches which I will use later in scrap quilt.

Cutting/Pressing area all better for now

Top surface ok, pieces for a circle quilt stacked under
on paper according to value (photo below). Not a great solution.

Just L-O-V-E the fabric scraps!

    Two generous women on the quilt retreat gave me an ultra big bag of scraps. It took me all week to sort out. Some were batiks that I sort out separately. All the bigger pieces I could cut into blocks, I pressed and stacked to cut. Any strip type pieces I sorted by color and put by color in my shallow stacking plastic boxes. The batiks, if small were put loose into baskets by color. Bigger pieces were folded and put by color value into shoebox type boxes. All that color was pure joy!

Strips being sorted by color

Sorting batik scraps by color

Bigger batik pieces

Pieces to press and cut into blocks

Kid fabric sorted out

     The sewing studio part is pretty neat now. The inspector general approves of the quilt yet not finished being FMQ.

Yes, somedays I use all the machines. Each has its purpose.

Studio Tour- it's clean right now

    I spent a lot of time and decision making to clean up and reorganize things a bit. I realize I have more room than a lot of people, but it gets jammed trying to cut and press pieces. I moved all my rulers to a shelf above the cutting mats. I do not like these blue cutting mats, and have to use 3 of them to fit the top. I looked at other mats, but the cost keeps me thinking. I heard of the Martelli mats, but they are $$$. I wish I knew someone who bought them and love them. I moved the ironing board out of the room for now and bought an ironing mat. This works for most of the pressing, except when I press backing and long pieces. I will drag it out then, but am tired of tripping over it. 
    My machines are in the center of the room on a couple of tables pushed together. I would love to have one large table so I don't have so many legs to bump into and could maybe have storage underneath. I have one machine for piecing, one for small quilts, one for large, one for zig zag and the treadle for scrap piecing. The cat, Tugger, supervises and tests out the quilts for comfort. 

Newly organized counter, rulers above, ironing blanket

Machines central to room. Now the last 301 is replaced by the awesome 15-91

Treadle with valentine card crumbs being pieced

Comfort Control is Job 1

Closet next to counter with fabric organized by color and scrap baskets.
Strips in blue handle boxes. Tiny scraps in baskets stacked at bottom.

Taming the beast- organizing fabric Part 1

    This is for you, Elizabeth. I am sharing what has worked for me right now. Tomorrow, I may get smarter or someone smarter may set me straight. How to organize fabric so that it can be found, easily put away and easy to go through during a project. I use no cardboard boxes. I guess I am still smarting from getting cited by the fire marshal when I was teaching for using cardboard boxes to store art supplies in. What I was to use was not revealed.
   I love plastic bins- I am always looking at every dollar store and housewares section for perfect plastic. My family rolls their eyes when I keep seeking out better plastic, the perfect solution, the elusive perfection. I keep all my batiks separate from my regular fabric. I use every scrap. So, I will post a number of things I do now in hopes that you will do even better and tell me.
   My batik fabric is all folded in plastic shoeboxes or something like it. By color. These are all on one shelving unit. I will talk about scraps later.

The whole unit, other one next time

Shelving unit top

Individual batik boxes on the shelves, easily removed, put back

Then the bottom of this shelving unit holds all the sewing machine attachments and parts behind the door.

Shelving unit bottom, I know, it needs to be better organized

The regular fabric is all in one cupboard, in plastic boxes, and also the flat scrap baskets.

Bottom two shelves have flat baskets at right hand side, one regular, one batik

The flat baskets have scraps by colors. I find using zip lock bags hard to use  and fill with scraps. The baskets let me sift through and thow in easily.

Baskets by colors, then stack inside each other. Batik works same way.

I am having a hard time sorting and saving the teeny, tiny scraps I use in my Batik collages. Those are in zip locks but I am on the quest for some squarish, boxish, shallow plastic boxes that stack. Like real big ice cube trays. Where can they be?

Projects that are in progress (lots of them), I put in plastic zip bags that I got from Quilt in a Day and keep them upright in a plastic bin. Everything I need for that project is in the bag, gets put back in the bag.

Individual Bag

Plastic bags stacked in plastic bins, baskets. I do a lot of projects at a time.

I keep all my rulers, etc. in wood blocks that my husband cut slots into. I never leave the rulers laying flat to get covered by my fabric mess.

Have 2 of these side by side

 

Next part, I will show sewing machine storage and the other shelving unit. I hope this is understandable, if not, comment. Thanks for viewing!

Welcome to the studio

Through the years, I have made many studios for doing all different kinds of artwork. Two years ago, I was blessed to be able to turn my unused living room into a studio. I use it for quilting, drawing, painting, card making and everything except my silkscreen work which I do in the basement. I added Kraftmaid cabinetry on two sides of the room, a sitting area on stools by the window, a writing/laptop desk, and shelves with undercounter lights.
Here are some shots of the studio-

I recently sold my new sewing machine and have purchased vintage singers because they piece and quilt exactly as I need them to and they are a joy to use. I use the 301s for free motion quilting and have a project on each one. I use the 401 for zig-zag and the 403 for straight piecing. This way each machine, the right foot, the right stitch plates and controls are ready to use. I just bought a 99 and a Spartan which I will show later. I found a lot of links that helped me select and clean them up like blog.sew-classic.com

1st 301 I found

403 for piecing

Just the nicest 301!

The mighty 401