Creative Spaces Blog Hop Week 6: Tool Storage

Sorry I am a day late posting my blog.  I have been traveling the last 2 weeks, and FINALLY arrived home this afternoon.  I am collapsing with my feet up in the recliner while I am writing this post.  It has been a fun trip.

  

I left on July 31 and flew to Texas, then back to Kansas City, then to Nashville, Cleveland, Chicago and finally home 14 days later.  Phew!  Saw Family, friends, and lots of great quilts and ate some great food!  Now, back to work!!!!

This week I will take you on a tour of my my tool storage.  You have already seen some of this, but as we wrap up this 6-week long blog hop, I will show you a few of the storage ideas I have come up with over the years.

Let's start with Rulers.

Who can resist a new ruler?  Not me, for sure!  I love to explore new cutting and piecing techniques and a new ruler gives me the chance to try out new ideas.  I store rulers in wood ruler racks on my worktable.  The big ones are in a large rack on the left.  These are square rulers from 7" up to 20".  It protects them while keeping them handy.

The smaller rack to the right holds short rulers and small squares.  A bin with extra rotary cutters in several sizes sites next to the ruler racks. In addition, my Martelli turntable is nearby.  This is a great set up for pressing and trimming blocks and smaller units.

To cut strips and larger cuts, I keep my long rulers in a rack mounted to the post just above my large cutting table.

Notice my brown stool in the bottom picture?  I pull that out to sit at my cutting table if I am doing a LOT of cutting.  It is a back saver.

I also keep a few rulers on my ironing board.  If I am paper piecing or sewing and trimming at the machine, I keep a turntable and a few trimming rulers on the ironing board.  It is all about keeping things close to where I use them.

Notice that I have a basket with ironing stuff right on my ironing board too.  Starch, Best Press, water spritzer, and cups for filling the iron all go in there.  There is also a pressing cloth folded and tucked in there when I need to protect surfaces I am pressing.  

Beneath the ironing board is a 3-drawer storage container which holds more pressing hams, a clapper, and other pressing tools left over from my dress-making days.

Specialty rulers and templates I don't use often go in a storage drawer under my long work top.

I typically keep rulers I use for classes in the box that holds all the class stuff, but I also keep a large supply of extra templates in the storage drawer.  

Smaller templates and rulers I use very seldom go in a small bin stored on my shelving units.

They are easy to find when I need them and out of the way when I don't.

Big things too big to put in a drawer or a bin are stored at the end of my worktop or behind my cutting table.

Because I teach a lot of quilt classes and vend my patterns at a lot of shows I have to be able to store things I need and access them quickly.

This long narrow table holds bins that store patterns, class supplies, and vending supplies, below the table.  Each bin is labeled with its contents and I can pull out just the patterns I need to ship or the class I need to teach.  This has made my life SOOOOOO much simpler.

Quilts for trunk shows are stored on my storage racks and in suitcases.

I actually need more room for quilts!

This is part of my fabric stash, by color.  These reside next to my quilt storage racks.

I have this old pie safe cupboard I use to store my light boxes, paining supplies, extra irons, my Brother Scan and Cut and a few other odd goodies.

 When I first started quilting everything I owned for quilting fit in this cupboard!  hahaha

So thanks for hanging out with me the past 6 weeks.  Watch for the announcement of winners of my weekly give away coming at the end of the week.

Easy Binding Winder

Karen K Buckley 4" Scissors

Aurifil Thread Pack

and this week. . . .

A Fat Quarter Fabric Bundle!!!

Be sure to leave a comment to be entered to win.

Thanks for hanging out with me for this blog hop.  It has been a blast.

Here’s the list of participants and the days of the week they’ll be posting. Click the links to go to each of their blogs below and follow them, or bookmark their sites so you can check out what each has to say every week!

