Sew On!

                My sewing area/sweatshop is consistent with my quilt creation style---an ongoing work in progress.  

          When I first set foot in this house and walked into what was then a stained glass studio, I was beside myself. The wheels in my head spun into overdrive! I had just started quilting. If we bought this house, I wouldn’t have to sew on the dining room table, I could leave my sewing machine set up permanently! 

          There would be room for fabric! The counters were built-in in a U shape, with drawers.  There was even a built in light table! And, the area was far away from the bedrooms. I could sew late into the night without waking up the whole house.

        We bought the house and I started filling my sewing area with quilting books, tools, and mountains of fabric. It wasn’t long before it was obvious that I had to get a handle on organization or risk getting buried under an avalanche of fabric.

I took measurements and fit three-drawer bins under the counters to hold fabric. I followed advice from the book Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter and wrapped my fabric around my 6 x 24” ruler so that it would all be uniformly folded.   

Then I loaded the drawers mostly by color and a few other separate categories (like Christmas fabric, fall prints, 30s/40s reproductions, novelty fabrics and batiks). It’s good that the plastic drawers are semi- transparent because then I can see the colors in each one. 

You’re not supposed to  store fabric in plastic because it can’t breathe, but stashed in the drawers, the fabric is protected from my cats who love fabric almost as much as I do.  I try to rifle through my stash often enough that there’s some” fabric breathing” going on.

       When Pacific Fabrics still had a store in Puyallup, I got hooked on their baby bolts. They cut the cardboard forms that fabric is wrapped around in half. Then they folded fabric (usually less than a yard) in half lengthwise, wrapped it around the half size cardboard, and called them baby bolts. They are so cute, they’re irresistible. My collection grew over the years. I tucked my baby bolt collection into the cradle that my daughter slept in as an infant.

Cradle full of baby bolts.

        If a piece of fabric is two yards or longer, I wrap it onto a cardboard bolt that I ask fabric stores for when they’re done with them.  These are the fabrics that I’ll use for quilt backings or borders. I plan to eventually clear a bookshelf to store them upright, like fabric stores do.

       Many quilters store their threads on wall racks, but my wall space is limited, and my cats are curious, so I keep my spools of thread stored in a small three-drawer cabinet.  One drawer is for multi-purpose thread. One is for 100% cotton quilting thread, and the third drawer is for specialty threads like metallics.

One of the walls of my open sewing area is a design wall. Initially I hung a very long wooden curtain rod on the wall and hung a queen-sized flannel sheet from it. Quilt pieces are supposed to cling to the flannel as you play with them and rearrange them. However, my design wall is along the pathway to the garage, and anytime someone walked by it, pieces fluttered to the floor. I started pinning them to the flannel. It slowed creativity down.

My design wall with Kaffe Fassett quilt in-progress.

 Then I read somewhere about wrapping a 4’ x 8’ piece of polystyrene foam board with flannel.  This called for a trip to the hardware store.  Johnny duct taped two of the boards together, and slid them behind the flannel sheet and under the curtain rod. Other people wrap the foam board in flannel and attach it to the wall, but since I already had the curtain rod up, my method was easier. The curtain rod keeps the foam board from falling down. Now I just smooth quilt pieces onto the flannel and stick pins through them into the foam board like a bulletin board.

My books are organized by specialized types of quilting (applique, paper piecing, traditional blocks, etc.), and alphabetically by author. I have a master list of them that I try to keep current. I started the list when my library grew big enough that I couldn’t remember what I had and bought the same book twice. I’d like to say that they’re all neatly stored on shelves, and most of them are, but there are also a lot of stacks of books wherever I can wedge one in.

Inspired by the Winter 2012 issue of Studios magazine and looking at people’s studio ideas on Pinterest, I got busy reorganizing and tidying up my studio—again. I decided to clear away the calendar and artwork that I had on the wall behind my ironing center and dedicate it to storing tools instead. John put up a pegboard that now holds my rulers, and templates. That freed up room around my light table making it easier to find what I need quickly.

John putting the pegboard up!

Standing back, I took in my spruced up sewing area and thought it needed a little something extra, so I made a sign to hang at the top of the pegboard.  I painted wooden letters “SEW” turquoise and glued them onto a scrap of white bead board. It’s the perfect touch!

Pegboard fully loaded and the finished "SEW" sign.

There’s still a lot of work to be done, sorting and reducing, and re-vamping the TV/stereo system, but the cutting table is cleared off and the structure of the room is in place. I’m probably three fourths of the way through, and my sewing area is turning into a real studio!

Laura Keolanui Stark is still working on organizing her studio, and trying very hard not to start working on any of the projects she unearthed until the “remodeling” is complete. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com. Good sources of organization ideas are in the books: Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space Sewing-Room Makeovers for any space and any budget, by Lois L. Hallock, and Organizing Your Craft Space, by Jo Packham.

Jerica's Quilt

One quilt often inspires another. That was the case with a quilt that I made for Sarah when she moved into her first apartment. After she chose a pattern from my quilting library, we hit the quilt shops in search of brown, gold, and cream fabrics with musical undertones. The quilt turned out beautifully and Sarah hung it proudly in her apartment.

          That’s where Jerica saw it. Sarah and Jerica have been friends since they were in elementary school. They were roommates their freshman year at WSU.

           Sarah told me that Jerica loved that quilt, and admired it whenever she visited. Eventually, Jerica asked me if I’d make the same quilt for her, out of different colors, if her mom bought the fabric. It would be a gift from her parents for her 21^st birthday. Of course, I said yes.

