Where did the long weekend go?

Egads! It's over, and I still have much to do. Sadly, it's back to work tomorrow and I'll be spending a hectic week squeezing in decorating/quilting/cleaning/working. (Warning....you might want to distance yourself from me come Thursday...I'll likely be pretty testy by then.)

I've still got a couple hours left though, so I may squeeze in one more tree tonight.

But first, some photos of what I did get done over the past 3 days....not as much as I had hoped, but a start.

First tree up was the Tuscan tree in the master bath. All that's missing is a pretty bottle of Chianti to pose next to the wineglass. This is a tradition. I buy a very nice bottle of Italian wine and it sits there all season. This is the last tree that is taken down, and once it's put away, the wine is my reward for another holiday season's Herculean decorating efforts.

Next up was the beautiful, authentic retro aluminum tree. I really wanted blue ornaments on it, but the hubs would not go out to Baja Fresh for dinner last night (my little con to get him to drive past the shopping center where Michaels is...'oh, I need to run into Michaels, I'll just be a sec'). I was on my second glass of wine and decided to just bag it and use the red ornaments I had in the box.

And yes, it does have a color wheel. This is in the guest room. I just hope none of our December guests are lulled to sleep by the changing colors and leave the wheel running all night. (What's that smell? Do you smell burning plastic, hon?) Maybe I should put it on a timer.

Finally......the quilt studio. I spent a great deal of time on this one. While I have a little sewing tree, and I also have a shabby chic tree, whose colors would have been perfect for this room, I decided that this would be the best place for the snowman theme.

One reason being the Dept. 56 bag o'snow blizzard that this tree was unexpectedly caught up in.

I just love hurling snow, don't you?

Check out the 'tree skirt'. Pretty cool, eh? Boots. Not exactly the boots I was looking for, but what I wanted cost $50 (galoshes with buckles). I settled for a utilitarian pair of $14.99 rubber rainboots in my size.

Today we started with the dining room. A change-up from last year. The feather trees on the buffet are gold. I wanted gold ornaments but amazingly, I hardly had any, so I scavenged ivory (featuring my Margaret Furlong collection).

And we've moved the White Victorian and it's puffy lighted cloud mess o'tuille (which looks way cool when the lights are down) to the space formerly occupied by the vintage tree, which will most likely take over the living room this year.

Now, if we cheat and count the 2 trees on the buffet, we've got 7 trees up. Only 9 more or so to go.

Well, now I've only got an hour and a half left of the weekend. I had best get back to work. No rest for the weary....idle hands reap idle minds....blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, I need to check and see if the melted plastic smell is gone. (Seriously) I'm hoping it's from me touching a silk/plastic holly garland to one of the chandelier bulbs while I was trying it on for size and not the White Victorian trying out for the Wicked Witch of the West in the road production of Wizard of Oz. (That tree has some plastic needles mixed in it to give it a more realistic look.....and which ripped the heck out of my arms today when I was putting it up. I look like I tangled with a feral cat....long sleeves tomorrow, for sure.)

Someone posted a comment when I first uploaded my new studio photos asking me to post a photo after I was done working in it. Okay, here you go. This is a photo taken this morning, after I spent last night doing a little quilting and organizing. Yes, I am a neat freak. A clean studio is a happy studio. It takes me all of 5 or 10 minutes to put things away at night and take them out again the next day. Obsessive/compulsive? Not really. Look at it from this perspective...we all cook, but we don't leave everything open and out on the counters because we're going to cook again tomorrow, so why should the workspaces we create in be any different? (It also helps to always have fresh flowers in the room :) )This is a close-up of the lovely orchid on my sewing table. And yes, it is real. This was the second of my orchids to flower for me this year, and this one is stunning. It's been in full flower for about two months now. I think it likes the chi in it's new home. It strives to stay pretty to outshine the fabrics and projects going on in there, and it's doing a great job of it, don't you think?

Oh dear, just as we've left it for a couple weeks, the black/white/green sandwich. I really do love this quilt, but for some reason I keep putting off finishing it.

Oh look! We've found a use for the sewing armoire....it's the new ironing armoire. Again, number two on my 'Top 10 Things I'm Procrastinating About List'.......painting this armoire white (and then getting an embroidery machine to put inside it Ha Ha!)


My darling husband forked over some really nice long wooden golf tees for me to use to keep my thread spool and matching bobbins together.

