I Need to Remodel the Craft Room

Now that I’ve been working more often in my craft room, I’m starting to notice that it’s not set up to make the best use of the space. I do have my triangle from the sewing machine to the cutting table to the iron, but the iron blocks some of my drawers. And since the cutting table sits against a wall, I really only have access to what I’m cutting from one side.

I’ve been playing with the room layout in Visio, and I think I can rearrange the room so that the cutting table is open on three sides while still having room for everything else. My room isn’t large at all – about 13’ by 10.5’ – but I should be able to make it work better for me.

I’d like to pull up the carpet and put down laminate flooring. The laminate would be easier to sweep up than the carpet, and I hope that finding errant needles and pins is easier on laminate. The floor will be colder in the winter, but I think that that will be a minor inconvenience in the long run. I’d also like to put in some built-in storage. My free-standing shelf unit doesn’t allow me to use all the space it takes up. A storage unit designed to store quilting and sewing supplies would be perfect.

So, the plan is coming together. Now I just need to get hubby to work on it!

Rocky Mountain Sewing Festival Feb 4

My friend Diane and I went to the Rocky Mountain Sewing Festival last Friday. The festival runs Thursday through Saturday (with some classes on Wednesday), and we usually just go on one day. Once again, I had to add to my fabric stash.

I found a great fabric with clock faces on it. I've been looking for clock faces for awhile, because I want to try something Steampunk. OK, so now I've got the fabric -- I need to figure out the project. At one of the other booths they had no sew projects that involved stuffing fabric into a pre-cut design. Some of the designs -- crazy quilt, ornaments, tea pots -- could lend themselves to Steampunk, so I'll have to order a few to see what I can do.

I also found a fabric that had wonderful citrus fruits on it -- oranges, lemons, limes. Hopefully I'll make some placemats out of this fabric. I'll have to figure out prewashing and a backing, but the assembly should be straightforward.

And I had to stop by the hot fix gem booth and pick up some more gems. I picked colors that would work with a Steampunk theme -- topaz, copper, black, etc. I had lots of fun using the gems on my table runner, so I'm looking forward to using them in other projects.