The Home Office

With the raising prices at the fuel pumps (and at the grocery store and just about everywhere else) I had begun to review our families budget and exactly where our money goes each month.  I was driving what I thought was an economical vehicle, getting about 28 MPG.  However, that economical vehicle was costing me over $330 a month in payments and 2 to 3 tanks of gas each week.  All in all my economical vehicle was costing me approximately $700 a month to pay the monthly payment plus the gas used to drive the hour and fifteen minute one way ride to work everyday.

So I did a bit of research and decided that I either needed to trade-in the vehicle that I really liked driving for something MORE economical.  Something that costs less per month and gets better gas mileage.  My first choice has 2 wheels, goes fast and gets over 50 MPG but I didn't think they'd appreciate me showing up with a 5 year old on the back of a motorcycle in the Salem Christian School drop off lane.  So I resigned myself to the fact that I would Trace-in my car and purchase one of those tiny, bare bones, over 40 MPG cars whos size also makes you purchase less groceries each week for fear that you won't be able to fit the extra gallon of milk in the hatchback.  But, alas, my purchase of said mini mode of travel has saved me over $80 a month just on my payment alone and an additional approx $50 a week in gas, so for a savings of approx $330 a month I felt as though I made a smart purchase.  That is, until the very day after I picked up my new vehicle and was feeling quite smug at work thinking of the money I saved on my commute when in a Gift-of-the-Magi-esc turn of events the management of my group announce that due to the ever rising gas prices they are instituting a program where we can work from home at least part of the week.  So there I sit, after selling the car I really liked so that I could have a car that I can afford to drive to work in, only to have my work tell me that I don't need to drive to the office.  Well... more savings.. not a bad thing!

Now that I will be working at home I needed to evaluate my workspace, my work away from work, the home office.  So, as part of my spring cleaning time I rolled in the task of setting myself up a workspace.  A home office in which I can be as comfortable as I an productive in and has all the working conveniences of.. well.. work.

We've had a room that we call 'the office' in our house for a long time, the small 3rd bedroom dedicated to the family computer that we all shared.  As it stood, it was already suitable to be a true home office as it has a corner configuration of work surface that offers a lot of desktop space.  This is where I camp out with my laptop when I work a weekend shift.  However, those shifts I find merely tolerable as I share the space with the home computer.  I literally plant my laptop on the only available desk surface which is right next to, about 5 inches away, from the home computer.  Since it is usually NOT a school day when I work here I tend to have to keep my phone on MUTE so that my customers) don't have to hear sounds of 'Meteor and The Mighty Monster Trucks" web site coming from the family computer on the corner surface.  It is inevitable that at least for some of my weekend shifts a kitchen chair makes its way into the office and is CRAMMED in next to me by a 5 year old who insists that he will be quiet while he plays for his allotted daily computer time.  As we all know a 5 year old trying to be quiet sitting that close to you playing a computer game featuring Monster Trucks is just ridiculous.  So at the least I need enough space between our two work surfaces that I can sit without someone else RIGHT next to me an a dedicated place for my laptop and perhaps a monitor or two.

Our desk / work surface that we have now is the same type of furniture you'd find in your cube in an office.  We were lucky lately to stumble onto a company in our town that was just opening that recovers cubicle / office furniture when business close of sell them.  They were not open yet but I really wanted to expand my office setup, so I barged into the warehouse and asked... which paid off as they agreed to sell us two work surfaces for only $60.  The color doesn't match the furniture I already have installed, but I didn't really care about that.. it's a nice big corner work surface and a 3 foot extension.. that will work our great.  So, before we install the new work surfaces I figured I'd use this opportunity to sneak in a bit of a sewing project.  The room has a double window that my work surface will face that still has on it the drapery panels that we bought for $6.00 at Khols when we moved in just to keep the room from feeling like a fish bowl to the neighbors.  They would have to go.  So to brighten up the wall I sanded the old looking stained wood work, painted it white, put up some new mini-blinds and got to work on a new window treatment.

