Home Decor – Page 2 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Shark-like Behaviour

I do not like prep.

I do not enjoy cutting fabric out.

I know I should, but I almost never put all of my ingredients out in little bowls, measured and perfect, before starting to cook.

I do not like the spackling and sanding part of painting.

I do not like waiting in traffic. I like moving forward.

I like to move forward: start and go. Usually, I do not start, because I know I need to do prep and I don’t like it. Quiltmaking is the exception.

My DH is good at preparation part of painting. Meticulous, in fact, which is good since he is preparing the walls for paint. And he is making good progress. Yesterday he put primer on the walls. The primer is white so I can start to see what my work room will look like. It looks so much more fresh and white. I am pretty excited to get rid of that life sucking beige.

Worse Before Better

Our house is a disaster. 🙁

This is the best looking, most organized room in the house, the YM’s room. Our bedroom, actually, has not escaped the rehoming of stuff, but it has the least amount of stuff.

All of these boxes are fairly organized, though I couldn’t tell you exactly where any one thing is, but when I see the top of a box, I know what is in that box. If you want something in the bottom box, tough luck. The other thing is that we can’t really do anything. I have a small space to work (and occasionally write a blog post), we can watch TV and sleep, but that’s it. No sewing, no cutting, no EPP unless it is hand work that needs no prep, no extra fabric nothing else. I like to be able to sew whenever I want, so this is difficult.

My mantra is that it will be awesome when it is done.

One reason for all this disorganization is that there is almost nothing in my workroom.

My sewing table and my work desk are still in the room, only because they are too heavy and awkward for the two of us to move downstairs. The green bookcase you can see peeking out of the right of the photo is in our dining room now.

DH has scraped the walls and will spackle and buy paint tomorrow. The goal is to have the room done by the time he goes back to work next week.

I know it will get better, but right now it is horrible to live here.

Workroom Refresh Storage

Boxes in the YM's room — Boxes in the YM’s room

Boxes and boxes are filling up the YM’s room. There are a lot, because they are small and filled with books. I used all of our CSA boxes that we have not been able to return due to the pandemic. They turned out to be a good size for books. I ran out eventually and had to scrounge random amazon and other boxes. Eventually, my mom bought me some boxes from Home Depot and that was the last of what I needed.

The YM is coming for a visit in a week and I need to get all of these boxes out of his room

More of the Workroom Refresh

I spent last Saturday doing the final clear out of my workroom. It is kind of horrifying to do something like this. It shows how much stuff I have. I don’t feel bad about it, but I need to use it. I produce a lot, but I need to produce more. Now that I have a better idea of what I have, I can use more of it. I am also going to be more careful about what comes into my workroom going forward.

The other thing is the dust. There are places that are inaccessible so the dust bunnies are large.

The view in the photo, right, doesn’t look like much, but I moved a lot of random stuff out of that corner. I had organized everything I could, but it was still kind of a jumble of projects and other random stuff. There is still some project boxes and my thread box there, but the corner next to my design wall is a lot more clear.

I am getting rid of some ugly pieces of furniture. That brown bookcase in the corner is out of the room as I write this and will be leaving my house soon. It is too short and too ugly for the future. I hope to bring in some fresh white bookcases. I haven’t picked them out yet, but I will.

Clearing out the last bits from my workroom is a big drag. It has to be done, but is a big drag. It’s like moving. Stuff that has always been in a spot has to be moved. A lot of it has to be wrapped up, you need boxes. Bleah. It’s just a lot of work. I keep thinking of the end result.

I had a pile of just pressed fabric and a pile of fabric waiting to be pressed. I decided to put them all in boxes. It was a good opportunity to check out some fabrics I hadn’t seen in awhile. I picked out another group of fabrics for a different quilt. Stay tuned for that post.

The removal of everything gives me two opportunities to go through my stuff. I am donating a lot of books. I also threw out a bunch of stuff I didn’t need to keep around. I hope to go for another round when I put everything back.

Refreshed Inspiration Board

Some time ago I made an inspiration board. At the time I liked it, but for the last several months it has been getting on my nerves. I need a cleaner look throughout my workroom.

The other day I got out some tools and the fabric I bought on the trip and went to work. I redid my inspiration board as one piece of the effort of redecorating my workroom.

It has a much cleaner look and is much less exuberant. I’d like to get a frame, paint it white and hang the inspiration board in that. I’ll have to go look at thrift stores and that is one of my least favorite activities.

My old inspiration board was blue with dots.

I reused some of the ribbon, because it was nice. I saved all the buttons as there was nothing wrong with them. Also, some of them are special.

Napkins for the YM

I was slightly horrified at the large pile of paper napkins on the YM’s dining room table. I came home and made napkins for the YM and the YMG from fabric I bought at Pioneer Quilts in Portland.

I sent them off and I hope they like and use them.

Workroom Refresh Gets Real

A few months ago I started clearing off the bookshelves in my workroom/office/yoga studio in anticipation of painting, buying a little new furniture and giving the room a basic refresh.

I worked on this project in a desultory manner, but the project just got real. DH said he wanted to paint the room instead of me hiring someone and he took time off work next month to do it. I spent time last weekend clearing off more shelves and putting my workroom stuff in boxes.

The YM’s room is looking pretty full at the moment. Good thing he doesn’t need to sleep there as more stuff needs to be stored there. I am out of the boxes I have been using boxes that stack up nicely together and need to find others.

Gazebo Finished

So, the Journey 2 Nebula is finished. I finished all the projects which were part of the ‘Journey’ and the rulers have been returned to Amy. I am not making the Nebula quilt. If you like hexagons, you should try it. It is an interesting design. I am happy with the small projects I made during this Journey 2 Nebula and am moving on to other designs.

Gazebo, as I mentioned, is the one project about which I was really excited. I did all the projects in order and waited patiently to get to this one.

This project, like all the others, was pretty easy. I was able to start and finish it in less than a day. This is an example of the excellent directions provided by the pattern.

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Gazebo Starts

Last week I decided to finish the last project.

The last Journey 2 Nebula project (except for the bonus project, which I am not doing) is Gazebo. I sort of did the whole project in order to do this one for myself. By the time I finished Candy Dish, I was kind of sick of the whole thing. All of the projects were well received by their recipients, was a relief. I don’t know what my problem was. I enjoyed it until December-ish.

I think life ended up overwhelming me. Big surprise since it was December!

However, I like this design, so I decided just to cut it out and do it. I started after lunch one day. I was able to get the whole thing cut out and pieced by the end of the day. I was also able to make the back and start quilting it.

I worked hard on the fabrics. Since this was for me, I really thought about the look I wanted and am pleased with my choices.

Red Text Table Runner Quilted

I really don’t want these Journey2Nebula projects hanging around clogging up my UFO list. Since the next project started yesterday, I sat down on Sunday an did some simple quilting on the Red Text table runner. It will be for my buffet (if I didn’t mention that before) and I would like to get it done so I can use it for a little while before I need to set up the decor for Thanksgiving.

Red Text Table Runner - quilted — Red Text Table Runner – quilted

I quilted most of it while talking on the phone to the YM. I used the Rotary Even foot rather than my usual clear applique foot. I wasn’t happy with it for other uses, but thought it worked pretty well for quilting straight lines. I definitely didn’t have to worry about the layers shifting. I also liked it because it was quiet. Unlike the walking foot, this foot didn’t clang and make a ton of noise while I was sewing.

I don’t like quilting that much, but it was a good task to do to stay off my foot.

I also made the binding, but it was a little too big, so I need to adjust it then hand stitch the binding to the back of the table runner. I am excited to have it finished!

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