Back in My Happy Place

 Yes, I really enjoy my sewing room! 

As I have said before, one of the things on our list for the new house was a room I could use for my sewing room.  There is a room next to the family room with no closet and many outlets about halfway between the ceiling and floor.  It was perfect, and I love it. 

Last week one day Gary added some nails to the wall so that I could hang a calendar that Sandy had given me for Christmas and a painting that Hilary had made for me several years ago.  The calendar is one of the Lang type, and it hangs close to my sewing table, on the left side of the window, and I can mark projects on it.  Start dates.  Completion dates.  Dates that I take quilt tops to Betty's.  Dates for picking up quilted quilts.  Dates that the quilts are gifted or returned to others.  Things like that.  

The painting is red and blue on a white canvas.  Hilary put the word F A I T H on the canvas, actually marked out in masking tape (I think), then the paint was added abstractly.  I really like the painting but I never had a space for it at the old house.  It has been sitting on top of my old dresser in the sewing room since we moved.  At one point Hilary had said "Just get rid of that.  It's okay.  It doesn't look that good anyway."  But I kept it, and it is now hanging on the wall above my old dresser from The Little Brown House on 62 and Mt. Versnon.  I like it for two reasons.  One is that Hilary made it for me.  The other is that F A I T H is so important, especially now, and every time I look at the painting I am reminded that my faith must be strong.

Finally the last thing to be added to the wall decor was the sampler quilt I made in the class at Rossville Quilts.  I had selected a variety of colors from the MODA collection to make this.  There are yellow, white, peach, dusty black, green.....colors I really like, but it didn't go with the old house at all.  My plan was to eventually make Hilary's old room into a sewing room and it could go in there and I could repaint the room in its original (for us) color - yellow.  But that didn't happen.  We moved.  The walls in the new sewing room are white and the carpet gray so the colors work.  I bought a dowel rod at Menards last week. I sewed a casing across the top of the quilt.  Then Gary added two bolts to the west wall between two outlets. And it is hanging there.  After it was hung, I noticed that the writing on the cornerstones and a few of the squares that had the green fabric used was going in the wrong direction.  It was tilted back so that in order to read it, one had to bend the head to the right.  I had forgotten that.  Oh well...no one will notice, and if someone does, I will explain and laugh about it.

 

 

On Saturday I worked on the Memory Pillow for Hilary's friend, Cassie.  Her grandfather died before Thanksgiving and she asked if I could make a pillow from one of his shirts for her grandmother.  Because of the cut of the shirt and the placement of the pockets, it was too big for the 16" pillow form I had bought at Hobby Lobby the other day.  We stopped at JoAnn Fabrics this morning after Gary's doctor's appointment and picked up an 18" form and it is perfect.  My friend Karen from Michigan will make a label for it and once I receive it, I can adhere it to the shirt; then it will be done!

The next project I started on today.  I was a little apprehensive, and I thought I would need to solicit Betty's help again to start me on this.  But once I opened all of the containers and envelopes and really looked at what Susan had started and what she had left in little bags, I saw the quilt coming together.  She had made squares in the pinwheel pattern using four triangles of print fabric and four triangles of snowflake white.  Well, kinda snowflake.  She had 49 squares completed plus 8 squares that had appliques of girls' dresses.  There was a row of 7 blocks with white sashing between the blocks completed.  After talking to Hilary and Gary (who just nods at my ideas), I decided to use the completed strip, add a strip of pinwheels to the bottom and in the middle, then add in four more rows above the middle row and four rows under the middle row which contained four of the appliqued blocks in a pattern.  It worked.  All of it is laid out on the floor in the family room so I can pick up the blocks in a row and sew the sashing pieces between the blocks into a strip.There was a bag of white sashing strips plus a stack of cornerstones for the long rows between the strips.  I felt good about this project for the first time!  One reason is that I was able to figure out what to do with what I had myself (with Hilary's help) and not make a trip to Burnettsville to talk to Betty about it.  Another reason is that putting the blocks together in strips and the strips together with more sashing and cornerstones is not that hard to do.  Time consuming, yes.  Difficult, no.  I worked on one row this afternoon and it didn't take long.  If things go well, it won't be too long before the quilt is ready to head to Betty's Quilt Shop to be quilted.  I know she will have a fabric that will be perfect for the backing and the binding.

So yes.  The last few days I have been back in My Happy Place.  I have slept better.  I have felt more relaxed.   Just being in the room and working on the projects makes me feel great.  I always have a sense of satisfaction when a project comes together.  It is fun to see the stacks of fabric or blocks suddenly transform into a quilt top.  The feeling of a sense of accomplishment is like no other.  I love seeing the finished products and the reactions of those who receive the quilts or the table runners or the pillows.  

One of the things I always said I wanted to do once I retired was sew and quilt.  It is happening.  In my sewing room.  My Happy Place.