Monday, April 15, 2013

AWAY BUT BUSY

 Hello and here I am finally, I hope all my friends are well and busy as I quilting and making various projects which makes me happy .  I have been busy with organizing my studio in my store . I have some wonderful news ,I started to teach quilting that is why I have been away from blogging . It was a lot of work trying to make space to put in a couple of tables and to have enough room to move around soooo here is what I have been up to.
  I started some projects of course ,I began making houses and made more smaller one's with the left over pieces which was a lot of fun.
I also cut into some beautiful fabric my dear friend Cyndi had sent me a while back ,they are so beautiful that I just couldn't decide what to made with them ,I have the blocks sewn up ,but not put together yet I can't wait to do that and load it on my quilt table to be quilted .
   The desk table  was given to me by the lady across the street ,the store across the street was finally rented out to a lady that turned it into a translation center sooo she didn't need this that was left by the previous renter ,lucky me I got it and it worked out beautiful I was looking for something like it and it is more that I dreamed , it even has drawers and two shelves and a little cupboard on the side that I sit .   I had just received my new  Janome 1600 I have already quilted around 5 quilts with it .  I had mentioned on a previous post that I was waiting for my new machine to arrive and Marilyn had suggested that if I name it ,it will work better, so I name thee Marilyn and she works great for me. 
This is my friend Matoula she had come to town for a couple of days and I showed her how to cut ,she is a new quilter and if you read on an earlier post she had come to the quilt con. in Thessaloniki that took place in Sept.
I made this as a sample to make with my quilt students  I made some simple applique shapes.    They have completed the top and this coming Thursday they will put batting and backing and start quilting it some will make it a pillow some a wall hanging .   I will try to remember to take a photo when they come I keep forgetting to do that .
This is a needlepoint heart that I picked up at the flea market and I just added triangles around it ,I don't know what to make it into yet  probably a table cover I think would be nice.
This pile is a bunch of shirting scraps from a shirt market across the street that they had given me and I saved them and I am making a bunch of log cabins ,I love the log cabin, so I got them out one day and started cutting into 2 inch strips. I also made sale boat appliques ,but forgot to take a photo, I will do that on the next post
One nice Sunday I came in and removed a part of the cabinet that is built against the wall to store our painting collection I looked around the store where to put them and I managed to find some space here and there .   I had to cut the wood with an electric saw and then had help move the quilt table the other way around so I could have more space .
I made a ladder in order to display my quilts ,and I brought it down and painted it white .
And tada this is it !! how does it look ?? I am pleased with it .These are quilts that I quilted on my new machine.
This is a photo of me making the ladder it was supposed to be in a different order ,but anyway I worked real hard trying to nail and screw all the pieces of wood together after cutting them in pieces and measuring it took me forever,but it is done.
We know a man that has a stand at the flea market downtown and he stopped by one day to talk to hubby about some paintings that he has come across, I right away told him that I need a sewing machine, and he came back a week later and told me about this machine, and I got it with the table ,It stitches like a dream and it is an old stitchmaster made in Japan it is a 73 model the belt is crumbling and I need a new belt for it ,but other than that it is awesome I love it.
I went bird crazy a couple of day ago and I have half a dozen cut out and some are sewn and some need the buttons on the wings sewn ,I think they are cute .
I also got cupcake crazy and made a bunch of them , they are just hanging on a design wall that I made.
A  couple of weeks ago a friend told me there is a box with a cover down my the dumpster if I wanted it ,so I walked by and took it and painted it and made a cover out of some upholstery fabric samples that I had in my stash . I love it do you??
And this is how my studio looks like today ,I will be posting more often now that I am content with my studio , I still have things I need to do to make it better for me ,but for now I am good .  I hope every bodies studio is the way they would like it to make it easier and more enjoyable to sew .  I wish all of you a wonderful day and I truly miss blogging ,but as you can see I had so much to do and in between that keeping up with frame orders since it was always a frame shop/art gallery now is is a frame/quilt/gallery LOL . by for now.   Theodora