What a DEVINE Weekend

Well, it's Monday morning and I am in 'reflection' mode. Our guild held its inaugural Studio Tour just this past Saturday. This is an event that I have wanted to happen for years. How nice it was when someone stepped up to the plate and took on the job. Sally and her committee set out to have a very professionally done event and they accomplished their goal. It was a year in the planning and, just like Christmas, was over in a flash.

The committee named the tour 'The Needle and Thread' tour so that in the future other types of studios can be added. Those of us whose studios were on the tour spent the last year getting our studios ready by cleaning (never get all of the dust) and adding organizational elements to share with our friends. I wish I had photos to share of the other studios, but, I was busy here and didn't get to any of the others. Hopefully I can visit them over the next few months. However, Here are a few photos o
f my studio and studio annex.

This is where I store some projects on the top 2 shelves. Now, on the bottom shelf I have bobbin storage.

I use athletic shoe boxes from 'The Container Store' with dividers. I use only Superior Bottom Line Super Bobs, so I now have every color neatly at my finger tips.

My new thread wall, in the Annex, is my latest 'favorite thing'. It is 4' x 16' of slat wall and it is slowly filling with my favorite threads. I currently have all of Superiors Omni, Sew Fine and I am building my collection of Magnifico and Fantistico and MicroQuilter. That's on one end and the other is my collection of Fit-Tec Glide....I still have a long way to go with that one. My wall of Sew Fine is in the Studio where Olivia Gammill resides. Since I use her for most of my custom quilting, it is readily available there.

The other nice aspect added to the Annex this year was my Accucut corner.

Now I have all of my dies off of the floor. They are labeled so that I actually know what I have and no longer order duplicates. They are laying on shelf brackets so that they don't have to lay on top of each other which is not the way to store them. I also have my heat press in that corner. It is only used for T-shirt quilts so it is out of the way, but, accessable when I need it.

During the tour Penelope Statler worked very hard and managed to quilt 3 Quilts of Valor. She stitched from 8 that morning until about 5 that afternoon. NOT ONE THREAD BREAK!!!! through the entire time. I'll put the binding on those today and be ready to turn them over the next time I see Anne Mixon.

Well, that's it for now. I am in the Studio for today and then tomorrow I am off on a retreat with my Sister and some friends. This has been a very busy month and things won't slow down until after May Mester (that I have not cut the first paper on my project yet). Thankfully my clients are very patient with me and have not yet started complaining. I will spend June, July and most of August catching up on my clients custom quilts. The edge to edge quilting just rolls right along and I am still in that 2 week window of turn around.

So, I'm off to work. Hope you have a pleasant day?