MONDAYS

• Tammy Silvers of Tamarinis
• Cherry Guidry of Cherry Blossom Quilting

TUESDAYS

• Reeze Hanson of Morning Glory Designs
• Jessica VanDenbergh of Sew Many Creations

WEDNESDAYS

• Kate Colleran of Seams Like a Dream
• Kris Poor of Poor House Quilt Designs
• Jessica Caldwell of Desert Bloom Quilting

THURSDAYS

• Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quilt Works
• Vicki Hansen of Cranberry Pie Designs

FRIDAYS

• Erin Hentzel of Avery Lane Designs
• Christa Quilts

SATURDAYS

• Toni Smith of Quiltoni
• Swan Sheridan of Swan Amity

SUNDAYS

• Pauline McArthur of Funky Friends Factory
• Annie Smith of Simple Arts
• Joanne Sharpe

Last Day: Studio Spotlight Blog Hop

Studio Spotlight Friday -- Morning Glory Designs

Well, after two weeks of touring great studios how do you feel?  Overwhelmed?  Me too.  These great designers have wonderful spaces!   But I am pleased to invite you to take a quick tour of mine.

My studio is in the basement of my small house in Ottawa, KS.  So that means everything has to go down or up these stairs.

Yes, that really is pink carpet, and I have to say it's not my fault!  It was here when we bought the house 21 years ago and we have not changed it.

Turn right at the bottom of the stairs and you enter the Man Cave where my husband has his room for all things guy-related.

Turn left and you enter my studio.  First a word. . . My studio used to be my son's bedroom but when he went off to college he was no sooner out the door when we were remodeling the space.  Go HERE and see the complete remodel.

That was in 2009.  Here is what it looks like now, nearly 6 years later.

As you turn left and walk into the studio you see a glimpse of the "veranda" and my machine table.

My machine table is part of an old computer desk and the veranda is a huge wallpaper mural which covers the whole end of the room and wraps around the corner.

 Just behind my sewing chair is my ironing table and an old pie safe that I use to store supplies.

First, this is my sewing station.  You can see part of the veranda and my thread storage.  I wish I had a better way to store thread to keep the dust off, but as you will see this is a relatively small studio.

My comfy chair spins so that I can turn around and press.  I have a Bernina 440 machine and another smaller Bernina 240 which I keep packed up ready to travel to classes or retreats.  All of my tools are within easy reach.

To the right, I keep all the notions I use all the time in a spinning Pampered Chef tool caddy.  Works great for me and everything is at my fingertips.

Then my machine and large acrylic table sit in the middle between two big Ott Lights and a smaller bright light on the machine.  Machine needles and bobbins are close by.

Just to the left of my machine you can see a pink cutting mat taped to my table so I can do paper piecing right here at my machine.  The acrylic table can be removed when I put my embroidery module on the machine and all my embroidery threads are close where I can reach them as I sew.

In the corner of the table is my serger.  My husband bought this for my birthday more than 20 years ago, and it has been so good I have had no reason to replace it.   I sure would love a new one with self threading and more bells and whistles, but this one has served me well for many years.

The space behind my chair is the pressing station and you can also see my cotton thread (Masterpiece) nearby.  The two drawers contain my sewing gloves, machine manuals, pressing hams and machine accessories.

 And of course there are quilts on every wall.  They are mostly small ones, but they are ones that I love which I made or were made for me by others.  Several are by master quilter and expert in miniature quilt Jayne Turner, who wrote and incredible book on Miniature quilts.  I have several of Jayne's quilts on my walls, including the one on top in the picture above.  I made the stained glass quilt below it at a workshop by Linda Everhart some years ago.

 In the basket I put pressing supplies and the pattern I am working on.  More tools hand on the hook on the side of the Pie Safe.  I hang applique pressing sheets from a hole I punched in each one and a caddy that packs into my sewing tote when I go to class.  I really work on finding ways to use the space efficiently since the room is only 12' x 24'.

You can tell I like a lot of light on my work, so I have lamps on every surface and overhead pin lights focused on each area in the room.

The pressing table is a Big Board sitting atop a folding table.  Under the pressing table (set at a height to sit and press) are baskets for scraps.

