Micki's Work Space

Breaking News! Just received an email form Pat over at Posh And Trendy that her post on Work Space is up on her blog. After you read Micki's Work Space please scoot over and read about Pat's Work Space you will love to go and play with Pat after you read it. Enjoy

After I posted about my Work Space and followed on by Serena's Work Space, I now would like to show you Micki's Work Space. I met Micki early on in my blogger career. Micki came and introduced herself to me and we hit it off straight away. Micki invited me to be her April Star. Micki is a wonderful writer and fantastic quilter and knitter and machine embroider and and...! Please visit Micki's blog and see for yourself. Here is a little a bit about Micki and her Work Space:

Tell me a little bit about your work space?

We moved recently into a wee cottage in NW Donegal County. We live right by the ocean, and as it is a traditional Irish cottage, it is small with only one bedroom and a storage room, I knew that I would not have space for a sewing room, but we were happy to be near the sea. However, it was time for improvisation and using my imagination as to how I was going to still do all of my crafts and hobbies. So, Joe and I went to a furniture store in Letterkenny, and we bought a wonderful large table for the living room, which would accommodate my sewing large quilts. It is by the window, and I have plenty of room to sew as I please. At first, I was a bit upset, but now, I can be with my husband and two dogs and sew too. I used to be pretty lonely all alone in the sewing room in the back of the house, but now I have company, can have the tv on if I want, and really it has turned out for the better.

As to my embroidery work, I have a large table set up in the bedroom, where I do my machine embroidery stitching. Luckily, our bedroom is pretty big, so I was able to do that with no problem.

In the kitchen I put a table for us to eat our meals, but when I want to do my machine felting or have to cut out fabric using my larger cutting board, I use the kitchen table, which has two extensions to make it bigger. So, I cut my larger strips there, and set up my felting machine, if I want do some machine felting.

As to where I store my sewing supplies, I do have a storage room, and we had a carpenter come in and build shelves there. I bought tons of larger plastic storage containers, labelled them all, and I have everything related to my crafts there.

I have two favourite areas in the house where I love to work. One is in the bedroom when I do my machine embroidery. I have a tv in there, and watch movies while I do my machine stitching. I also love my Pfaff machine, so I love sitting at my work area in the living room, and Joe sits in his favourite lounge chair and talks to me, while my two dogs lie beside me. How wonderful is that!

As to my main sewing machine, I just recently bought the Pfaff 4.0 Expression for my quilting. It is the best quilting machine that I ever had. I use the Janome 350E for my embroidery, the Babylock EMB12 for my machine felting, and a gorgeous 1953 Singer 221 Featherweight for when I go to the quilting bees.

Yes, I have managed to continue with all of my hobbies, without a bother, and really enjoy being with my family while I work.
Anyways, I get to take breaks from my sewing and walk on the beach near our house any time I want….not bad at all.LOL

Thank Micki for participated in my collection of Work Spaces. After reading story and see some of the photos of your work space I feel like I was there in person. Lovely Carnivale quilt on your wall too.

Serena's Work Space

When I posted about My Work Space I invited some blogger friends to send in some of their stories about work spaces. Here is one from Serena of The Young Appalachian Quilter. Serena is a young quilter that does everything by hand. Please visit her blog and see some of her quilts. Serena is a terrific writer and has many interesting stories to tell. I am very pleased to feature her work space here on my blog. It is such fun seeing other people's work space. Thanks Serena for sharing. 

 'The View'

Tell me a little bit about your work space?

I chose this room in my house for quilting because of the light. Although we have a spare bedroom that sits empty it is on the dark side of the house and it is removed from the family common areas where I spend the majority of my time. I love that my sewing area is shared with our entire family. I had old computer desk equipment that I have repurposed for quilting. The small table is actually a printer table but there is plenty of room underneath it for my legs, and it rolls. The other white piece of furniture was a filing cabinet which I still use to store patterns, large templates for squaring off blocks, and small finished items that need binding. I have a large pop up hamper exclusively for scraps that that while I’m cutting I just brush the scraps off into the bin. 

Work Space

Your room if you have a room if not where in the house do you create your work?

I like to cut my pieces in my sewing area but I quickly transfer those to something more mobile, unless it’s a difficult pattern that needs the orientation of the layout to be completed properly. I’m willing to travel with my pieces and quilts. I usually take my piecing project with me everywhere. I piece on the couch, standing while cooking in the kitchen, at the park, in the car. 

Work Space

Sewing table including the sewing machine:

At this point in my creative quilting life I don’t use one. I began quilting as a way to tie myself to my heritage. I was taught by my mother and I want my heirloom quilts to be just that. I greatly enjoy handwork and love that I’m not tied down to a table in order to make my quilts. My quilts travel and I like that my quilting is meshed with my life instead of separate from it. I do own a Singer 185K but I’ve never learned to use it. 

