It’s always fun to see where people “do their thing,”– in my case, that would be sew and create and (I hope!) make art. I recently shared my new fabric shelves, but thought you might like to see my “Bonus room.” Yep, I’m in the room over the garage. That means it has twice as much floor space as it has head room LOL! Since I got the big room, I got to share it with the guest (not that we ever get any!) bed–perfect! (The bed is an antique from my late FIL…dates to about 1780, which for the US is very old!) Quilts are stored under the comforter, nice and flat! Here’s what it looked like maybe 2 1/2 years ago, shortly after moving here..stuff already heaped and piled:

On the front side of the house are three narrow gables (the inside dimensions are less than 3 feet). There is a nice double window over the center of the garage doors, and there is a lllaaaarrrrggggeeee shed-roof dormer facing the backyard which lets in lots of light. The down side is that this means there is very little usable wall space! I have become adept at using the “low” areas where you can’t stand upright. The photo above (windows over the garage doors end) and these two are what the room looked like before I got started with my recent tidy attack–first is the design wall end (with box storage mess behind the entry door),

the second is the middle of the room showing my sewing table, hoosier (ideal storage!–for those not in the US, this style of “portable” kitchen cabinet was popular in the 1920s-40s, has a flour bin, sugar bin, spice shelves, pull out enameled top, the top closes up to conceal kitchen stuff, has a knife drawer–perfect for scissors and rotary cutters, bread bin–perfect size for patterns, etc),

and the batting and home dec supplies storage behind the blue cloth and hoosier.

The only picture I could find with the fabric storage cupboards is this one, with a then-7 year old-Eli demonstrating the sleepability of his new pillowcase–cupboards in background:

When I got the new fabric shelves, this is what the room looked like: utter chaos. In my defense, it never looks this bad! Please remember that I had to move everything to make room for the fabric shelves….

Bit by bit, I worked on it. A lot. I was tired. Here are the shelves, before. Please don’t look too closely at the paint job inside…. must have been the damp brush, as I did a totally awful job on the some of the insides for the second coat. And I actually DUSTED (and the world did not screech to a halt at the novelty of it!)!

Then midway, showing stuff cleaned out at far end, some books moved…

and DONE–at least with the fabric! The hand-dyes (which I plan to make more) are on the top shelf in (shudder…that Type A thing is happening…someone find a stick and beat it away!) Roy G. Biv order (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue/Aqua, Indigo, Violet) , followed by brown and white-gray-black. Below them are batiks and prints in roughly light-medium-dark piles. My conversational prints (animals, food and drinks, retro 50s, transportation/ ethnic/ world travel, and Hawaiian) are on the bottom left. Silks –slippery and messy when not corralled– are in a drawer under the work table, as are sheers — also disorderly in their behavior, PFDs (Prepared For Dyeing), and clunky stuff like rubber stamps, “glitz and glue” (heat gun, heat tool, foils and glues) and rovings/stuff for felting. Phew.

We won’t discuss the area behind the bed, which I will deal with after I get my book written and off to the publisher… maybe late August?

After two full LONG days of work, filling nearly half a garage garbage can (the big ones) with detritus, it looks better than it has since we moved in nearly 3 years ago. Here is a 360 degree tour, starting with the shipping zone (which also houses yarns and knitting and the *(&*^%^& exercise bike that is worthless!). Although it still looks kinda cluttery, trust me, this is VAST improvement! By the way, that green table in the foreground is Gramma’s toaster table, which is featured in my Flying Toast quilt (and I actually scanned the tabletop and printed fabric to use in the quilt!).

Then the sewing table area.

The area behind the table also still needs a little tidying–the antique thread spool chest (purchased when working full time and had a decent income) is, get this, actually used for storing thread! This area will get extra attention when I deal with the dumping ground behind the bed. The framed needlepoints on the end of the hoosier are from my late Aunt Mary M., the only person in my family who sewed; she lived on the other side of the country from me, but her fame as a skilled seamstress and tailor reached me easily! If it used a needle, she was a master!

