Quilt Studio Reveal

One of the big reasons we bought our house is because of this space in the basement I could make into a quilting studio for me. I needed a work room and didn't want to set up my stuff in a bedroom because my girls do better with separate rooms. I set up temporarily in the unfinished family room in the basement and we got to work on this space that I wanted to make into a huge work room for me.

The space is a little bit over 15 feet by 20 feet!!

                            
We got started on this the day after Christmas, we got a bunch of gift cards and went and bought the lumber so that my handy husband could get to work framing it.

And a day later, it was all framed! He did great and fast work.

We had to wait a long time after the framing to get the HVAC done and the electrical roughed. We got bids to do the sheet rock and they were outrageous so we got the idea that we could do it ourselves.
I definitely wanted to insulate, and definitely the ceiling because both of my girls bedrooms are right above it and I do a lot of quilting at night after I put them to bed.

Here is my dear husband and my two little girls watching him put up sheetrock.

And then it was done! The ceiling was the hardest, after attempting to do a sheet or two with just he and I, we went and rented a jack that lifts the sheets up for you while you secure them in place.

The day after he finished hanging the sheetrock my father in law came up from St. George and helped do the mud and tape.

And they put on a coat or two of the drywall mud to smooth out those seams.

And even more mud. They kept asking me if I was sure I wanted smooth walls.

Brad and I did the texture of the ceiling, and might I add that we did a pretty good job.

I did all of the painting. I had to do 2 coats of primer everywhere first the new sheetrock kept soaking it up pretty fast but 2 coats was perfect. And then I started painting.

I love my paint color, it is Behr Ionic Sky. I had to do two coats of paint too it just didn't cover well enough with only one, dang it!

They built me a little closet organizer so I could have my wire drawers underneath and a tall filing cabinet and a few little shelves to put things.

The casing all got put on while me and my sister in law painted doors, man those things needed like 5 coats!

I hate the taping part, but the trim had to be painted!

I had a vision of doing a scallop crown molding but the only one I found was super expensive so I thought I could just paint it. I chalked a line 1.5" down from the ceiling and then I made a template with quilting plastic and a 4" circle ruler and stapled a paint stick to it so I could hold it and used my small foam roller and went to work.

All done and ready for carpet the next morning!

The carpet got in on Monday April 1st and I love it. I vacuumed it right away I love vacuuming new carpet.

Almost there!

We picked out some furniture at Ikea for this wall that we were making into an office and storage and awesomeness.

I wanted something big and red in  my room, like an arm chair or a dresser but we saw this table top at Ikea and loved it and wanted to build this desk around it.

14 hours after we started, this is what we got! The other 8 doors were backordered so I had to wait a couple of days.

I moved all my stuff in on Thursday the 4th and got ready for a reveal. I was hosting a baby shower for my sister and so I made that day a goal to have it done so I could have stuff put away that I had out all over the house and so I could show some family.

I ordered some red knobs to go on my cabinets and we upgraded out dumpy computer that hasn't worked right for a year. I got the 27" iMac and I already love it so much!!

My quilting machine is set up on the window wall and my sewing area is over in the corner, I can set up the ironing board all of the time right behind me. I plan on making a design wall for that wall to the side. I am also going to paint that chair red and re-uphoster it. It is a very sturdy old chair and I want to make it part of my room forever.

And there it is! I love all of the space I have, I can lay at least 2 quilts out at a time on the floor. Or a quilt and a backing so I can cut batting. I had to put my favorite quilt up on the wall because it fits so well. I have ordered blinds and will make some curtains to go to the sides but for now I love the light and being able to see out to the front yard and everything.

I now have a place that I love, and I am so happy every time I am in here it makes it so nice to work!
Thanks for waiting and watching while we got this big project done!

Major Update!

I've been out of my groove for a while with blogging. First of all I had a terrible computer and I was busy moving and working on quilts that I didn't make blogging a priority for a while. Now I can show you what I've been up to!

My husband and I have been trying to buy a house for a couple of years and it never seemed to work out we went through a sale falling through at the last moment, not getting contracts on 5 different houses we offered on last summer, and going through hundreds of houses. We finally found one that we love and that worked out for us!

We moved in the day before Thanksgiving and it was a crazy week!

Here is a picture of our new house, it is brand new it barely finished being built before we looked at it and some stuff had to be finished for us to move in.

I have already finished my brand new quilting studio which I'll post about next and we have started working on putting the yard in! It is a whole lot of work especially when we want to save money and do it ourselves.