The flooring is actually cushioned vinyl that looks like wood!  I love the look and it is easy on the feet.  The floor under it is cement!

Turn around and you see the rest of the room.

The cutting table folds up and has drawers and cupboards on both sides.  I only have one of the leaves up on the table.  When I am doing large projects I can turn the table and open the other leaf.  I have a mat the size of the entire table when I have the  need to open it up fully.

The blue box in front and the red one beneath it have all the things I need when I set up a booth at a show.  It is convenient to grab the booth box, and off I go with everything I need for set up on there.

Along the wall on the right, next to the pie safe,  where I store pressing items, embroidery frames and stabilizers, and some small quilts.  Beyond the cupboard is a set of three large shelving units my husband got for me last Christmas.

On the end are projects, batik bins, template bins, and accuquilt dies,

then there are fabric bins,

then quilt storage.  Since I do a lot of trunk shows I need quilts handy and ready to pack up. There are large suitcases on the floor beneath the shelves which I can use to haul quilts.

At the end of the room is a window and book shelves for my quilting books  and magazines.  the window is at ground level and under the deck so there is no light coming in.  To keep the room bright and cheerful I painted the walls yellow and the ceiling light blue!  The plastic drawer units hold quilting stencils, embroidery supplies, serger thread, batting scraps, and tote bags.

In the middle of the room is my sit-down long arm.

It is a 22" Martelli long arm with a 4'x 4' electric table.  It has a build in cutting mat on the back side and I can raise and lower it for work standing or sitting.  I really love it.

My new Brother Scan N Cut is set up on the cutting side, ready to work on a  new Block of the Month pattern. Below the table are bins with large batting scraps and another bin with projects in process.

On the wall opposite the shelves are two big closets.  One is my fabric storage closet, and the other is my husband's closet and entry to the under stairs storage.
Here is the fabric storage closet.  It has shelves and bins.  The drawers store holiday fabric, my collection of flamingo fabric and patterns, fusible web, and fabric for special projects.

 The other half of the closest has fabric bins sorted by color, and large drawers with wide backs and large yardage cuts.  The doors are covered with vinyl back tablecloths I use as a design wall.

My posable dude sits on the top of my long arm to keep me entertained while I quilt.  Below is another picture of my long arm with some fabric I was practicing on and the round holder used to move the fabric.  You can see the cutting mat better in this view.

This set of white drawers are all UFO's.  Ok not proud of the fact that I have alot of UFOs but at least I know where they are.  These are some of my retirement projects.  LOL  Above the drawers, in this alcove, are shelves with sewing notions, zippers, ribbons, and pattern boxes.  You can see the ruler racks on the left.

Now we are back around to my cutting table where I store all my rulers on the table in a stand and on the wall in a rack.

And that is the WHOLE studio.  Yes, it is all in one room.  OK, I have an office upstairs where my computer is located where I do all my design work, but it is pretty small and currently a mess, so we aren't going there!  haha

Next to the door is a small shelf where I keep an embroidery basket, a tin of pincushions, binding scraps, and my helper, Rockie.

 On the day I took these pictures, it was nearly 70 outside so I worked at my outside office, on my back porch.  Of course I can never go anywhere alone, my helper Buster and Rockie were nearby.

My outdoor desk with laptop where I do a lot of my design work in nice weather.

Thanks for taking the tour of my studio.  Leave a comment and you will be entered to win a free pattern.  I will give away 5 patterns to five random commentors.

If you go to my Facebook Page and like it or leave a comment you will be entered to win a pattern and two charm packs to make the pattern!

Don't forget to check out my website for my new patterns, my January sale, and my January 10% pattern special discount when you use the MGD10% coupon code at checkout.  Good through January 30!

Thanks and happy Friday.

Oh, and did I forget. . . . .??  

Today is my last day of work as a college professor.  

As of 5 pm today I am officially retired!  Oh yea. . . . . .:-)