Then, here’s the bed / windows-over-garage doors end (bed doing temporary dual duty holding the koi quilt until Saturday’s guild meeting). The new “seating area” is to the right, where two of the former fabric cupboards have been pressed into duty to take the overflow of books (there is no such thing as too many books–in my next house the dining room will be a library with a table at which you can also eat!):

The worktable and fabric storage zone; the black cloth is up for taking photos. Usually I just have the beige-ish flannel over the whole thing.

one of the former fabric cupboards got pushed to the right, next to the design wall, and has my Clementine boxes inside with the bits of fused fabrics ready for use. Good thing there is plenty of room… I found LOTS of little bits of fabric to fuse up and have ready during my tidy… the large plastic box on the floor next to the design wall is packed with those bits.

And here’s the last of the garbage to go down the stairs to the garage! If I had any white zin, I’d be having that now instead of tea. Hmmm… maybe a trip for ice cream is in order instead?

And to those who commented on the last post… for some reason the comments didn’t reach me the usual way through e-mail, so thanks for surfing in and taking the time to write! Hope you like these pics, too.

Cheers, Sarah

I am in total lust with Carol Taylor’s studio…to see it, click here then click on where it says “Carol’s Studio” on her home page. I love the closets, the design walls, the storage, the work area (tho mine wouldn’t be white or as neat!), the view. I decided I needed to improve my quilt storage, and after checking out “affordable” options (like anything from walmart, home depot, etc) I decided to ask Joshua’s friend’s step-dad for an estimate. WOOHOO! The cost was less than buying something comparable from Ikea (and without the horrid drive for 5 hours each way to south of Boston through some of the worst traffic in the US).

I wrote to Carol to get measurements (THANK YOU CAROL!)… I guessed the shelves were probably 16 inches deep (yep) and made from a 4×8 sheet of plywood (yep), and she added that the shelves were 12 inches apart. So I drew a diagram / sketch for John Bailey, and the photo above shows what I received, ready to finish.

A week or so later, one is primed, one has a first coat of paint:

And yet later on, here they are hauled upstairs (and was that ever fun…NOT!) and in the studio. I decided to do a separate post about the massive tidy attack I had in the studio as a result of these shelves. Surf back in two days from now for that one… in the meantime….

John Bailey, step-dad to one of Joshua’s best friends, made these and what a great job he did. I could not be happier with them…they are perfect (I specified what, but he did the how beautifully and exactly as I drew and measured). If you’re near Camden, Maine, and would like to contact him his website is www.jbbuilders.biz . I was surprised and thrilled to see that he worked on the fantabulous re-do of the old Strand theatre in neighboring Rockland, and one of the fancy houses pictured on the website had his carpentry featured in Better Homes and Gardens (if I had known about these fancy projects before I asked him about these shelves I would’ve been too intimidated to ask about my puny little project!).

What you need to make these 48 x 48 x 16 deep shelf units yourself:

3 sheets 3/4″ birch plywood
1 sheet 1/4″ birch plywood (for the backs)
1×6 piece of pine, from which John cut strips to face the front of the shelves (nice!)
someone with a table saw or router to cut the pieces and grooves
primer
2+ quarts of paint

They could also be varnished, but as you’ll see in the next blogpost about my studio, I have plenty of natural wood, I needed COLOR! So I picked Caribbean water blue!

The units are 16 inches deep, the shelves are 12 inches apart, and the staggered supports are set in 15 inches from the outside edge.

If you’re in Camden area, and need some really nice carpentry or building done, hint hint! Now, to win the lottery and get John to build an entire studio and house and kitchen for us…..

This past Frayed Edges meeting was an extended one for the best of reasons: Deborah came to visit us from what I think of as her exile in Dallas (sorry to all Texans!)… woooohoooo! She flew up on Saturday, called me from the airport in Boston as she was about to head out with the rental car for Kate’s house, and I was about to leave Camden (and I arrived only half an hour before she did LOL!).

Kate, alas, was not there. Kate, bless her sweet soul, cleaned house for us and invited us to stay in her empty-of-her-family (but not their homey presence) house!!!! That qualifies as sainthood points! So Kathy, Deborah and I had a sleepover at Kate’s house, minus Kate! It was WONDERFUL (except for missing Kate and Hannah, who was home with her four daughters and hubby). If you’ve read Kath‘s and Deborah‘s blogs, you’ll already have seen our food pictures, but here are more:

…. we talked as well as ate, but sure didn’t sew or create much. We DID however kibbitz on each other’s pieces, talked about what we might do if, etc.