I'll share a few quilts that I've done in the meantime. I have been so busy lately, last month I finished 17 quilts for people including making 2 on my own!

Here is one that I made for the Slice company, it is for a new card called Belle Fleur and it will be on the cover of their design card:

This is a quilt I did for a lady that does My Lazy Daisy and I think this quilt is called candy ribbons.

This is a quilt that I quilted for a customer in Salt Lake, I love this because it has so many things that stick out it makes it a fun 3-D quilt with a lot of character.

I quilted this for Sukie it was her dresden challenge quilt for our quilt guild and it was fun to do some different quilting in each of her mosaic squares.

This is another Lazy Daisy quilt but I don't remember the name. I tried a new quilting design called feather swirl and it turned out so pretty I love it!

I quilted this for a customer from Colorado, I like this quilt I've never seen one like it before it is called a 16 patch chevron and I did water ripple quilting in the blue/green part and a cool detail block in all of the grey squares. I got a new foot for my machine that I can use rulers with and I've been loving it so I try to use it as much as I can!

This is an antique quilt that I quilted for a quilting group from Willard. The picture doesn't show off the quilting very much but I wanted to show what a cool scrappy quilt it was.

This is another table topper quilt for My Lazy Daisy and I love the quilting that I did on it and how it shows up.

Here is a quilt just coming off my machine I think it is a giant carpenter star. I thought it was a cool quilt and I liked that she did it scrappy instead of trying to do a design with the colors.

This one I wish you could see the quilting more, maybe if you click on it you can zoom in and see a little better. This one is all flannel and I love the cool elephants on it. I did a lot of detail quilting around and on the elephants and I think this is a really sweet quilt for a baby.

Now on to my babies! They have had a lot of fun at the new house here they are playing in the snow. Our street is a culdesac so they were so excited to move here so they could ride bikes out on the road. That was the most important part to them.

We are loving the warmer weather that we've had and wish it would stay around for longer than a few days or a week at a time before getting cold and snowing again.

We have gone up to the mountains once already to hike and we went to the park, I love this picture of my girls. Alaina is 6 and is finishing Kindergarten and Marlee just turned 4 in January and they are both so fun and really good kids. I hope to have a fun year with them and enjoy every moment while they are young. We are trying to plan a trip to Disneyland in July but keeping it a surprise I can't wait to see their faces when we tell them!

My new quilting studio is coming next I just need to try to get some good pictures, house pictures are so hard for me to take I want to just get it all and the whole feeling of it and it is hard!

The other Slice quilt

 I have been doing a lot of work for the Slice company to get ready for International Quilt market which happened the last weekend of October in Houson, Texas. This is one that they designed and I made it and quilted and finished it.

 This was a lot of cutting for all of the letters, but it is so easy with the slice machine, it only took about 10 minutes!

 I love this cool loop that I quilted inside the zig zags:

 I love the colors of this quilt!

 A great view to see all of the texture!

 The backing was pieced and it shows off the quilting pretty well.

I like to have these big projects to work on that I can do start to finish. I really wish I could work on something of my own but the thing that motivates me is deadlines and I don't have any quilts that I need to finish to give to someone so I haven't been finishing any of my own things for a while. I hope this changes!

Kathren's Quilt

 This is a beautiful quilt that I finished in September. These blocks were started by a family friend I think Kathren told me 40 years ago. Kathren is the daughter and she finished the blocks and put them together and brought it to me to quilt.The applique blocks were all hand embroidered and they are exquisite.

 

I used my moms camera to photograph this quilt because it is a good camera but even though the pictures are better than my camera I don't think they turned out very great.

I quilted around the edges of all the flowers and leaves and I quilted an echo line around the flowers. I also quilted in the ditch around the cream blocks and an echo line on the inside of them.

 I quilted a flower design on the inner border with leaves in the sashing. I quilted loops on the small darker border and feathers in the light pink bigger border.

 The biggest border was a bit tricky for me but I think it turned out great, I quilted a double swag with a feathered curve on the inside on one side and a curled heart on the inside on the other side.

 Here is one more picture of the border. I had a great time quilting this because there were so many different parts to quilt but I had to have them all fit together and fit the quilt too.

 I love working on quilts like this because I think it is such a treasure. It was something that a mother started, and the daughter finished after her mother passed away and now it will be passed on to another family member when she decides who to give it to. I love that I am a little part of that too!