January "State of the Studio" Report

I wish I could say I'm starting the year with a spotlessly clean studio and a clearly defined list of projects to work on. The truth looks a great deal more like this:


In November I set up a booth at our Christmas marketplace and did my best to sell some pretty things and make some money. And then I came home, dumped everything in the studio and closed the door while I madly knitted away at Christmas gifts. In other words, there are still remnants of projects I made for Marketplace lying around, and the place is a wreck.







To make it worse, my sweet but not-so-bright cat Gracie got shut up in the studio one day and in her efforts to find a way out she managed to half tear down the design wall: Fortunately, the project that was on it was completely pinned, so no damage was done to it, but it was not a pretty sight. Clearly she has failed Test #1 of meeting the prerequisites for becoming a studio cat; she is no longer under consideration for that post.







Then there was the day I loaded up the car with boxes of things to take to the Salvation Army thrift store in Greenville, only to discover that the store has closed and there is no thrift store of any kind there, at least not that I could find. So all those boxes got dumped in the studio for the Christmas holiday. I've tried really hard over the years to keep that sort of stuff out of my work space, but for the short term there was no other alternative. We won't talk about the store room; this is not the place to tell horror stories.

So, the year is starting with a completely trashed studio. Every surface has something on it that doesn't belong. There are remnants of half a dozen projects lying around: And we won't even think about things like dust and dirt.


In the interest of starting somewhere, I decided that I would concentrate on two things today. The first was to get the design wall back to functional. That meant some climbing on stepstools and hammering tacks, but otherwise was a fairly simple job. Once the flannel was back in place I smoothed out the quilt pieces that had gotten rumpled, and declared it back in business.

The second was to clear a space for the new sewing machine that I hope is going to arrive tomorrow. I have been wanting a second machine for at least a year, with the idea that I could then leave Betsy set up for free motion quilting and do other work on the new machine.  That has also been accomplished. We won't talk about where the stuff that was on that table went; I can deal with that another day. For now the fact that the table has been cleared off and dusted is good enough. This table is close to my other sewing table, so I can use the rolling chair for longer stints or a folding chair for short projects. I will need to figure out some sort of task lighting there down the road, but I think that will be an easy fix.

So the year has begun, even if rather slowly. Over the next few days I'll be working at clearing other surfaces and putting things that need to be stored for next year's sale away. I think I can make the trip to the thrift store in Bastrop I like to take things to tomorrow, which will get that pile out of the middle of the floor. And then we'll see what kind of fabric goodness I can make happen before too much more time goes by.