On Sunday, after breakfast:
I had to head to Portland for a long-planned family outing, Deborah had plans with Joanne S., and then reconvened at Kate’s house on Sunday evening with Kate and Hannah (and they finished the last of the Molten (chocolate) Lava Cakes (a specialty from the local chain, and worth a trip from Texas to Maine!), and improved on their greatness by adding Starbuck’s coffee ice cream…YUMMM. A good idea gets better!

On Monday, we had our “regular” Frayed Edges meeting at Kathy’s house and was it a blast. It was actually the first time the five of us have all been together, so we got pics:

I think we look like five happy, well-fed, artsy women!

We shared:

And shared:

And shared:

We ate, at Kath’s beautiful table:

Don’t you love these little vases for the lilies of the valley, and the colors of the glasses?

Deborah brought us gifties…pincushions, with personalized shrinky-dinked pins!!!!!! Mine is the aqua! Yeah and THANK YOU! (and it is already in use at my machine!)

We talked about and made decisions for our August show at the Camden Public Library (opens on Aug. 2nd, through the 29th, Artists’ Reception on Saturday the 11th from 1-4).

After a nice looonnngggg day, which was gloriously sunny and perfect outside (and hooray! no blackflies or mosquitoes yet!), we hugged good-bye to Deborah, who headed south for one more night at Kate’s house before heading for Logan / Boston on Tuesday. And of course, I had to snap pics of Kath’s flowers and garden–the photo at the top and this one:
When I got home from that 52 hour sojourn, I felt as refreshed as if I’d been on a perfect 2 week vacation, and I KNOW it is thanks to my Frayed Edges pals.

Well, folks, we hit a major milestone today: I got my 50,000th visit! Some of you have logged in many visits, others are new. Some seek me out on purpose, others stumble across the site via a Google query or a random link on the ArtQuilters blog ring or link from another blog. To one and all: THANK YOU!

I have never journaled much at all…. so I find it somewhat mystifying and wonderful that I have kept up these “letters to the ether” and even more amazing and mystifying that folks surf in and many, many return. I’ll be migrating the blog to my website later this summer (including all the archives) and when Gloria, of GloDerWorks (she and Derry and their staff in the US and UK are web-meisters extraordinaire), does the move and re-vamp, not only will I give you all plenty of warning, provide links, keep this one going for a while, etc., but I’m hoping there is a way to archive all the posts to a disc. It’s fun to go back and see how I’ve chronicled what I’ve done! Oh, and when I do make the switch, I think I’m going to bite the bullet and pay for that cool SiteMeter that posts the countries that have visited by showing flags in the right, like at Lisa‘s and Dijanne‘s sites.

Now I have to head upstairs and lint roller the Chapter Banner, as tonight is photography night: taking pictures of the banner and the koi quilt to enter them into Houston. I got into the juried show once before, and I’m hoping this will be my lucky second time.

And once again, thank you! {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{All of you}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
(Those are cyber-quilty-hugs by the way!)

Today you get a tour of U.S. minor league baseball, Maine-style! because I’m still slamming on the koi quilt… as a teaser, here’s a close-up of one of the koi and some of the beading. More soon…I know I keep promising…. I finished the beading after dinner tonight, and started the facings (hand sewing). Hope to take pics tomorrow, then send the entries to Houston on Weds. or Thursday. And oh yeah… work out again. I remember that. My expanding waistline keeps reminding me….

In the meantime, I’m clearly hopping all over my Frayed Edges / Portland long weekend..during which I took nearly (Gasp, Gulp) 200 photos! I started with the last thing first, which was my previous post about Jan and Dwight’s artists’ reception for their art quilts and photos. I worked like a madwoman on my koi quilt until 3:05 pm Saturday, and had to be a 90 minute drive away in about 110 minutes (but needed a shower!). Fortunately, the car was already packed except for rolling up the koi. Anyway, I left home finally at 4 pm Saturday, and got home about 5 pm Monday, and it was such a wonderful break that it felt like a restorative two week vacation!

