Lynn Carson Harris

Busy as Bees

Summer activities are keeping us busy. 

I'm enjoying the cooler weather - I even put on a SWEATER today! woohoo! There's not much sewing going on but we have canned our first batch of applesauce. 

Three Kitchen Fairies

We have had some lovely weather this week in Michigan. I've been taking advantage of the cooler drier air by spending time outside reading and even doing a little hand stitching. It's been like a vacation without the hassle of packing and driving.

Paloma, of Three Kitchen Fairies, sent me some of her hexie papers to try and I finally got around to making a project with them. These are one inch on each side. The paper is thinner than the papers I had been using and I love that you can get a thin crisp turned edge with these papers. They are also easier to pop out after stitching. The papers in the photo have been used and are in great condition for using again. If you want to try them yourself you can get the papers here in Paloma's etsy shop. She also has some sweet instant download embroidery patterns. I especially like this one.

A few scraps, aurifil 50 wt thread, and hexie papers are the perfect ingredients for relaxing afternoon and a pretty transformation for a tea towel. 

Now, I think I need to get some more of these bright tea towels to decorate.

Taking it to the Next Level

My little sewing business seems to be taking off with a few patterns for sale, quilts getting published in magazines and books, custom quilts, and now, the new longarm quilting adventure. I thought it was time for a more "official" look. 

A logo will help take my business to the next level.  

My logo was designed by Sophia Pappas, a freelance designer and illustrator, and a graduate from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. She was a joy to work with and knew just what I wanted when I didn't! If you are in need of any freelance artwork, I highly recommend her. 

Oceans of Notions

This is a reposting of a guest post I did on Pink Castle Fabrics as part of their "Oceans of Notions" series back in February. I thought it might be good to post it over here too.

Oceans of Notions

When Megan first asked me to share some of my studio for her Oceans of Notions feature here I was a little nervous. My sewing room is far from what I would expect to see in an inspirational storage and studio feature. Megan assured me they are looking for inspirational ideas that anyone can use so I agreed to share. 

First, I need to tell you that I don't have a finished sewing room. We have been renovating our house for the last 25 years. Yes, you read that right twenty five YEARS. I no longer even notice that half of my sewing room doesn't have a ceiling. A few years ago, we removed the wood wall surface from one corner of my sewing room. In doing so, we discovered a hidden space under the stairs.  

We turned that space into a "queenly place" for my daughter. I let her decorate her room with some of my vintage linens and "tapestries".  She has spent many hours playing in there while I sew.  

I'm sharing this with you to illustrate that my studio is constantly changing. We are moving things and rearranging as the need arises. Now that my daughter is in second grade she doesn't use her queenly place as much but spends a lot of time at her desk which is also in my sewing room. She does homework, artwork, or sews while I work at my computer or on the sewing machine.

With our needs constantly changing I need storage for my sewing notions that can adapt to each incarnation of the room. I like using old items that I may already have to store things in. My collection of ribbons, trims, and rick rack are arranged in an old suitcase.

I keep my threads in an old wooden two drawer thread cabinet that belonged to my mother. Floss and perle cotton are stored in a more modern thread cabinet.

I keep this pin cushion jar right next to my sewing machine. The bottom holds the small safety pins that I use to baste the layers of a quilt together. I drop the open pins in the jar as I quilt and they are ready to use on the next quilt. The top has a pin cushion that holds a couple of "self threading" needles for burying threads as I quilt. The large flower head pins are the ones that my daughter uses when she sews. I like that the weight of the jar holds the cushion in place while I pull out the needles. 

Much of my old sewing notion collection is stored in jars. I have jars and jars of old buttons.

Not all of the sewing notions are housed in my sewing room. This cabinet is in our entry but someday I hope to have a place to hang it in my sewing room. It has some antique sewing items and other goodies behind the glass. The drawers on the right are filled with elastic, beads, buttons, vintage lace, silk ribbon, and special embroidery threads. (Please note the additional jars of buttons and ignore the cracked plaster and old woodstove holes in the wall).

Some of my old sewing items are just for show and are kept in the livingroom in a glass cabinet. Here, you might be able to see a basket of antique needle books and another of antique buttons. The old basket on the left is filled with old wooden spools. Yeah, I have a real weakness for old sewing stuff. Is there a twelve step program for that?

I hope some of these storage ideas can help you keep your sewing notions tamed and easy to find.

edit - With the additon of the Gammill to the sewing room I have made a few changes. The "queenly place" is now a craft storage area. Most of the non quilting craft supplies are housed there and P can get to them easily.

My new design wall is a bit harder to access with the Gammill table in front of it. I did get castors for the Gammill so if I need full access to the design wall, I can roll the table out of the way.

I'm also getting used to the sewing machine facing the wall. I don't really like sewing with my back to the door.

Thread Play

Yesterday, I quilted a small baby quilt on the Gammill. It was good to get some practice loading, basting the sides, keeping it square, etc. 

Today, I pinned the practice muslin back on the frame and switched to a darker thread for visibility over all my other practice.

I'm having fun switching back and forth between freeform sewing like these plants and feathers on one side of the practice piece

and skill building drills on the other half. I think of it like the compulsory figures and and free skating sections in figure skating competitions.  (Yes, I know that they no longer judge compulsory figures but I do remember watching them and was impressed by the figures left on the ice - you didn't want to see a double line after skating the figure with both feet.) I hope the quilting drills will help build muscle memory for better freehand quilting.  I'm currently making rows and rows of circles working both horizontally and vertically and I'm getting better at making them the same on each row. 

 

Welcome to a New Member of the My Sewing Machine Family

Look! I have a new friend in the sewing room. It's a Gammill!!!! 

The lovely Tammy from TK Quilting and Designs brought it to my house yesterday. After putting it together she taught me the basics on loading, oiling, threading and getting started with the quilting. She even stitched out a few feathers for me to stitch over, and over, and over.  I'm stitching it without thread for practice. It really does help build the muscle memory for making smooth curves and flowing feathers. 

We had fun taking turns last night. Look, it's so easy a child can do it! Actually, Miss P was pretty good. She stitched out an awesome swirly border and a mermaid!

D tried the pantograph set up. 

We filled up our practice quilt but didn't want to stop to load more fabric so we just kept stitching.

I want to quilt all the things!

I think it might be time to load something new. I'll have to make a quick top... unless someone else has a quilt I can play on. Anyone? 

 

Fun Times

I'm looking forward to more playtime this week. 
 

Weekend Fun

We're still goofing off and playing games around here. How about you?

Family Time

The pie was delicous. 

We worked a 1000 piece puzzle, played badminton, ate watermelon, dinner on the grill, more badminton, a few other games and crafts, blueberry pie, more badminton, a few songs on the player piano, and smores over a "camp" fire - overall it was a pretty stellar day.

Also, have any of you locals noticed that we seem to have almost NO mosquitoes this summer??? This is quite a pleasant change from the past few summers when the mosquitoes have kept us prisoners in the house.

I hope you had a great Fourth of July too. 

 

Future Fruit

Miss P and I journeyed around the property this afternoon and found that we have home grown fruit in our future. I love the fruit trees because we don't really have to do anything for them. Did you hear that? NO WEEDING for all this fruit! We won't mention the state of the garden. No, let's not go there. 

apples

pears

plums

 
grapes

We also found that part of a tree had fallen in the middle of one of our paths. I guess we get firewood too! 

We look forward to a busy August of harvest, food preservation, and fire wood cutting. Yeehaw. 

Do you have any exciting weekend plans? The kids will all be here for the Fourth and we've planned a cookout with smores!