My new year’s resolution to work smarter seems to be going well, and for the first time in years I find that I do in fact have some time for my own work as well as the business.
I did a little more on the winter sketchbook. It may be early spring, and the snowdrops are looking beautiful, but the weather is decidedly behind the curve so I feel justified in clinging to glorious cold winter for as long as I can.
I’m also trying to be a bit more organised about what goes where. My Ikea drawers are very slightly short of A4 size in the width, so I made some custom trays out of mount board and they fit nicely, two per drawer.
The sides are covered with 2″ wide washi tape that I found hiding in another drawer. I should probably line the boxes to make them prettier but for now I’m happy enough with functional.
And finally, I’ve resurrected a patchwork quilt top that’s had quite a few false starts.
I had a look at it, wasn’t happy with it, and decided to unpick everything and start again. I wanted a fairly big circle on the surface and didn’t have a yarn that was anything like what I had in mind.
I’ve ended up stringing lots of thin threads together to create something like what I wanted. It’s a very fine silk noil yarn that dyed beautifully but is no good for stitching with – breaks too easily, too nobbly – but a few strands together are couching down quite nicely.
I’m wondering if maybe the whole thing will be couched rather than quilted. Always an adventure.
Hope your week is going well.
Discover more from Karen Turner Stitching Life
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Duh! I’ve been sewing since I was a little girl and now I am primarily a quilter. But it never occurred to me to use pins to hold a long piece of couching whatever to my Intuitive Stitching fabric to hold it in place. I’m following your recommendation to do a lot of the couching in advance and there are some long sections – I have the 2022 grid, which still has some fairly lengthy sections to couch. When I saw your quilt top in this blog, I felt silly that I hadn’t been using pins. We can always learn something new. Love your studio time piece today. Atlanta weather creeping into respectable temperatures!
ha! I’m using pins to try and hold the curve of the large circle, but yes, I guess pins are also useful for holding a straight line too. So many of these innovations are born of exasperation over things shifting around every time you move something 🙂 Glad your weather is picking up at last. We still have cold/rain but I think we’re heading for cold/dry later in the week…
💖very helpful. Your boxes for organizing makes me envious. The map paper is so cool! 💖
thanks so much Janice. I was beginning to think I would never have a use for that map tape and it turned out to be exactly the right size and length for this. The boxes were easy to make, by the way – just a base with four sides, stuck with masking tape.
I’m always torn between longing for warmth and being determined not to wish my life away. It’s easy to forget that that which cannot be stitched with can always be couched, isn’t it..!
absolutely, yes. I’m of the opinion that pretty much anything can be couched.
I’m in no hurry to say goodbye to winter. I sometimes think I should move to Narnia where it’s always winter and never Christmas. Always sounded fine to me 😆
I like being warm! Although not too warm..
another few months and we’ll all be complaining about the heat 😆
Exactly! Humans enjoy complaining..
Your winter pages are very evocative of the season.
Thanks Maureen, I may come back to these cool pages when the summer gets too hot 🙂
I enjoyed seeing your sketchbook, nice to see a self employed person enjoying some “me” time. I’d love to see a bigger photo of your beautiful quilt! I love scrap quilts and I love neutrals! Thanks for sharing!
thank you; some pretty rare me time, to be fair, but a nice treat nevertheless. I’ll probably show more of the quilt as it develops.
What a lovely peek inside your studio! I love your little IKEA drawers to keep everything organised, I’m forever on the hunt for the Next Big Thing in studio organising. I’m looking forward to seeing your quilt as you progress on the couching.
thanks so much Rachel. Everything is much easier to find when it has its own place 🙂