My Sewing Rooms

Over at Sewn by Leila, she asked us to share our sewing rooms on her site.  So... here I go.  I have two areas that work as sewing rooms.  The first is located in my bedroom.  This is where I work on my wools.  It is a make shift area that will be getting an over haul this year.  The buffet/cutting table will be leaving my house, and my son will be building me some rustic shelves to go with my crates.  Then, I can finally start unpacking some of my tubs of upcycled wool fabric.  Ahhh... It inspires my creativity just thinking about it!  ;)    



My quilting area is located in my front room.  Normally when not in use, two-thirds of the table is decorated for the seasons.  The end of the table with the sewing machine and notions are left out, since I can sew during the day on precut blocks.  As you can see under the table, Mr. Hollow and Farmerboy are busy leaving me their jean mending projects. ;)  The block in the corner of the table is my first "Sister's Choice" block that is completely finished.  I will be sharing those with you in a week or so.  :)



For those friends that are new to my blog, this is one of the pie safes that my son made me of vintage barn board for my fabric.  (If you would like to see my larger one click here.)  The picnic baskets (that can be seen here) are sprinkled throughout my front room and are used to hide some of my stash! ;)  

Although my plan is to have a studio apart from my home to house my sewing rooms and drawing room, these little areas are working fine for right now.  Well, time to get back to creating! ;) 

How to Move that HEAVY Kitchenaid Stand Mixer

I was so excited to get my Kitchenaid mixer for the holidays. It is such a wonderful appliance, but you know what else it is?? It is extremely heavy! This fact would not be a problem if the counter fairies would happen upon my kitchen and bless me with some extra space to put a non-movable item. But since I am pretty sure that will never happen ;), I had to come up with a storage solution that would not involve a lot of lifting.

If you click "kitchen" on my sidebar and scroll down to my counter top pic, you will see that there is an appliance garage next to my sugar jar. It is tall enough for my Kitchenaid to fit through the door. But unfortunately, one must lift the Kitchenaid slightly, angling for the closest corner, and without losing your grip set it down. This may not sound that bad, but the forward motion controlled lift is like a 3 minute workout and worse than kneading bread on my wrist (which was why I bought the Kitchenaid in the first place!). Oh... and let's not mention the fear of knocking the top of the mixer on the door of the garage... What to do?? Well as Plato once penned, "Necessity is the mother of invention." I decided to create a skid for my appliance. (To be honest, I was going to push it off on my son, but it ended up falling back onto my "to do" list. But, that was okay. It was nice to do a little woodworking again!)



Here is the cut out skid. I used some thin veneered wood that is used for constructing kitchen cabinet sides. I have acquired a little stock pile from a local business that is inundated with scraps. (This recycling comes in handy when making ornaments, too!) Here is the newly cut out "wrist saving" platform in the raw and ready for the sanding disc!

Here it is all smooth. I didn't stain the wood, since it would not be visible to the public. It was finished with some sealer, just in case it came into contact with liquids or required a wipe down.

In my fabric stash, I have acquired some super thick tool drawer felt. I cut a piece out for the bottom of the skid. I covered it with glue and adhered it to the underside of my finished piece of wood. No need to mess with clamps... I simply flipped this over and set my mixer on it for weight while drying!

Here it is ready to go onto the counter and be slid (How heavenly does that sound to my wrist?) into place. I have given it a trial run, and it works like a dream. "Slide in--Slide out!"

I do wish my counter was large enough to have this mixer out all the time. It really is a beautiful appliance. But I must say, I had fun working with my scroll saw and sander again! On to the next project...

Thrifty Friday Find ~ Floss Storage

This fabulous Friday find is a combination of two. These storage bins are plastic bolt and washer bins. My husband found them at our local hardware store. They were updating to a new display wall, and my hubby asked what the store was doing with the old bins. The owner had someone else interested in them, but they never came back to get them, so we got them all! I took a few of them to make a storage unit for my embroidery floss. The bins are five to a row, and each one can tip and lift out of its holder with ease. The rows interlock with the one above it and mount easily onto the wall. There were stickers on each of the bins describing the bolts and washers that were inside. I removed the stickers by soaking them with a layer of Goo Gone. They cleaned up like new!

The second part of this find is the contents. I love to pick up cheap embroidery kits that are reduced do to missing colors. It gives me a reason to personalize a project with my own color choices. So, I need to have individual colors of floss on hand to complete these projects, and it never hurts to have older colors, too. Floss is getting harder to find in stores without a long drive from where I live, and it is going up in price. So, what better to look for at garage sales? To be honest, I haven't been that successful in finding many skeins, but as you can see, my Mom knocked this one out of the park. She kept finding bags upon bags of floss and at a cheaper than cheap price! When my husband came home with the bins and asked if I could use a few, the light bulb went on, and my floss had a nice, neat, organized place to live!