Now, the fact that I quilt sometimes confuses people into thinking that I also sew.  Technically, I do sew when I quilt.  But putting a project together like a window treatment for someone who doesn't do that kind of sewing every day is like asking for an intern to perform your surgery.  It's a bit of a stretch.  However, I knew what I wanted, a valance style called a 'mock' roman shade, at least that is what I called it.  So to start I went to the sewing version of the Matrix' Oracle, my sister Joy.  I showed up at her workshop with my idea of what I wanted, my window measurements, paper and a pen.  She took the measurements, looked at the blank paper, twitched a bit, and then started to write on the paper basic instructions for how much fabric I'd need to buy, how to make my cuts to use the least amount of fabric and how to put the thing together.  I left her workshop with my instructions and her vote of confidence and was off to the fabric store.  As my luck would have it Joanne Fabrics was having one of their 50% sales on home decor fabric.  I found two I really liked, one had already been marked down from $30 per yard to $15 and had a red clearance sale tag on it... SCORE!!  So in total for fabric I purchased 3 yards each of my main fabric [$7.95 per yard] and drapery lining [$2.95 per yard], pretty cheap compared to trying to buy the treatment in a store.

 

 
I am happy with the results.  I did sew it together once, have to take it apart and have a do-over because I sewed the wrong sides together of the two fabrics ended up with finished side IN of my main fabric... a rookie mistake!  But luckily I didn't make a mistake that caused me to have to scrap my work and purchase more fabric.  There was an added expense of the wood that the treatment gets mounted on to be installed which was a 1 x 4 x 84 inch board which I had Glenn cut because I'm not brave enough to use the power saw. [less than $10 at home depot]  It was harder than I thought to mount it on the board although unlike my previous window treatment project that I had taken to the workshop to ask Joy for help with when it was time to finish the tops and mount them to the board, this one I completed all on my own, a bit of an accomplishment for me.  I laughed at myself because I have now have made window treatments for 3 rooms in the house, Jason's room, the dining room addition (which I took over as my sewing room) and my newly updated office and two of them are the same style and all three are valances.  Just like some of my quilts, since I'm fairly comfortable with the pattern I figure stick with it and gain some confidence.   I've added a gallery for these projects called "Other Projects" if you'd like to see some of the 'in-process' photos.

Spring cleaning.. and a bit of down time...

Well, with one sewing machine down for the count and in the shop, where they can't seem to figure out what is wrong with it, and the other needing desperately to be taken apart and given a good cleaning after 2 completed quilting projects... it's time for a time-out and a good spring cleaning.  I suppose it is the time of the year, a spring time renewal of sorts.  This time of year I always get the itch to empty out, purge, clean out those closets, you know the ones, where you open the door really quick, toss in the item you need to put in there and slam the door before it all tumbles out at you.  Time to bag up all those old clothes that I'll never fit into again because lets all face it... that pair of acid washed jeans from high school that you think looked really good on you so you've been dragging along all these years not only will never fit again... but truthfully... are you really ever going to find the perfect place to wear them... say.. a Bon Jovi concert??  No! Time for the big bag and off to the donation bin.  It is ingrained in us, at least in my family it is, "Spring Cleaning", it's nearly automatic. 

It's kinda the same as the urge I get in September to buy new clothes and shoes.  When I was a kid every August we'd shop and shop for "school clothes" and a new pair of shoes and sometimes a new pair of sneakers.  I remember a few specific things about new school clothes; (1) they were always itchy and stiff... big bulky sweaters, heavy wide wale corduroys and stiff shoes that gave you blisters the size of silver dollars, (2) you bought them in August and had to try on every item on in the store to make sure there was some 'growing room', then the first week of school we'd wear each outfit and could feel ourselves melting on the way to the bus stop in 95 degree weather, (3) you had all these new clothes and new shoes but for the 2 weeks before school started you were not allowed to wear them, even if your current sneakers were held together with duct tape you had to wait til the first day of school to wear those new shoes!

Anyway, in light of the season's spring clean-out and with Jason's school vacation I had taken a bit of time off.  The intention was to spend some time with the family and take some day trips, to clean out and build a work area for myself to work from home, try to empty out the basement so I can start thinking of finishing it to give Jason a play room (and me a bigger sewing room) and lastly to do some general spring cleaning.  I suppose I over-estimated how much I can get done in 2 days.  I took a total of 5 days off, but 3 of them I dedicated to spending time with Jason. Three of those days we did day trips (went to the beach, climbed on the rocks at the light house, went to the Lego store, that kinda stuff) and then two days after he went back to school I intended to get about 764 things done.  Didn't' happen.   So it will be an ongoing project.  One of the projects should have been titled; "how to get the man who lives in the house with me to give up and toss some of that *stuff* that he keeps dragging along with him."  You know the things... the "collectibles"...the baseball cards and the hot wheels from when he was a kid.. I just don't see it.  I guess because I'm just not that much of a sentimental person when it comes to items you can touch.  I don't put too much of myself into any one item or hold an item because of it's attachment to a place, an event or a person.  That's just not what I'm about.  Ask yourself this; If you had an urn that contained the ashes of a loved one would you be a saver or a sprinkler?  Well, I'm a sprinkler.  I'd rather symbolically say good-bye and sprinkle the person's ashes in a garden or on a mountain or where ever, and move on.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not heartless.. it's just that things that are important to me are more memories and experiences than items.  I think this years' spring cleaning is likely to be an ongoing project.  And, perhaps we should all clean out our closets more often.

As for projects... my sewing table will soon be buzzing back to life.  I've got a lot of projects on my list.  I've got 2 half finished quilts; a baby quilt I made but can honestly say I really don't care for the fabrics in it but I'll finish it anyway, and a Spiderman novelty quilt that I'm making for Jason kinda like Jack's Batman project.  I've also got 2 new babies (2 of my nieces are expecting) to quilt for, one of which I have chosen the fabrics and just need to pull the project together and the other I will pick fabrics for in June because we don't yet now if it is a baby girl or a baby boy.  I've also purchased fabric for my new office window.  I'm going to try to put together a window treatment for that room that will be a valance that looks like a roman shade, kinda like a mock-roman shade as it won't go up and down.  That is a project that is somewhat beyond my abilities, a bit of a stretch for me, but I've got some advice and instruction from my sister (who is a professional fabricator of window treatments and general sewing guru) and I found drapery fabric at Joanne Fabrics for 50% off... so I'll give it a try!  After all those projects I have drawn out a quilt project for my own bed, something I've been trying to get to for years and something that this year I am going to hold myself to completing.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

It's an exciting time in my family as we're on the verge of a real population explosion.  I'm one of 6 children, and one thing you learn in big families is that when they grow, they tend to grow exponentially.  It's a bit like that "While I was going to St. Ives... " nursery rhyme.  Someone is going to St Ives and on the way they meet a man with 7 wives.  Every wife has seven sacks, every sack had seven cats.. and on and on it goes.  You're left trying to do all that math... 7 wives + 49 sacks + 343 cats + 2,401 kittens, it's enough to make your head spin.  Well, to someone just jumping into this family in the middle, figuring out all the people, who goes with whom can be overwhelming.  To me, someone who has grown up as the 6th child in a family with 6 children, it is all very comforting and normal.  After all, it was already a crowd when I was born into it.  I guess if you were to re-write that nursery rhyme for our family you'd have 2 parents who had 6 children and those children had 18 grand children and those grand children had 3 children with 3 more on the way...  It's now those grand children's (my nieces' and nephews') turn to continue the nursery rhyme.  We [collectively] are expecting 3 new babies, two before the end of the summer and another near the end of October, at which time would have given my parents 6 Great Grandchildren, and I will be a Great Aunt again... its all very exciting.

As I said, I am the youngest and the oldest is 15 years older than I am.  So, you can imagine the older siblings in my family were getting married before I was 10 years old.   And at 10 years old I became an aunt as my first nephew was born.  We then had about an 11 year time when there was a new born baby in our family just about every year.  In those 11 years 12 babies were born.  What am I getting at?  Well, those 12 babies were fairly even in the boy to girl ratio with 5 boys and 7 girls.  Then amazingly, in the last 17 years someone has stacked the deck.  It seems our family can't grow a girl at all, 17 years and 9 babies, all of which have been of the "snips and snails and puppy dog tail" variety. 

Until now!!  That's right, the first of these three new babies due in June our family is expecting the first girl baby born in 17 years!! Our family will finally have another baby girl around and we're all [I couldn't help but say it] TICKLED PINK!

Obviously what that means to me is that I can finally pull out the fabric bins that have all the pink and purple fabric in them!!

I've been holding on to these fabrics for a long time!!

I usually use natural cotton but I went back to the high loft poly for this as I wanted it to be 'puffy'.

Finished, log cabin pattern.. this time set on point.

Another thing I did a bit differently with this one is the double binding.  I usually do a single binding created by wrapping the back fabric around to the front.

Quilts that tell a story...

A night away from my sewing machine.  Last night I had finished a project that I had been working on this week and it was a new type of work for me.. so I figure it was worthy of sharing for my first ever blog post.