The first part of this mini-vacation to be planned was Sunday. As soon as tickets went on sale, Paul bought our “summer” Sea Dogs (minor league team for the Boston Red Sox) tickets. We’ve made a tradition I guess of going on Memorial Day weekend, which we combine with Paul’s birthday. The unseasonable heat of Friday (92! in Camden) and Saturday (upper 80s) was abated, and Sunday was glorious and even got a bit chilly by the end of the game, which the Sea Dogs won. We ate dinner out at Fuji, an awesome Japanese restaurant in downtown Portland, and spent the night before returning home.

I am absolutely NOT a sports fan, and especially not of pro ball. But the Sea Dogs are totally cool, and it is baseball the way it ought to be! The stands aren’t so vast, and you can see the faces of the players even if you are in the back row. There is usually someone from the team signing autographs during the first few innings down near the concessions stands, and vendors hawk “Sea Dog Biscuits, get your Sea Dog Biscuits Heaah” (that’s Mainer for ‘here’). The team has fun stuff between innings, and Slugger the Sea Dog (a name for a seal) mascot.

The game began with a trooping of the colors, followed by the National Anthem. Since it was Memorial Day weekend (for those of you not in the US, this is a national holiday the last Monday in May, the unofficial start of summer, and is to commemorate the folks who have served our country in the military throughout its history), Veterans from the American Legion paraded onto the field with the flags.

Here is the first “fun” between innings: the shopping cart toss! Two folks from the stands get to try to lob balls into a gargantuan shopping cart; the one with the most balls in wins a $75 shopping gift certificate. This time, they tied so both got the gift:

Then there is the favorite “Lobster Toss.” In this game, two folks man opposite sides of an old-fashioned lobster trap (but with top open) while groundscrew toss stuffed-animal lobsters in their direction. The goal is to catch as many lobsters as they can; if they catch a minimum amount, they get a seafood feast at a local restaurant:

There’s a chance to win a car (the light colored SUV on the right), but it’s really hard to win on this one…you have to get 3 out of 3 shots through the small opening in the board down near first base… haven’t even heard of anyone doing that one:

Then there is Slugger, who is a ham despite the fact that he is a fuzzy aquatic mammal. And good with the kids:

After I think it is the 5th inning, they play the Village People’s YMCA song, and everyone gets up, stretches and does the Y-M-C-A wave thing with Slugger (note he even has his own Village People tool belt, for those of us old enough and living in the US who can remember this group!):

During another inning break, one lucky kid (of the small size) gets his or her name picked from out of a hat to “race” Slugger around the bases and see who wins. The kid always runs the regular way, from home to first, then secon, then third, then home base. Slugger always gets confused and runs the “wrong” way, and they pass each other (with a high five) between first and second base.

Someone is always out on the field to help the sometimes-confused kids run the right direction. And Slugger always trips and falls on the way to home base which, of course, ensures that the kid wins to major cheers from the crowd:

Just before the game, we dashed down to the Portland mall, and bought Joshua his heart’s desire: Black Converse high tops, plaid shorts, and an Inspi(Red) t-shirt. Here are his adored high-tops, which he had to wear to the game:

And out on Hadlock’s Field’s version of Fenway’s Green Monster (that’s the very high wall over left field at Fenway Park in Boston, for those out of the US, which makes it almost impossible to hit a home run out of left field!), a new sign: the Eastern League Championship for 2006!

Last but not least, you always want to see the lighthouse. To do that one of two things needs to happen: if the Sea Dogs win, it rises up from behind center field with the light on. Or, if a Sea Dog hits a home run, it not only rises up from behind the wall, but sparklers (like on the Fourth of July but lots bigger) shoot out sideways like beacons of light. As you might guess, it was a good game because the Sea Dogs won and the lighthouse came up:

And I promise, I will return to both quilting and the koi quilt!!!!! But I just wanted to share a bit of Americana, Maine-style. I’m so totally NOT a sports fan, but this is just good fun!

And last but definitely not least, the day I wrote this post was my dear hubby’s 60th (??? Egads how did THAT happen?) birthday. Here’s the birthday boy opening his birthday gift:

and holding the smallest, cutest member of the family — Pigwidgeon: