There’s a light at the end of the hallway

Looking back at my blog posts, I see that the last time I wrote anything about spending creative time in my studio was on July 13th…..almost  FOUR months ago!  Of course, during that time we have spent 3 weeks in China, bought a new house, spent 5 weeks getting it ready and moving in, spent 5 days in Texas visiting with my mother, and spent countless hours trying to get caught up with the last of my Tax and Accounting work for the year. 

Added to that, I managed to hurt my knee while moving and was basically unable to climb the stairs for over 2 weeks!!!

However, this weekend I spent time in my new studio, getting it ready for some creative time and I feel sure that the time is coming….I can FEEL it in my bones!!!

The first step was to get my new design wall built and installed.  I started with two pieces of thick Insulation board which were cut down to the proper height and width and an area cut out where the electric plug would sit.

My original thought was that I would build the wall in the garage and then carry it upstairs to install, but quickly decided that it would be better to simply put it together in the studio.

After I had cleared out an opening, I laid the two boards down flat and started using duct tape to form a hinge line.

Next I laid the board down onto a piece of polyester batting and pulled the batting over to the back and roughly taped it in place…..

Next step was to lay the flannel on the floor and place the board on top of it.  I then trimmed the batting and stretched and pinned the flannel to the back….

After checking the front to make sure that it was stretched well, I added additional strips of duct tape to hold it in place….

A final round of duct tape, removing pins and it is ready to hang….

My sweet husband came in a helped me to hang it on the wall.  It measures 72 inches across and about 80 inches in height…..about 50% larger than my old one….

Now to the fun stuff…..for a long time I have wanted a sewing table that my machine would sit down into so that I would have a flat surface for machine quilting.  After reading about lots of tables and looking at the merits and costs of various ones, I settled on the Arrow Gidget Sewing Table.  This one was recommended by Leah Day of The Free Motion Quilting Project and I liked the price so I ordered it from Amazon and happily unpacked it to see how it would work.

The depth of the opening is easily adjustable and I was happy with it, except that there seemed to be quite a lot of open space between the machine and the table edge.  Then I had a brainstorm……

I had an old Husqvarna quilting table that had been replaced by a larger one many years ago, so I took the legs off, moved the machine as far into the right corner as possible and marked where the Plexiglas would  need to be cut….

A quick phone call was made to our local handyman, who cut the piece to my specifications and voilà……

…..my table is ready to use!!!   My plan is to put another table behind this one and maybe another one to the side if I am quilting on a really large quilt.  Cant wait to try it out!!!!

Finally, I needed a stand for the rulers that I use most.  Unfortunately, most of the stands that I could buy would not fit my favorite rulers, the “Quilter’s Rule”.  So, I called my friend Anita at Sewcial Studio and her husband made one just to fit my specifications (3 slots for the Quilter’s rules and 3 slots for regular rulers)…..

So now this little shelf sits just next to the machine table.  It holds all of my threads and rulers and there is still some room for future purchases….

Naturally there are several projects in the works and in my mind so I cant wait to get up there to sew…..maybe even someday soon!!!!