berni's work wear...

With my craft space all decked out, Berni [my Bernina 1008] has a new home sitting flush with the my sewing table. This means that the on-the-go cover that I made is now too long. What can a girl do but stitch up a fab new cover?

This one is kind of special. The patchwork is actually a little quilt top that was rescued from the trash before my grandma's farm was auctioned. I just added a few more strips of fabric to make it the appropriate length. It is so fun to look at some of the colors and patterns and see how modern they look. I layered it with a warm and natural scrap and a fun repro print, quilted it, then bound it and used some twill tape/rug binding to make ties.

Don't look too close, this is my first time using a walking foot - I felt like this should be soooo simple, but tackling the walking foot is a bit of a challenge to me. Some stitches are super tight while others are really long. A skill in process for sure!

One of the great things about it is it fits over the back of my chair when I am working in there. Handy - one less thing on my sewing table is ALWAYS a good thing :)

I woke up to a white lawn this morning! Last night I did some baking and couldn't resist putting on some Christmas music; there must have been something in the air!

btw: I am still in need of a couple of pattern testers for Berni's New Digs sewing pattern... Let me know if you are interested and I will send you the pattern!

mon espace de création...

Amazing how translating a title into another language makes the post seem so much more interesting :) I wanted to show you around my newly improved creative space. If you have been following me for a while [that always sounds like a stalker to me], you may remember the crafty disaster that I posted here. I am happy to say the mess is gone, and in its place a space I truly want to create in!

Take a moment to 'oooh' and 'aaah' over my table - my wonderful husband made it! The sewing machine sits on a shelf held on with carriage bolts [that made it easy to achieve the perfect height]. I borrowed my mil's extension table [until I save up enough to buy my own] and took off the legs. Sewing with a nice open surface really spoils a girl! It was also built to accommodate a large cutting mat - goodbye 18"x22" cutting mat! [of course I actually throw nothing away, even if I should - the little mat is 7+ years old and I am beginning to see daylight through the back]

My two caddys, one with patterns and one with crafty bits, fit perfectly under the table with a little space on the top for my rotary tools/rulers. I love the 'x' cross beams on the sides of the table. ooh, there is my ikea jules chair - a swivel chair makes it much easier to move from sewing to pressing. And, yes, that is a design wall with a project on it in the background. I used blue insulation board and two layers of white felt to construct it. The lint roller has found a new home in my craft room for cleaning the wall in between projects.

Colorful spools really brighten up the table, and I am surprised how much a $6 investment can save me time. I had a little vintage spool bag, it meant searching through tangled strings with each thread change. I also keep necessities handy: a scrap bowl, a little trash can, pins, basting supplies, bobbins, seam ripper, labels, etc.

Search around flickr and you will come to the conclusion that you simply cannot have a craft room without an expedit bookcase from ikea. Why? Because they are affordable, BIG, and a great storage space for fabric. We actually have two of these in our house and, get this, the other one actually has books on it - go figure!

In this corner I store my scrapbooking supplies in the cupboard on the right and all of my stamping supplies are in/on the green tin. It's actually a holder for flour, sugar, etc. that was my grandma's we found it in one of the outbuildings when we auctioned her farm. Lots of wonderful memories, I am glad I was able to use it somewhere I see almost everyday.

Now my only problem is I really can't spend all day in this space [even though I want to]!