New Floors!

DH Tom has started the installation of the new floors in the studio.


It's going pretty quickly, as you can see.


He hopes to finish today, all the difficult parts are pretty much done.


The dogs are supervising the progress (as am I, but don't tell Tom).


Ta Da!!

Studio Update - Paint!

A picture is worth a thousand words - finished the second coat a few minutes ago. I really like this color and I guess the cat did too - that's him sleeping in the paint tray in the first picture.

And the beat goes on!

My son Alex helped me remove the carpet yesterday so that we could get it into the dumpster for the garbage pick up today. DH Tom finished up last night and got the foam padding (glued down) and the tack strips removed. The gross, ugly, nasty, stained, BLUE carpet is GONE!!



Tonight we'll do a bit more sanding, rip up the vinyl strip (also glued down) and hopefully get at least one more of 4 total light fixtures up (at least temporarily) so that we can put color on the walls tomorrow.

Look what came in the mail today!

A wonderful gal named Lori Kasenter sent me this package today in the mail. I am the "printing czar" for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, which means that I collect donated printed matter and send it to the venues where the AAQI quilts are being shown for distribution.


This volunteer went above and beyond the norm, sending me a half yard of fabic and a batch of very nice fibers to play with AND 400 flyers for AAQI. WOW!! Keep an eye out . . . you'll see it in a Priority Quilt one day. Sorry the picture is bad, low light and no time!

Almost there!!

Yesterday we got the walls and ceilings all primed, ready for paint. This morning, I gave the ceiling its final coat of paint. If I get really motivated and the blood returns to my hands, I may try to start removing the carpet - garbage pick up is Thursday and I'd like to get it GONE!! That way we can paint the walls and not worry about messing up the paint when removing the carpet.




We also took down the ugly old light fixtures last night so it'd be easier to paint the ceiling. The new ones will have to go up soon - it's kind of dark in there now! It's really starting to look like it may get finished!!

Renovations Update

OK, I don't want to bore you with all the minutae, but this is exciting for me. Tom got 3 out of 4 of the new doors hung, now I just need to find the right hardware for them.


This is the first door that he put in, getting the system down just right.


Then this is the other 2 all framed out and ready to accept the doors.


In my head I'm seeing brushed nickel hardware, now I just have to find it . . .

Studio Renovations

I'm taking over some formerly mis-used space in our home for my studio. I have a dye room and what I call a "cutting" room (where I cut fabric and store things) as well as a fabric storage closet adjacent to this room, so it really makes sense to turn this room into a sewing space where I can spread out a bit. My sewing space until now has been in the dye room which made me sort of uncomfortable because of the possibility that dye might somehow get onto a sewing project - eeekk!!

So here is a "before" picture - after we ripped off 2 layers of paneling to get to the original walls. We re-insulated that whole outside wall and got rid of that icky old insulation.


Here is a "so far" picture, the drywall is up and the mudding is going on, layer after layer, bit by bit.


And a "what color shall I paint it" picture - I committed to a slightly darker version of the color on the left. Looks great with the flooring and is nice and warm.


I'll keep taking them as things progress and post them here. My house is an old schoolhouse, in use as a school from 1914 until 1959 or so. This room was used as the student lunch room at that time, then converted to a "den" by the former owners. We used it as an office space for our business, then it became a storage room when we moved the business to another location. We're putting down laminate floors for easy care, and I will have countertops on 2 walls and a design wall on one wall with it's own light source and all new daylight lighting throughout the room. I can't wait till it's finished!

Priority Quilt

I've been working on an idea for a Priority Quilt for the AAQI and it involves heavily thread painting a picture I took of a rose in my garden. I love the way it's turning out, but I forgot about the shrinkage when you thread paint and so it distorted the borders a bit. I've gotten them sort of square again, but I'm not sure how this one is going to turn out. Luckily, it's a practice piece - I wanted to try it out before I tackled the "real" PQ.



I've added a stabilizer to the "real" one, hopefully that will help keep it from shrinking as much as this one but I really like the way it came out.

Cotton/Silk Comparison

Here are pictures of the cotton that I dyed along with the silk. There's the picture of the whole piece, both scrunched and pleated, and underneath that, a close up of one part of the piece. To me, it's amazing how very different they are - the fibers take the dye in a completely different way. These were odd size bolt ends that I dyed, so I get to keep them - yippee!









I'm also undergoing a major studio renovation, taking over some space adjacent to my current dye room and cutting room, so I'll be posting updates of that process as well.