And yesterday, at the dollar store, I found these ice cube trays (they make sticks of ice to slip into water bottles) and darned if they don't fit the 'teed up' spools perfectly. So when I'm working on a couple projects at one time, I can just lay out the threads I need in this tray so they're close at hand. Of course, now this means I need to buy the small spools of thread so they fit in the 2/$1.00 trays.....
This past weekend's projects.....The Friendship Star Quilt Guild block. Call me a geek, but I'm new to the guild and I intend to proudly wear my block to the meetings. I just need to find a cool lanyard to hang it from that I can put all my show pins on. Notice the hand embroidery. Whatever. I haven't embroidered forever, but I needed personalization and didn't think I could just walk into JoAnn and ask one of the ladies selling sewing machines if she'd embroider my name on this for me. Anyway, the block isn't too large, maybe 6" x 6". And I used my South African Indigo charm squares on it. Note the freemotion on the muslin. I glued on the teeny tiny piecing in the friendship star, and then I needed to meticulously stitch around each tiny piece when they started to fall off. (Duh! That's what I get for using non-permanent applique glue.)


And, in the spirit of finishing what we start (except for the black/white/green :) ), I've sandwiched and started the freemotion on the Maple Leaves of Friendship table quilt I was testing. I'm going to finish that up tonight because I am itching to start.......
NEPTUNE!!!!!!! Went to the Quilters Unlimited Guild show in Chantilly, VA last Saturday and saw this at the Cottonseed Glory (an Annapolis, MD shop) booth. O-M-G....the colors and the nautical prints are pure fabulosity. And surprise, surprise, it's from Moda. (Moda and me, we've got a thing going on).

Bought the pack of 13 fat quarters, a fantastically simple pattern, ordered some backing and borders from the Tula Pink Neptune line Monday (online sale - only $7.13 a yard), and can not wait to start on this. I think I'm going to bump it up in the queue. (Actually, I think I already subconsciously did, if you pay attention to the threads in the new little ice tray organizer pictured above.)

Quilting Studio...Coming Along

I'm psyched. It's just about ready to go. Welcome to my sunny, fresh new quilting studio:

Let's take a tour...

New bright white trestle desk. Nice shelf space, lovely work area, not sure about the comfort factor on the chair, but don't want to bring in the black one and disturb the Chi.

Note the colorfully coordinating scrap bag. (Shh...don't tell Jenifer, but I whipped that up one evening when I should have been working on her quilt).

It's always nice to have a little white noise distraction, not to mention hoooking up the DVD player allows me to watch instructional videos (or sappy romances on Saturday afternoons).

No more ugly magazines stacked in piles. A few recovered plain cardboard containers from the office supply store, and wah-la, colorful storage.

Big ol' vase, toss in the extra spools of thread (lots are wooden spools) and you've got a pretty solution for holding rolls of Wonder-Under, template plastic and plastic rulers.

This is my favorite part of the room...the cutting table. It's not finished. There's a white finished top being cut for it that measures 30 x 48, should be here tomorrow. It's counter height, and the legs are 25-cubby shoe organizers from Lowes. Love, love, love them...look at all the fat quarters and half yards they hold. (Yes, I spent the weekend refolding fabric) Colorful, functional, pure joy. (See my South African indigos on the top left?)

Wow! Who knew I had that many fat quarters.

I almost hate to keep the closet doors closed:

There is an elephant in the room though.....

This is the sewing armoire with the electric machine lift I was given a couple years ago.

It's a marvelous piece of furniture and worked well in the cramped craft room. Kept the machine out of sight, away from dust and paint. But you couldn't quilt anything large on it as you ran your quilt into the cabinet as you were sewing. Quite awkward.

But, oh my, look at the storage. I really tried to bring it into the room, but then I was using up the desk trestles and the closet shelves to keep the thread and the little drawers full of pins, needles, seam rippers and the like. While you see 6 HUGE thread boxes there, that are all full (and arranged by color..."can you say 'obsessive-compulsive' boys and girls?"), I would have needed to buy more for the whites, beiges, blacks, metallics and invisibles housed on the door racks.

So I decided to drag it into the new studio space, just to see if I could work it in somehow (I shortened the cutting table by 2 inches to accommodate). If I decide to keep it, I can set the serger up on it, or when I get a new machine, the old one can go here...IF I KEEP IT. In order to keep it, I must paint it white, and in order to paint it white I must sand it, use one paint on the outside (it's lovely oak), one on the inside (the mechanical housing for the lift is metal, the door racks are plastic...I'm thinking spray paint for that). It just seems like a major undertaking.

I've got another white 30 x 60 tabletop cut which would get a custom machine cut out (the machine shelf would be suspended below the top with brackets. I could always use small cabinets for the legs to that table...maybe ones with glass doors. In that case, the armoire goes. I'll figure it out.

In the meantime, instead of worrying about painting, I'm spending my evenings in there soaking up the ambiance and working on:

And I'm loving it!