Monday, August 12, 2013

Studio Spotlight

So glad you stopped by to visit!
 It is always fun to see where someone else creates, dreams, designs, sews and.....stores their fabric. I hope you enjoy my little studio tour, welcome to the Pacific Northwest! 


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Greetings from Seattle!
 I had all good intentions of having the gardening done before you all arrived, but it started getting dark out and that bag of soil was way too heavy to get out of the picture. So here you have it.  My studio is in a space detached from the house with a door leading in from the backyard. I have 300 square feet to house my Gammill longarm quilting machine, my Bernina domestic machine, a Singer featherweight, my modest but growing fabric stash, my thread wall, my design wall, and a lot of batting.
Yes, I have a palm tree, yes it is out of place in Seattle. Yes, I love California with every part of my heart, what else can I say?
 Hi Victor!





















This is my view from the door. The space sits behind our garage. When we moved in it was a very rough storage room with tacky shelving and concrete floors. A lot of love and work has gone into this space, it continues to be an ongoing WIP
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For those of you who have never seen a longarm it is quite an impressive machine. My Gammill is cast iron and sits atop a 12 foot table. I have it pictured here alongside my featherweight for scale. Impressive, no?

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This is the area behind where I stand while quilting, I seem to have a thing for a good pair of scissors..or two.. or eight. The plexiglass you see on the floor is a tool I use for planning quilting designs.

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Pictured below is a gorgeous quilt made by Jules, I quilted spirals on it with the help of my IQ and quickly became once again obsessed by the elusive selvage spiderweb. I store my batting on rolls above the area where I hang customer quilts I have two additional rolls stored under my gammill. Storage in a 300 Sq Ft space with such a large machine is a continual work in progress.
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This is my design wall, it is a nice large wall that I constructed using insulation board and covered with batting. My thread storage is quickly being infringed upon by fabric overflow in need of a place to stay. I love color order and am smitten with my Value quilt WIP. I have completely crushed on value quilts thanks to Katie after taking her value quilt class at Drygoods.


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Here is a view from my studio looking out to the backyard, my husband just put screens on my window and a new door, I am lucky to have so much natural and very little direct sunlight coming into the space. 
My cutting table is in a constant state of being a disaster area. All of those trimmings and thread will make their way out to birds nests in the yard. There are a ridiculous number of birds living in our backyard. With all the thread and fabric scraps available for nesting material I get the feeling that my backyard is like the Hamptons of the bird world.

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I have somehow managed to collect a few vintage sewing machines. The one pictured below is a before and after shot of an industrial Singer sewing machine dated to 1911 that my step dad found and brought back to life for me. It currently resides in the garage, but we aren't talking about how I am slowly but surely taking over the garage for additional sewing space are we?
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 Here is my sewing table and some of the fun stuff that inspires me hanging on the walls.  I love mini quilts and I love to paint and draw. I am in the process of cutting and trading many MANY 6" squares for value quilts. I have amassed enough squares to make value quilts to roughly cover the entire city of Seattle.
 It does rain here a lot.

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 I searched and searched AND searched for this IKEA table on Craigslist and finally just caved and bought one new. It was worth every cent. I covered it with a layer of batting and fabric, it is a fantastic ironing/work surface.
I am inspired by so many things and love to surround myself and fill my space with treasures.


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Its been my pleasure to have you visit my studio on this virtual tour.
Enjoy all of the other studio and crafting spaces featured,  I would love to see where you create too!
 Where ever you create big or small, living room, dining room, extra room...err...garage.... studio, our sewing/crafting spaces are such special, important places where we can escape to, express ourselves and create beautiful things. I have enjoyed sharing mine with you. As always thank you for visiting and have a wonderful week. xoxo

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