Clean Studio

I was dared to show the “before” picture of my messy studio, so here it is:

Can you say, “piles?”   LOL  It was cluttered, dusty, and needed some thorough organization work!

Here is the after pictures:

I love the colors in this next picture.  The 2 small paintings are by Terri Stegmiller, mixed media artist.  I love to collect small work by other artists:

Check out my behind the door storage for lots of odds and ends:

My desk:

And part of one wall showing my silly sock creature, some paintings, and a print by the oh, so talented Geninne:

There you have it!  The studio is clean now, but I still need to put up a few more organization items on the walls for magazines, stencils, etc.

Carla’s Studio- update

Thought I would show you what my studio looks like today. It still isn’t finished, and I do not have my quilts on the wall yet. But I do have lots of places for storage- most of the storage pieces came from IKEA (in case you are interested):

My longarm quilting machine table takes up the most space.

A close up of my desk space:

and some storage ideas:

and how I store my yarn stash:

& thread:

As you can see, I just need to finish quilting the green sections on Jill’s booth quilt, then I’m finished.

I do hope you have enjoyed this tour. My studio is a work-in-progress, so it is always changing.

We went to visit Jack today (and his parents, too). He turns 6 months old tomorrow, can you believe how time flies?? Stop back by and I’ll be sure to post some pictures.

Happy Creating!! Carla

Fabric Stash Organization and Tutorial

I am busy working on my studio makeover at the moment. I have most of the large storage furniture installed that I purchased from Ikea, and now it is time to fill it with my fabric stash. How best to do this step and still have it look good? By using comic book archival acid-free boards found on this website.

All you need are some boards (I ordered 3 packs of 300 to start), some fabric, and some corsage pins (I found these heavy duty pins at WalMart for a few dollars.) My method works best on fabric, sized 1/3rd of a yard or greater. Here is the tutorial:

Fabric Wrapped Comic Book Boards:

Here is how I do this to look nice and neat (click on thumbnails for larger images):

 Step 1

 Step 2

 Step 3

 Step Pin

 Step 4

 Last Step: organize the fabric in your bookcase.

There! It doesn’t get easier than this! It looks good, and I can re-arrange it by color or collection, anything really.  Smaller pieces of fabric can be organized by color into readily accessible bins, and large pieces of fabric (3 yards or above) may simply be folded and neatly stacked on the shelf.

Of course, the above fabric is only a small percentage of my total fabric stash- like maybe 1%. It may take me weeks to complete this part of the remodel with my complete fabric stash.

Hugs, Carla

PS: See my main Tutorial Page for more projects.  Here are some finished studio pics:

My quilting machine:

And the reason why my studio is pet-free:

In case you missed it, here are some other posts related to my studio makeover:

Studio Makeover,

Studio Makeover and other stuff,

Studio Progress Pictures, and

Life and Other Happenings in my studio.

Studio Progress Pictures

Joe put together some of the bookcases/storage units for my quilting/art studio yesterday.  I was able to unload a few boxes, but realize that the room is still relatively a blank slate at this point.  The color layer comes last!   Click on each thumbnail to enlarge the image.

View from the door:

     

Desk/Niche storage:

Some prelim. details:

I still need to unpack my yarn, fabric stash, and thread.  Right now, my thread stash is in the two large plastic storage bins under my longarm quilting machine.

For non-quilters, that rather LARGE machine is called a longarm quilting machine.  I use it to quilt quilts, plus it has other uses to create fiber objects.  My husband calls it my very expensive play toy- LOL!

I am still hunting for just the right fabric for this room right now.  Perhaps tomorrow I will drive down the hill to search.   I also need to run back to IKEA for just a few more organization items.  Wish I had a Container Store near me!!

More Later….   Hugs, Carla

Studio Remodel continues

Today will be spent on putting together all the studio cabinets and bookcases. Part one was emptying the studio and some paint. Part Two was deciding which office and storage solutions were best for me, and now Part Three is installing the storage pieces.

Yes, that means that Joe and I took another visit to IKEA yesterday, however, I learned my lesson from the other day and went with a specific list. I am happy to report that we were in and out in only one hour! Plus, we had a truck bed full of boxes. It was a miracle!!
I’ll share some pics tomorrow of what we get finished today.

Guess who conveniently lives right by the IKEA ?? Our new grandbaby Jack, so of course we had to stop by for some squeezing time!! We hadn’t seen him for a week, so it was a surprise how much he grew in that time! Jack is now more alert, too. Here he is staring intently at his grandfather:

Today, Jack is officially 4 weeks old!! Isn’t he adorable?

Tomorrow, watch for studio pics, also I took some pretty pictures of spring flowers. For those of you still experiencing snow and cold weather, this will give you a glimpse of what is right around the corner.

Hugs, Carla