Wednesday, May 27, 2009

New Stash Projects

As I rearrange my sewing room I am stunned by the number of possibilities of new projects at hand. Some are promises to myself from years ago and some are new inspirations.

I have had an interest in Smocking for years. I even have the machine for it. Who has time to smock baby outfits when there is diapering to do? I have found some wonderful patterns for blouses and nightgowns to smock as well as some Christmas ornament ideas.
Does anyone smock any more?

Quilling was something I did years ago and had lots of fun doing it. I know that there are ways to incorporate it into Scrapbooking. Yes another project.

Embossing velvet, I would love to have Christmas stockings made from hand embossed fabrics, maybe even a mantle cover.

There are no fewer than a 100 quilts I want to make. Yes, I even have the fabric for a lot of them.

Jewelry made from hand painted wooden beads. So many possibilities there.

Then there purses and tote bags to make, and sweaters, scarves, hats and mittens. The fabric calls for clothing, quilts, rugs...and there is embellished frames and boxes.....

I see I need to get going, there are a lot of new projects from my stash of supplies to create!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

A New Beginning

There is nothing more heartbreaking than being told that the very floor under your studio needs to be jack-hammered up. All right, it is the floor of the basement in our home and it was for a good reason. The Sewer Line was failing.

The 72 hours following that finding had my life turned upside-down. The first 10 hours were spent boxing up my life in the studio. It was not full of thoughtful sorting but desperation packing of too much stuff. I also had to figure out where to put all of it. Angels were watching out for me as the laundry room seemed to grow with my need to store more boxes. At sometime in the recent past I had the forethought to purchase cardboard file boxes at the local office supply store. I filled most of them thinking only of sorting by fabric, yarn, notions and other. My wonderful husband worked shoulder to shoulder with me moving the boxes to safe storage. My son worked furiously until bedtime making the boxes up for me to pack. Safely, I stowed my sewing machines in the living room upstairs along with the next on my list projects. It was a very late and exhausting evening.

The next morning, we were greeted by the project manager, who thought it might be a good idea to check the additional line coming from the kitchen. You guessed it, the remaining rooms in the basement were destined to be jack-hammered up as well. The playroom is just another word for my extended storage area with a smattering of games thrown in for good measure. It was a long morning clearing that room as well.

The sewer and plumbing company is but a memory now. I have yet to re-establish the rooms. They both have remnants of their former selves present, but there are large spaces of carpet that I have not seen in a very long time. I was almost giddy with the excitement of vacuuming them.

Now comes the problem. I know that I do not want the disaster area that the rooms were before. I do need to relieve the laundry room of some of its burden. How do I put the studio back together? How do I figure out what it is that I want it to be?

I will start this week by going through the areas that only this cleanup could bring to light and see about moving some to the Garage Sale Pile. Maybe inspiration will follow.