Happy Friday! Whew…have you had a busy week, too? Of course lots of sewing, planning, cutting, quilting, and finishing has been going on this week, but I also finished up a studio upgrade, and a couple of weekends ago, I spent the weekend cleaning and reorganizing after adding a new piece of furniture to the office.
The image shows the new cedar trunk below the front window of the office. The trunk is brown with faux drawers and detailing on the front and graceful Queen Anne legs.
I have been looking for a desk to go between my two vintage desks that flank the front window of the office, and early in July I actually found a cedar trunk that would fit beautifully between them and that is a similar style to desks. The trunk has beautiful Queen Anne legs and lovely front details, and it does smell so lovely inside. It is a Lane Cedar Chest, and based on the serial number (Apparently reading the serial number backwards tells you the date of the piece.), my trunk is from 1937! And even better than a desk, the trunk could provide storage space, too. I found the trunk at the local ReStore, but it was a bit out of my budget, but the longer it stayed at the store, the price would go down. So, I waited. In early August I went back to the ReStore, not really believing the trunk would still be there, but it was! I brought it back to the studio and polished it up. Lee fixed a couple of legs that had come loose, and it is a perfect fit! I mean it is so pretty!
Vintage bits, wool, and special fabric are stored in this beautiful trunk. I wish you could smell its lovely cedar smell.
Plus my beautiful, glass bowl I found at the Dorcas Thrift Shop for some of my buttons is beautiful on top. Now I can run my fingers through the buttons anytime I want! Yes, I do have more buttons than the ones in the bowl…buttons are simply wonderful.
Having the trunk allowed me to store some pieces in it that I had stacked up in bins, and moving those bins out of the studio gave me more room to reorganize the customer order storage bins. The office really does flow better now, looks busy and full, and it is a space I love to use. I love my vintage desk chairs and my view of the birdbath from my desk. I really do love working in this space! It is warm and beautiful.
Flannel design wall made with white flannel and bound in a pink floral fabric. The design wall is hanging from a decorative rod with clips.
The studio space with the longarm, sewing machines, iron and work table has been nearly perfect, but I knew when I moved into this space that I wanted a design wall. Well I finally finished it. I started out thinking I would use foam board and flannel for a design wall, but after trying that I found some references to basically creating a flannel quilt sandwich and hanging that from a bar. That plan was far easier for me to do than the other foam board plan. We also had a lovely curtain rod set with clips that was not being used, so this week I finished installing the holders and hung the design wall. I used white flannel with a blue backing fabric, and I bound it with a sweet pink cone flower print. I have already laid out several quilts with the design wall, and I love seeing my work in progress displayed there. No more crawling around on the floor working on a design!
Next up, shelves for the fabric bolts…
All of our spaces should make us smile and be a warm, comfortable, inviting place to work and think. Creativity needs to be fed and making a space beautiful can help creativity and productivity bloom…even if that space is busy and often messy with projects. I’m so lucky to have an office space, a work room, and a foyer of fabric, and I am lucky to have wonderful clients who bring me the best projects to fill those spaces!
Sending Quilty Love,
Ginger
Reading Now: I forgot how angry Middlemarch makes me, but I am enjoying it! Mozart’s Starling is so thought provoking…I spent a whole walk meandering around in my thoughts related to invasive species, diaspora, native, not native…I’m looking forward to the music, too. I found some cozy mysteries on a jaunt last weekend. I might start one of those. What are you reading? My “To Be Read” pile is so exciting!
Be kind to everyone, even people different from you. Listen to NPR for balanced news coverage.