          In the spring, my favorite neightborhood fabric/quilting store, Pacific Fabrics went out of business. Jerica, her mom, Sarah, and I took advantage of the big closing sale. We grabbed a shopping cart and filled it with eighteen bolts of purple, brown, and cream fabrics. Jerica and her mom hadn’t ever shopped for fabric before, but Sarah and I showed them the ropes and they caught on quickly.

          Spring turned into summer. I had planned to work on the quilt over the summer, and just barely made that deadline, by cutting all the blocks out as August ended. That’s also when I panicked and remembered to make an appointment for time on a long arm quilting machine.

The first time available was on October 4. That would work. Jerica’s birthday is in December. It would also light a fire under me to get moving.

Sarah and Jerica left for college. I wish I could say that I got right back to work on the quilt, but I didn’t. The blocks sat neatly stacked on my sewing counter, while other things took priority.

In mid-September, I started slicing the curves into the blocks, then stitched along the curves to create new blocks.  I sprinkled the smaller accent squares onto those blocks. Karla Alexander author of Color Shuffle, explained her process simply and accurately. I slapped the blocks up onto my design wall as I finished them. I sent Jerica and Sarah pictures of the quilt in progress.

Once I got all the blocks up on my design wall, I was glad I hadn’t waited until the absolute last minute. Over the next week, I’d arrange and rearrange the blocks almost every time I walked past them on the way to my car, trying to get it balanced, and trying to make sure that the same fabrics weren’t right next to each other. Sometimes it felt like one of those square puzzles that you slide numbers around in trying to get them in order. At last, my Rubik’s cube of a quilt top was arranged to my liking.

Let the piecing begin! I joined the blocks into rows, and then joined the rows into a quilt top.

          Next step, I started doodling possible quilting patterns to quilt on it. I had quilted Sarah’s quilt with swirls. That went well with the music theme, but I wanted something different for Jerica’s quilt. I went to sleep with no plan. I woke up with a few very tentative possibilities.

At Trains, Fabrics, Etc. I helped the quilt shop owner load the quilt top, batting, and backing onto the long arm quilting machine. I picked out a variegated thread of browns and cream. I looked over the diagonal rows of curves. Should I echo the curves? That seemed too obvious. Should I quilt angular, geometric lines to contrast against the curves? No, I liked the curves. I wanted them to stand out.

I grasped the handles of the quilting machine, and relaxed, confident that something would come to me. As always, it did: vines with curling fronds climbing up the diagonal rows. They would be flowing and curvy, and simple enough to be forgiving. But best of all, this design would match the mood of the quilt.

As I quilted, other quilters who came into the shop came by to see what I was working on, and offered their compliments. It’s not a traditional quilt, definitely more contemporary. Brown and purple are also not usually paired together, but in this quilt, they play well together.

Two layers of fabric with batting sandwiched in between, held together with thread. It really was a quilt now. It looked fantastic.

I had to keep reminding myself that it was Jerica’s quilt, not mine. I continued reminding myself of that as I stitched the sleeve and binding on. The label reminded me again.

On Saturday, we celebrated Jerica’s birthday early (she was a Christmas baby) at Stanley & Seafort’s restaurant overlooking Tacoma. When she pulled her quilt out of a matching pillowcase, her face lit up with a big smile. Happy birthday Jerica!

Laura Keolanui Stark is glad that so many of her quilts have found happy homes. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Sew and Tell

               My eyes swept slowly over the pink, burgundy, brown, and green squares looking for loose threads that needed to be clipped. The quilting on it didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, but it’s finally finished (I’d started making it in 2006). And, I am pleased with the piecing and overall look. The colors and blocks play well together. The zig-zagged brown border, representing a garden wall, was something I’d never tried before. With every quilt, I try to learn a new technique. I folded it up carefully, and went to get the other quilt.

               It was hanging on the wall of our stairwell. I used a broom to snag it, balancing it precariously as I pulled it down. It’s a cheerful blue and yellow quilt that I pieced one block at a time each month of 2004 for Pacific Fabrics’ block of the month club. I expanded it to fit a queen-sized bed, making two of some blocks, and adding solid blue blocks between the original 12. The “new” techniques I tried on this quilt were machine appliqué, and dimensional touches on the flowers and butterflies. Once I finished the top, it sat folded up for years, waiting to be quilted because quilting such a large quilt on a home machine is difficult.

              This summer I finally turned both of these queen-sized quilt tops into quilts, sandwiching them with batting and backs. I rented time on a longarm quilting machine at Trains, Fabrics, Etc. quilt shop in Tacoma and made a major dent in my stack of unfinished projects.

               This afternoon, I walked through the Gold Gate of the Puyallup Fair holding both quilts. Upstairs in the Pavilion, I filled out the paperwork to enter both of them, and glowed a little when the two ladies checking them in ooohed and aahhed over them. They joined the stacks of quilts that will soon be hanging for thousands to admire.

Another quilter and I rode the elevator downstairs and walked out through the dark, empty, cabinets strewn around the ground floor. We marveled over the way the fair is magically transformed each year from the haphazard skeleton that we were seeing, to the carefully arranged exhibits that we know we will see when it opens. Of course, we’ve both seen something similar before when we’ve taken hundreds of tiny squares of fabric and sewn them into beautiful quilts, each with its own personality.

We agreed that we weren’t entering our quilts expecting to win (although that would be great), but just to see them hanging in the fair, and to be able to tell our friends to go and see them. Nevertheless, as we walked back out through the gate and parted ways, we wished each other, “Good luck!”