Quilting to me is a process.. There are many steps I go through when I put together a quilt project, especially when it is intended to be a gift.. as most of my quilts are.  When you purchase a Christmas or a Birthday gift you go to the store or you surf on-line for something that reminds you of the person.. something that you feel speaks to how you feel when you think of them or what you think they will enjoy.  Well, it isn't that much different for me when I am preparing a quilt project for a gift.  Each part of the process is like a bit of the gift.. I walk through the fabric stores or dig through my bins and bins of fabric stash for that one fabric that makes me think of that person.. I keep the person in mind the whole time.  For example, a project that is currently in the works on my quilt table I had searched for months to find the fabric... the colors of it, the softness of it, the warmth of it.  I sometimes lay out fabrics and just leave them there for a few days to see if they work together and if they grow on me.. do they 'speak' to how I feel about that person.  Some fabrics feel cold and others feel warm.. not so much how heavy the fabric is but the lightness, darkness and overall 'vibe' you get from the fabric.  I like to match it to the person that I have in my mind.  From picking the fabric to building the design in my book of graph paper, to the fabric cutting and ultimately putting the project together.  It's all part of the process and I try to keep the person in mind the whole time.

This project I have just completed was easy to do this with as I had made my first ever 'photo quilt', or 'memory quilt.'  I am really interested in the history within quilts.  The representation of certain quilt square patterns and what they mean.  Some came about during the depression, some patterns are sewn for newlyweds as a wedding blessing, some tell a story, a journey.  I see this type of photo quilt as a variation of those kinds of old fashioned quilting methods.  I wanted these photos to tell a story, speak to the journey contained in the pictures.  I had always wanted to do one of these but the part I stumbled on was the photos... printing the photos on fabric.  So I did a bit of research and read all the reviews on the product I would need, Printable Cotton.  There were a lot of brands out there and the usual array of ridiculous comments on the reviews pages of all the people who expected photos printed on cotton to be like a photo by a professional photographer.  I tend to ignore those people as they have expectations that can never be filled.  I honed in on the honest, middle of the road reviews and chose which cotton paper I would use.

Jacquard Printable Cotton

I will say I was a bit surprised as to how well this paper worked out.  The photos printed on it look great!  I will recommend if you are thinking of using this the instructions say to use an ink jet printer with at least 600 dpi, I used 1200 dpi found out that those old black and white photos don't print very well if they are just candid shots, studio black and white shots that are in focus and crisp print fine.  Digital photos are best and photos with bright light colors print better than those with dark back grounds.  Here's an example photo printed on cotton fabric sheet (before I removed the backing) compared to the actual digital photo..

Another tip I would give for this type of project is to keep the quilted squares fairly simple as you want the photos to be the star of the show.  I chose to do a 9 patch for a few reasons; I found an example on line that looked to have a good balance between quilted squares and photos for how busy the images are, with only 2 fabrics I could pull a fabric that I had been waiting to use from my stash bins (the darker floral) and only had to purchase the lighter fabric, and lastly the 9 patch is so quick and easy this project took me about 10 hours to complete (about 3 and a half nights).

Tomorrow I will be attending an 80th birthday party for my Aunt, and I wanted to make this quilt for her.  So, part of the fabric for this quilt were photos.  Photos of my aunts life.  Her as a young girl, her wedding, her with her children, family and friends.  Bits and pieces of 80 years of someone's life.  The thoughts of that were hard to get away from while putting this project together.  It was all around me and really thought provoking.  Oh, I've heard the stories from my father a lot of times about how it was when they were young and I've been there for a bit over half of it myself.  But, imagine.. the things you see and do and just the sheer amount of 'living' that goes along with 80 years!! She and my uncle raised 4 children together and are such a close knit family.  I'm sewing along and looking at all these photos and can't help but imagine the 'photos' in her mind.. the still frame memories that fill in the gaps and can be wrapped up into her "quilt", her journey.  I'm sure there are moments that she holds close to her heart that no one has ever seen nor will ever see, except her.  A first date, the moment her babies were born, the first day she watched them drive away in the school bus alone.. the everyday moments that all fall into place over 80 years of being who she is, which is much more than several photos sewn together on fabric.  I hope she enjoys this gift as it is more than just a gift of fabric arraigned in a clever way.. I hope she sees that in these photos of her with many different members of our family are also parts of our lives, places in our memories that will someday be woven into our "quilt", our life journey and that will be where she touched all our lives.

The finished project;