quilting room | Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

This post could also be titled Where the Creative Mess Occurs.

Tu-Na Travels on the Quilt MN Loot posts will continue after this brief overview of my sewing space.

Melva at Melva Loves Scraps is hosting a linky party where you can see other quilter’s sewing spaces and quilting studios. I plan to check them all out to get some organizing and decorating ideas. You’re invited too.

My sewing space is in the laundry room on the lower level of our house. I really meant to get that valance finished for your visit but I’ve been rather busy lately. I recently added a window shade to protect my fabric from the sun when I’m not in the room.

Welcome to my Sewing/Quilting area. I’m so glad you came to visit.

My husband recently installed a shelf above the window so I could display my button collection in vintage canning jars and

fabric pre-cuts and a few quilting books.

A shelf under the window is a fun place to put some decorations and a jar full of ring pincushions as well as the Tide. I used to work with children, so those blocks are the perfect decoration for me.

My sewing desk holds more quilting books. My fat quarters fit nicely in those plastic bins. A cookie jar holds a nice surprise.

I like to call them cookies. These are the good kind of cookies to have around–low calorie and no information is disclosed.

A plastic tower holds pins, machine feet, and other small items that tend to get lost in the drawer. Scissors, rippers, pens and pencils, and small rulers go into the gadget caddy that spins around. This was one of my best finds at a thrift store.

I’ve read before that creative people are messy people. Well, then I must be the most creative person there is. I leave the cleaning until I’ve finished a project. I have several projects going on at one time.

The sink comes in handy for pre-washing. The counter is the perfect height for cutting. The vase on the right is full of fabric scraps. Yes, there is a wine bottle on the counter. No, I did not just empty it. It’s there so I can make a wine-bottle cover.

But I did take a few minutes to tidy up as I knew you’d be visiting.

This sign hangs over the sink. I’m the only one who reads it.

My quilting projects often flow out onto our pool table as it is the right size to lay out baby and crib size quilts. Quilting projects also flow onto our living room floor, dining room table, and kitchen table. A recent project had me overflowing onto all those areas.

I had to move furniture out of our living room to make space to lay out this recent quilt project. I’ll be writing more about this quilt soon.

So where’s my sewing machine set-up now? It’s upstairs on the kitchen table. When I have a large project to sew or when I have quilting help, I move my machine into a larger area.

My mom and I are working together on several projects. Recently, my sisters joined us for several fun quilting days. But those are topics for another post.

I’m trying to convince my husband that we either need to move the pool table out so I can completely take over that room or build a studio. He says I just need to take time to clean up the spaces I have. Sigh.

What I Learned Today:

Cleaning-up is necessary but still not fun.
Finding creative storage solutions that fit tight spaces is difficult.

Question: Do you clean as you go or clean when you are finished with a project?

Linking with

Myra at Busy Hands Quilt for Finished or Not Friday. (Button on the sidebar)

and Brooke at Silly Mama Quilts for WIP

Actually, the title should read “Meet Karen: The Newest Member with the Biggest Mouth.”

I spent most of this past winter in sunny Arizona sitting indoors at my computer. However, that’s what I get for joining my village’s quilting group at my Arizona home and opening my mouth.

This donated Pfaff Grandquilter would make a good starting machine for our group. We are fundraising and saving for a Gammmill to eventually replace it.

The group had just been donated a Pfaff Grandquilter machine and most of the members were opposed to accepting it. “Are you kidding me!” I exclaimed as Marie told me at aerobics. So I attended the next meeting in early January, opened my mouth, and ended up chairing a committee to research if other retirement villages have a quilting/sewing room or a longarm. To make a long story short, I gave my report at the following week’s meeting and convinced the membership to vote (62 to 14) in favor of accepting the machine contingent on us securing an area from the HOA (Home Owners Association) to put it.

This quilt was made by a member of the group. The pic was included in the presentation.

I must have been rather convincing or naïve since I ended up chairing the committee to write the proposal and a power point presentation to present to the HOA board of our village. Approximately 400 hours later I handed the village manager a 7 page proposal (complete with research and footnotes) with 11 attachments (including three floor plans which my interior designer daughter did free for us) plus two manuals detailing all the information necessary for starting and operating a longarm quilting program and (drumroll, please) a Textile Arts Studio. Now, it had been no small feat to get a group of 9 women together weekly to talk about how we wanted to run these programs, agree about it, and stay on task. Needless to say the 14 members against this proposal made life rather stressful for me as I would return home from our weekly quilting meetings having felt like I had been used for target practice.

quilts d2a 2016

The quilting group presently stores their machines and supplies in cabinets in a small closet in one of the meeting rooms that they get to use twice a week for a few hours. My naiveness continued as I was given the honors of presenting our proposal to the April HOA board meeting. With about 100 people in attendance, I made our plea and ended the power point presentation with “We ask you to consider bringing the quilters out of the closet and into a room that our village can be proud of.” They tabled it.

Each year our village holds a quilt show and displays over a hundred quilts made by members. This pic was included in the presentation and shows two quilts made by members.

And so we waited. Three weeks later we were informed of a room that would be big enough for the longarm machine but not much more. We were hoping for a much larger room so we could create a real studio where we could hold a variety of classes to engage quilters of all levels and interests and house other sewing machines. But at least we can begin the longarm program. We felt appreciative but disappointed. I’ve since heard rumblings from the membership stating “We’ll have Karen do it again next year asking for a bigger room.” But I think Karen will want to quilt next year if she can keep her mouth shut.

Linking to Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts