REDnesday and Whatcha Working on Wednesday

It is time for Whatcha Working on Wednesday!

I don't know if I am going to be able to link up with Leslie at My Country Home. When I go to visit her blog I get a malware warning. I have no idea if her blog is safe to visit or not. Leslie if you are

 seeing this post, that is why I am not linked up at the moment.

I am also linking up with Sue at 

It's A Very Cherry World!

I do have bits of RED in this post.

I finally got rid of my big sewing table. Actually it is still on it's side in the family room, but it is out of the sewing room. I decided on these black tables from Target for now. Got two of them to start with for the time being. In the process of getting it set up here. I spy some RED in there. 

 Still in the process of cleaning out the room. 

See the RED bag from The Container Store?

I have been making window coverings for a co-worker.

This fabric he chose is a sheet set. Still trying to get organized too.

 Believe it or not, that chair is RED. Random RED things.

You will notice the second table is set up with the sewing machine on it.

 Working on that window covering.

 My co-worker helped me finish painting the sewing room 

in exchange for making the window coverings.

I am happy to finally have the sewing room all one color now.

Summer Yellow!

 Another view. 

 Moving the stuff back after the paint dried.

I decided to get a third table.

 This is where I hope to work on my scrapbooking.

Helmi hitched a ride when I moved the black case in to the room.

I am hoping this set up will work for me.

It is making the room feel more spacious which was my goal in this project.

See the RED pincushion by the sewing machine. 

 Helmi in her RED dress being lazy while I do all the work.

Silly Helmi!

 Here I have some of my paper storage set up and Helmi 

now has her spot to watch me work.

I am not finished with organizing yet,

 but I am making progress here.

Next is to get the shelves on the wall that I want from 

The Container Store.

In the meantime I am loving the yellow walls.

A dessert I bet Sue at It's A Very Cherry World! would love!

We took my mom out to lunch on Sunday for her 80th birthday.

This was her free dessert. 

Mom took a bite, passed it around for everyone to have a bite.

When it got back to her there was still some left for her to enjoy.

She insisted on sharing!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday

I missed it last week, but I am back today with

Whatcha Working on Wednesday.

Leslie at My Country Home is our wonderful host.

Thank you Leslie for hosting.

I am still working on A Christmas Wish BOM.

This is the fourth one.

I have decided I am not going to get them done for this year.

So I will just keep working along on them in 2010 and

finish them for next year.

Currently I am stitching on the HOPE block.

It is almost finished.

I sometimes wonder where others do their stitching.

I do my cross stitching at this table.

I have a good light to shine on my work and

there is more light coming from above too.

I don't usually carry my cross stitch around with me.

But I do carry my other stitching like the BOM

in the first picture.

I frequently work on those in the car, during lunch at work,

and worked on it during a concert the other day.

I did have this sewing machine in the living room,

but it is now too cold to sew in there.

The sewing room is in transformation right now.

So I moved it to the other side of the table

from where I cross stitch.

Works quite well for right now.

My birthday present was getting the materials needed

to start putting up the shelves in the sewing room closet.

The ones on the left there will hang on the right side

of the closet.

Those two boards go above the shelf I already have.

I need to spray paint them white,

but it has been too cold and damp to do that these days.

Waiting for a warmer dry day.

We also got that step stool there.

It will be stored next to the dresser when not in use.

I hope to start putting them up this weekend if not before.

I have received a gift card from The Container Store

for my birthday also.

That means getting more shelves. Yippee!

I know getting shelves is not a glamorous gift,

but that is what I wanted. :-)

Here is a peek at something I am working on.

Some of you may be able to figure out what it is.
Here is where I am on my current cross stitch project.
I did some more green. And you can barely see some
white I did at the top of the pink hearts which are
also hard to see.
~~~~~~
So what have you been working on lately?
Happy Wednesday!
~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday

Wednesday is here already!

And tomorrow is Thanksgiving!

Fortunately I am not hosting this year.

My dining room and living room are still messy

as I try to organize my sewing room.

Today I am linking up with Leslie at My Country Home.

Thanks Leslie for hosting!!

Something I did in that direction was

go through one of my boxes of fabric scraps.

And I emptied it too!

I have a Little Quilts book that suggests

cutting fabric into strips of different sizes.

That is a good thing to do with scraps that I like.

Above I have 1" and 1 1/4" strips.

Then 1 1/2" and 1 3/4".

And 2" or larger.
I am storing them in those large 2.5 gallon ziplock bags.
I still need to get one of those skirt hangers
that holds about 5 skirts or so.
I will clip the bags onto that and hang it in my sewing closet
next to the dresser.
Here I am preparing to cut more strips.

I also cut some into bean bag size.

I make those for work.

If the pieces were big enough to be almost fat quarter size,

or an 1/8 or bigger,

then I left it whole.

I will later organize those by color after

I finish going through my other boxes of scrap fabrics.

What did I do with the empty box?

I used it to start emptying the bookcase that I need to remove

from the sewing room so I can paint the rest of the room.

I keep moving along on this project in baby steps.

I guess that is better than no progress at all.

~~~~~~~

I have also been doing cross stitch.

More progress on my Stitch Along project.

I made this card for a co-worker who is leaving

our facility for a different facility closer to where she will

be living.

A birthday card in the works.

And this one will be a wedding congrats card.

I am also still working on my

A Christmas Wish BOM.

The numbers as to how many I have done keep changing

in my side bar on the right.

Right now I am working a JOY block.

I do those during my lunch breaks at work.

~~~~~~~

Happy Wednesday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

~Linnea~

Whatcha Working on Wednesday/REDnesday

It is Wednesday again.

I will be linking in with Sue at It's A Very Cherry World

and with Leslie at My Country Home

for Whatcha Working on Wednesday.

If you saw my post yesterday, you will see the progress I am making

for the 3 projects in 3 weeks.

I am trying to get as much as I can done on my

A Christmas Wish BOM project.

When I visited Kaaren at The Painted Quilt

I discovered what she uses to

draw or copy a pattern onto fabric.

It is mentioned in the directions of her download for her

First Friday Freebie.

I want to make that too!

A pen something like this one.

I thought, oh I have some of those.

So I tried it when I prepared the

MAGIC block.

Works great.

I love how it works.

So much easier on my hand!

~~~~~~~

I did more in my sewing room project too.

The room is partially painted a Sunset Yellow.

But it is not finished.

I moved some things around.

I had these things sitting in front of the window.

The full laundry basket was usually sitting next to it.

But right now it is empty.

Yay!

I have taken the door off the closet.

But with this mess in front of it,

I can't get into it very easily.

I want to make the closet into

an efficient storage place for

my sewing and craft items.

Then I won't have this mess I hope.

I moved the cutting table over to the other side of

the door for now.

I can get to the closet better.

I emptied it some more.

But as you can see I am not finished with that part.

When I empty the closet,

then I will clean and paint primer on the walls.

Then I will paint it yellow.

The rest of the room still needs to be painted too.

Then I moved my storage drawers

over here.

I can still get into the closet!

The ironing board is now in front of the window.

Which can be a pleasant place to iron.

I used to have it under a window in a previous place

we lived and I really enjoyed looking out the window

as I ironed.

We did those cabinets about a year ago.

The left one has scrapbooking things in it

and the right one has office type stuff in it.

I love the cheery yellow.

Can't wait until the rest of the room is also painted.

~~~~~~~

Here is a peek at something else I worked on.

I mailed it to Lady Jane for her

daughter's baby shower.

I hope she gets it on time.

The shower is this Sunday.

I will show more after Lady Jane has

received it in the mail.

~~~~~~

Now for the something RED.

I found this in the closet.

The Christmas dress I made for my daughter

when she was 5 or 6.

I think it fit her for a couple of Christmases.

Here is the tag I put in it.

A close up of the lace.

Hmmm....I think I will see if this will work for my

granddaughter. It is still too big for her though.

I will give it to her later.

Still working on the MAGIC block.

Also bordered in RED!
Happy Wednesday!

~Linnea~

Yes I did some more sewing

I ended up staying home yesterday because my husband had a meeting after church, it would have meant my being gone nearly all day. Since church is a 1/2 hour drive from here at least and with the current gas prices, it did not make sense for us to take 2 cars. So stayed home and did more cleaning and ironing and sewing.

The picture above shows where I put my ironing board when I moved it from the family room as I mentioned in the previous post. It sure helped while I was sewing to have it handy for pressing seams and whatnot. Yesterday I also tackled some of the ironing in the basket on the floor. There is still some there to do. Eventually I would like to attach on the wall behind the ironing board a wall mounted ironing board. There is one I found that is nearly a full size board that folds up into a 4" deep space when not in use. I still plan to get that someday. But first we need to finish painting it. You can see where we stopped over the door to the left. It is a Summer Yellow from Kelly Moore paints. I want to get back to that painting task this month, so I can continue to make my sewing area a happy place to be.

This picture is the fabric I am using for the current baby boy gift I am making. I will post a picture when it is finished. I need to finish it this week.

Happy sewing or other crafting.

Cleaning My Sewing Room

I got started before it got too hot and I rested with a glass of water as needed, but I did get my sewing room mostly straightened up and cleaned. This morning as I walk through here(office is in sewing room too)it feels so nice. It had gotten quite dusty and the whole house was smelling dusty. The fans are blowing the dust around and you can just tell I really needed to vaccum and dust to make it fresh again. I decided to start with the sewing room. I want it to be comfortable for sewing often or more often like nearly everyday. I did not sew at all yesterday. But maybe I will have a chance before we go to church this morning and later after we get home.

Not only did I clean I did a little rearranging. I had stacks of various things on the floor and we had to walk around them to get through the room. Now we can walk through without tripping over anything. I also took the closet door down to help it feel more open and to use the wall space behind it for my cutting table. I think I will eventually make a curtain to hang over the closet door. But I won't do that until we finish painting this room. Taking down the closet door also will make it easier to tackle painting the next section after we get cooler weather. I also moved the ironing board from the family room into the sewing room. Much easier to use when I am sewing and need to press seams open. Also makes for less clutter in the family room. My bookcase is also straigthened up and now you can easily see the books of my favorite author. That is what the picture above is, books by my favorite author Debbie Macomber. Hers are the some of the few I am keeping. We are trying to narrow down our book collection. Many of the books I have, I read then add it to the bag to donate to the library. But not Debbie Macomber's books. My husband does the same with his books. I am hoping to narrow our collection down enough where we can actually get rid of at least one of our bookcases, maybe two.

While I was doing the cleaning, my husband was going through the paper tiger stacks and deciding what to keep and what to shred and toss out. I kept handing him stuff as I cleared away things. He was watching football, so that was a good thing to do while watching the game. During commercials he would shred and toss or put away. It worked out very well. It got up to 106 yesterday. I read in our local news that it has been a hotter than usual summer this year. I can believe it. On to cooler days. Makes it easier to focus on crafts and sewing when it is not so hot.