Starting Out in my Craft Room

During my crafting life I've always wanted a space to call my own. When we bought this house 11 years ago I was thrilled to have a little closet off the laundry room to set up my sewing machine in.  All of my supplies & fabrics fit nicely on the shelves and life was good... until I started quilting.  Stash, patterns, tools, books, more stash... then I started crazy quilting which added even more stuff to keep track of.  Pretty soon I had taken over most of the laundry room storage and stuff was spilling over into the rest of the house.  3 years ago when my daughter went off to college it was time to move out of the closet and into a spare bedroom.  Woo!  I was so excited.

So, we started planning and decided to move our teenage son down stairs for more privacy and make his old room into my quilt room.  My 1st task was to remove the adorable wallpaper I had selected when he was in kindergarten.  Let's just say it was stuck on good~!  I searched the internet and our local hardware stores for tips and tools to get that paper off the walls. Then, one afternoon I fell off the step stool I was using to strip that nasty paper and badly broke my right leg.  To make a long story short: ambulance, surgery, week in the hospital, no weight bearing for 3 months, wheelchair, walker, blood clot, crutches and months of PT.  A year later I was finally walking without a limp.

While I was focused on my recovery I totally lost my crafty mo-jo.  Which kind of makes sense, since I couldn't get around easily and/or clean up the big messes I tend to make when I'm quilting.  My leg didn't cooperate with sitting at a table for long periods of time and it would start to ache if I stood too much.  Over time, that got better but my quilting room still sat empty waiting.  I'm not exactly sure why.

During the last few weeks some people I care about deeply have been struggling with their own life challenges.  And, that got me thinking about my own choices and priorities in life.  I realized that some "Craft Therapy" was needed ASAP.

I pulled out a table topper kit (deciding to not deal with my massive UFO situation/guilt issues/whatever that's all about) and just start making something fresh.  Just sew!  Yay!  I can still make HST's and thread my machine.  Loving it all over again!

I'm not going to let go of that excitement yet, but I do need a game plan to finish what was started 3 years ago.  Create a quilting space that makes me happy and productive.  Start actually finishing some projects.  I'm hoping that blogging about this process will help me to keep at it.

So, with that in mind...

Here is my sewing corner. Notice the bare walls waiting for some TLC!  The table is on wheels so I can move it into the middle of the room for machine quilting.  Our cat Tucker likes to sleep in the chair so the classy towel catches most of his fur.

Next is my cutting table, a stuffed bookcase and storage units. One of my goals to purge my book collection so that it is easily contained here.

The closet is full of more storage units, books and other goodies.  I've collected lots of nickels (5" squares) and noodles (2.5" strips) from swaps.  The middle tower holds lace, trims and other beauties for crazy quilting.

Let's zoom in on my hanging UFO's.  Yikes!!!  Some are ready for binding, some need to be quilted and the rest are in various stages of construction.  I might be the all-time Queen of UFO's, because I have many more in bins & drawers.  Yes, I have a problem finishing projects.

My stash is still in my old sewing space... more on that later.  Thanks for reading!