Fabrics stash

Cutting table or surface where you use for cutting. Do you use rotary cutter or scissors?

I’ve never used a rotary cutter and I don’t own one. For cutting I love my Gingher Featherweight Scissors. These are fairly new and are perfect if your hands cramp after hours of cutting. The all metal Ginghers are great for cutting layers. I also have a small pair of embroidery Ginghers for use while hand quilting and precision piecing curves.

Do you have a favourite spot in your work space?

The View! 

My Work Space

Lately I have been thinking about how people create. What kind of space they are working in? I have seen a bit of your work space when I read your blogs, but that is all. It would be nice to see more of your work spaces. For this reason I would like to share with you my work space. I will call it work space because some people do not have a work room/sewing room. I know because I did not have a sewing room for a long time. I used to sew at the corner of our bedroom for many years. I used our bed as a cutting table and I produced many nice quilts there. I feel that you do not have to have a so called work room/sewing room to make quilts.  If you want to do it, you can do it anywhere. You can make do. Please come in and let me share with you my work space. I would also like to invite you to share your work space with us too.

Welcome to my work space. This is a door into my work space I put a door rug at the entrance. This is an Iranian rug I picked up from an Iranian boat vendor in Abu Dhabi. It was hand woven with hand dyed wool. It reminded me of patchwork when I bought it. It is perfect as a door mat. 

This is the only full wall I have in here. My 'Whirly World' quilt stays there all the time. Below the quilt is the wall unit where I store all my projects, boxes, and bits and pieces you can see on top. I can tell you I am not a messy person, but I love stuff as most quilters would. 

On the right-hand side as you enter the room I hang this hand woven Iraqi rug. I bought this rug from an Global village in Dubai in 2001. I loved it so much I could not resist. It is designed as a floor runner, but it looks great on the wall too. If you wander what is the green and yellow robe hanging next to the rug, it is called 'Sally'. It is used for pulling a church bell. I used to be a bell ringer (campanologist). I rung bells 2-3 times a week for 4 years. One day I just stopped going to bell ringing. Every time I think about it I am still upset over it. Bell ringing is the only hobby that I was not able to share with a friend. For this reason I decided to stop even though I love actual bell ringing itself. Anyway, I have the 'Sally' to remind me that I was once a campanologist!

A peek into my fabric stash. There is a double fitted wardrobe in the room and it is filled with my fabric. I have too much fabric including those I hand dyed and over dyed myself. I have not bought any fabrics for a long time now. I try to make do with what I have for all the recent projects I have started. I also try to make 'green quilts' so whatever I have here should do me and if I need any more I will get either from used clothing or second hand fabric.

This is my sewing machine table. Both cutting table and sewing table were my children's school desks. I put them together back to back when I had a bigger room, but now that I only have a small room I decided to set them apart to give me space in between the two desks. My Jenome sewing machine is 2o years old. I bought it from John Lewis department store in London in 1991. It has been a good machine for me. I also have a Singer Featherweight sewing machine which I like using as well. Unfortunately, I do not have room to have both of them out.

The cutting table with small ironing board at one end. The table sits by the window where I get plenty of light from the window while I am cutting. Out side of the window is a small front garden facing the street. 

This was once a book case, but now it is everything case. I have my baskets in there plus the mixed media supplies of paints, pens and papers etc. Believe it or not, I know exactly where everything is on it!

I found this wooden ladder at the side of the road waiting to be collected on hard rubbish day. It was perfect for a quilt display rack. Because this room does not have a lot of wall space, I have to use all space available to display my quilts and crafts. It is working well so far, but I would have liked a room twice as big as this one. 

This Iranian rug is in between the sewing table and the cutting table. At the end of the rug there is the wall unit with all my projects (UFOs) boxes and other craft supplies. This carpet is on the only floor space between my two desks.

Generally this is what my work room looks like. The sewing table sits right the middle of the room with the sewing machine facing the cutting table and window. It is a very bright room. The window you can see ahead is a sliding door opening to the front balcony. There is an outdoor table set there if I want to sit out.

This is our living area where we watch television, listening to music, reading and entertaining and also where I do my hand work too. I do all my crafts work here including basket weaving, bookmaking and stitching. I take over the two seatter sofa set and accumulate all my bits and pieces I need for the project I am working on at the time. 

The large coffee table takes quite a lot of the room between the television and the sofas so I place a small cutting mat there mainly for cutting my papers for book making. I also have a laptop when I need to work on my blog and watch the television at the same time. I do have another computer in the office where I share with DH. 

I hope you enjoy a tour of my work space. If you would like to share your work space please let me know and I will spread the word around.