Come on in...

Remember this?

And this?

They are no more.

it was beginning to become impossible to find stuff and not a nice place to sew in.

So, come on in and see what it looks like now.

This is the view you get as you open the door.

This unit holds a complete array of anything and everything and in no particular order.

Quilt books are on the top.
New rule: if I can't fit all the books on the top then I have too many and need to get rid of old ones before I can buy any more.

Swinging round to the left of this unit (ie the wall you can see on the left hand side when you first walk in is my 'design wall', aka the £10 open plan office divider.

I've pinned up the blocks I've been doing from a Material Obsession Block of the Month. When I purchased the BOM I didn't know what the end quilt would look like. When I got it, I didn't like it so I'm deviating from the instructions, doing my own thing and going to finish it a different way.

Then to the right of my design wall is this.

I repainted the wall white to try and enhance what natural light makes its way into this cranny of the room.
An old fruit and veg basket that is storing precuts as well as (on the bottom rung) the fabric needed to finish off the design wall quilt.

Large storage basket holds a bunch of what was described at the time as 'shabby chic' type fabrics - soft pastels.

Smaller basket is holding freezer paper, graph and tracing paper and fusible stuff.

Then if you turn right (the room is an L shape) you come to this.

The rainbow coloured unit on the left contains colour sorted tiny scraps (smaller than an FQ).

The sewing machine is set into the table with a small ironing station on the left.
The drawers are as yet unsorted.

This is the view if you look left out of the window - towards the centre of the island.

And if you look right, then this is the view - beyond the trees, it is the sea.

To the right of the sewing machine area is the cutting table, squeezed into the eaves of the L shaped room.

Underneath the table, I've sorted zips and all patterned blues and patterned greens. It was only by doing this that I realised I had so much green - there are two tubs worth of greens. No idea why.

Then on the wall directly behind the sewing area is the old office cabinet which is kind of vaguely sorted in colour order.

Top shelf is black and white and text fabrics.

On top of this unit are various bits and bobs.

CD player and discs, various sprays, a pile of plaids to remind me I want to make a quilt with them and a precious wooden box given to me by Daughter No. 1, made in her DT class at school.

And inside:

I couldn't possibly comment

To the right of this unit is a pile of stacked boxes kind of colour sorted. The top one is the scrap bin which is one big scrappy mess.

And finally, to the right of the cutting table and another reason why I had to sort the room out is this.

The power of the internet is such that back in November I read on a website that the shop that I used to go to as a child for school uniforms was closing down. You can read about it here if you are interested and why they had no cash tills.

It was a real 'Are You Being Served' kind of a place - a dying breed of shops, falling victim to the recession and no doubt the same internet that let me hear about its impending demise.

So when I found myself back there over the Christmas holidays, I popped in for a bit of nostalgia and then saw the above and thought it would make the most brilliant fabric storer.

Long story short, all the fixtures and fittings were going to auction and others before me had expressed an interest in the unit. However, an agreement was reached and the unit was shipped to me and yesterday was hauled up two flights of stairs to its new home.

It's just perfect.

They had already put draw dividers in so I kept some for smaller pieces of fabric.

And some I took out for larger pieces of fabric.

Granted it is missing a few handles -apparently they are called 'card frame pulls' - and I need to see if I can find any on the internet but that'll be the only tarting up I do. The names and labels are staying - they are all familiar memories from my childhood.

And that's it.

A little look in on my (currently tidy) corner of the world.

And before it goes pear-shaped, I'm  off to Leila's Where Do you Sew linky to check out how I rate in the tidiness stakes ;-)

2/2

And so the second cushion cover from the Sew Mama Sew giveaway is now complete.

Melissa asked for aubergine - tick

Pieced - tick

Sage - tick

Bold - I hope so

Egyptian - why yes, don't think triangles, think pyramids.

 Quilted with mono filament thread with a wavy stitch elongated to the max.


Oh, and if like me you are on a fabric diet, may I suggest tea towels from Well Worth It? (used to be Woolworths).

They're just  £1.99 each.

But who's to say you have to use them for that purpose ;-)

3 4 13

A little pouch thingamy whotsit to store Important Things for a niece.

A cushion cover for someone who is mad about V W camper vans.

I used the free pattern on Tula Pink's blog and made one slight addition.

I added a name plate...

...of the intended recipient.

Which is not to say this idea would work if you were making this for a Stephanie or a Francesca or any other long girls' names for that matter.

The back is an extremely tactile Anna Marie Horner velveteen.

And my third make of 2013 is really a finish off from the previous year.

It was a great way to showcase big print fabrics.

I also used it as an opportunity to try out various free motion quilting design ideas in each of the squares.

The back is fairly pedestrian but is in line with my new modus operandi of using up what is to hand.

When I posted a picture of my sewing room a while back, there was a comment left by someone that it looked like a scene from The Hoarders. I don't think we get that this side of the Atlantic but I knew instantly what she meant.

I can't disagree with that and aim to remedy the situation throughout this year.

Here's to 2013, the year of being thrifty.