Feeling S(crappy)

I have been sick all week! Ugh! My voice still sounds like I've spent decades working as a smoking lounge singer. At least my students have been cooperative because they can hear that their teacher is a little under the weather.

Yesterday (Friday) I had a wonderful surprise. The metal wire baskets I ordered from Target arrived, so I spent a little time organizing my scraps! I love that project clean up will be super easy now that each colored scrap will have a spot. I love it!



Now I just need to keep creating and I can eventually make something with just scraps. Don't you just love organization? It makes me happy.

Introducing the Yongsan Long Arm

It's only Tuesday and I feel like is should be Friday! Phew! On the first Mondays of each month the quilt group meets at a member's home rather than at the Quilting room at the on post Chapel. The monthly meeting allows us to show and tell, discuss projects and just have some girl time. This month was my first time visiting another member's home. It was nice to just sit and chat. All of the ladies are very informative and helpful. I brought my finished Krazy Quilt blocks to share as well as my Hanbok example block to show for the exchange. Both items were well received and boosted my sewing/ quilting confidence. Some of the other ladies brought their blocks to share as well. I think they are all really cute.We were all talking so much that before we knew it, it was past 3pm. We had arrived at 9:30am!

Tuesdays at the Yongsan Quilt Shop are designated for long arm quilting Quilts of Valor. I decided to go to the shop and start training on the machine. Once/ if I get trained then I will be able to use the long arm to quilt my own quilts as well as quilts for other people. The process isn't too confusing, but is just takes practice. The machine that we have is AMAZING! The entire machine is computerized. Below is a picture of the computer screen for the quilt we quilted today. Here is the machine in action. We quilted a patriotic pattern on the quilt.
The long arm has a 14 foot bed and measures pretty much everything for you. You click the buttons on the sewing machine to designate your parameters and then you decide on pattern placement. Owning a machine like this would be crazy. Anyone have an extra $35,000 laying around?

I checked the mail center today and there was a lovely surprise there for me. My new sewing chair arrived! I've been sitting in it for only about 20 min and I'm already in love. The chair sits a little higher than a normal dining chair and the low back is great for supporting my lumbar. When I saw this chair I was in love with the funky retro looking fabric. The fabric is an Alexander Henry print, so I will check to see if Dongdaemun will carry the fabric. I was able to purchase the chair from JoAnn's for 50% off the original price, no tax and free shipping! I thought that was a great deal. The shipping was a lot faster than most of the orders I have placed too. Below is a photo of the chair from a website advertising it.
One thing I like is that there is storage under the seat too. I love things that are dual purpose. This picture is also from the advertising website.
Now that I can roll around my sewing room, I will get to work on some of the exchange blocks. I'm excited for tomorrow because I am heading to Dongdaemun with some of the ladies from the quilt group. Also tomorrow is my Birthday! I think shopping for fabric will be a great way to celebrate!

Sewing in Seoul

Now that my new sewing room is set up, I've been busy. I'm loving my new space!

I've made a dozen blocks to exchange as friendship blocks for the quilting group. I still need to write my name, date, Seoul, Korea and my home state on the blocks. They will then be traded with the other members of the quilt group to be kept as a reminder of each member.

I'm also working on a Kwik Krazy Quilt. I like to make quilts that are more of a mish-mosh of fabrics and what I consider "funky." I really like how the blocks are coming together.

Here are the first 12 blocks.

Now I need to go make some more! I will continue to share as a progress with this project. I also need to get to work on my quilt exchange block. I need to create a block that reminds me of Korea. The Krazy Quilt block kinda reminds me of Korea... kinda crazy and chaotic.

New Workspace

Our stuff has finally arrived in Korea which has me bouncing with excitement because this means I can SEW! I've been in fabric heaven, but with little outlet. Tomorrow, I will be sewing! I have turned into one of those military spouses that can unpack and set-up house in what seems like a flash. Friday at 5 pm we were in a heap of boxes and packing paper. Saturday at 5 pm we were headed out for dinner with a fully intact apartment, all boxes gone and pretty much everything set-up. I need to purchase a few odds and ends, and as we live here I would like to purchase some furniture; but, for now I'm most excited for my NEW WORKSPACE!

I started with this blank room.
My work table is set-up so that I can cut fabric from 3 sides. I love have the cutting mat as my table. It makes my life a lot easier when trying to make things precise. The mat has cutting measured for 58" x 33". It is a nice size work table. The white cubes are from Target. They store sewing and scrapbooking supplies.Look at all the beautiful storage under the table and the large workspace.

This picture is standing behind the work table looking back at the other wall. My cubes for fabric storage are almost full. I Think I will probably have to think about more storage solutions for fabric soon. I like to fold my fabric so all the pieces are the same size. This makes storage MUCH easier!The last part is the AWESOME closet. I did give my husband one section of the closet for his Army gear, but I'm more than happy to share. The white drawers in the first cabinet store scrapbook paper and thread. The grey bins have 1. batting, 2. parts of uniforms that have been cut up for Bags From The Heart and 3. Finished items to sell/ give away & works in progress. I like that I have space to store all of my sewing machines, so that if I want to just scrapbook, my sewing stuff can be out of the way and vice versa.
I can't wait to start creating in this awesome new work space.

Pinwheels

I decided to try out a new quilt block today - pinwheels. I think they are a fun looking block, so I figured I would try it out. It's super easy...another thing I like. I don't know if I will make anything with this block yet, but I just wanted to try it out. I used a 6" square to start. and then made my pinwheel from there. The blog I Have To Say... has a nice tutorial for making pinwheels.

I also did some organization of my sewing room, so I will include pictures of all the angles of my sewing room. From the pictures it looks really bland...maybe I will need to do something to spruce it up. Although I really do like all the light that comes into the room. I am loving my sewing room because it is allowing me to be slightly obsessive compulsive about putting things in order (LOL).

My sewing table (Wall 1). It has a 60" x 33" cutting mat on the top of it. This is ample space for me to cut, sew and quilt.


Corner 1/ Wall 2 - The big white chair is a pottery barn grand chair. It is very comfortable. It's usually what I sit in to read, hand sew, cross stitch, and recently...write my blog.

The nine-cube shelf stores the larger pieces of my stash, books, photo albums, scrapbooks, my sewing case and my embroidery machine. The purple cloth drawers are designated 1 - cross stitch 2 - scraps 3 - sewing notions (bag handles, sewing patterns, velcro, etc.).

Corner 2 - This book shelf holds tons of stuff. The bottom two shelves have pieces of my stash that are under 1 yard. The middle shelf holds all my scrapbooking inks and more photo albums. The top shelf has business materials (business cards, post cards), some thread, and tools for my sewing machines. On the very top there are photos and other random crafty things.
Wall 3/ Corner 4 - Scrapbooking Mecca - these cubes hold all of my scrapbooking stuff. I think I have enough stuff to scrapbook for life! Two of the drawers hold thread. One drawer for regular thread and one drawer for embroidery thread. All of my scrapbooking papers are sorted by the seasons designated by the company they are from. I use Close to My Heart scrapbooking materials. The closed door opens to a full size bathroom. You can see the open door leading to the rest of the upstairs of my house.
Wall 4 - pretty simple. The ironing board stands here and the door to the closet. The closet is used mostly by my husband for his work attire. It is nicely organized, but I just didn't take pictures of it...its not that exciting. I will often put on the hanging red apron for when I have my "serious" sewing days. For some strange reason I think it helps me focus.
Off to try more pinwheels!