lesmel - 2024 Sew it seams

Happy New Year! Blue and I hope everyone has a great year!



Goals for the year: Get my craft room back together. Finished at least one project a month.

Happy New Year to you and your human, Blue! You appear to be a Very Good Dog — please request some ear scritches from me to start 2024 off right.

Ohmygoodness, Blue is such a cutie!!

>3 scaifea: Thanks!

I spent time today moving a bunch of stuff around. First, I cleared my dining table which really meant moving things to appropriate rooms for future tidying. Then, I made room in my garage for the fake French Desk of Despair. Next, I removed all the flotsam for the fake FDoD. And then my day turned to 💩💩💩 because the fake FDoD requires two people to move through my front door, off my porch, and through the large garage door into the garage. This means I have to wait until this weekend to move this stupid desk I hate.

Why would you have a desk you hate, Lesli?! Because it was free, my mother pressured me to take it, and I thought I could make it work. From almost day one it has been the fake French Desk of Despair because I feel like I will be stuck with it forever. It belongs/ed to my aunt. She called to offer me any of her furniture in storage to fill my "brand new to me" house 11 years ago. She said I could keep anything I took; but I feel wrong about just ditching the desk.

I was supposed to talk to her about the desk at Xmas. Totally forgot (for the 4th year in a row).

I got over my urge to turn the fake FDoD into kindling & continued on with moving furniture around.

I repositioned my living room furniture (it probably won't last). I swapped the desk & table from what is officially My Craft Room & my bedroom.

I re-set up my work computer in my bedroom. I will have to tackle some of the craft room tomorrow. It will need to be in stages. I have to figure out what will end up in that room & what I should maybe purchase.

I need to repaint some side chests if they are going back in the craft room.

I also need to decide about the bookshelves & filing cabinets. I really don't like the filing cabinets. They are a dumb catch-all for my genealogy stuff. I have some nice archival boxes for things...if I had shelf space.

My dining table is once again acting as storage until I can sort the flotsam on it.

I am hoping to find flooring by this weekend for the front rooms. My goal is to have the flooring in by the end of January.

Tomorrow, I need to move a TV console & the standing desk into the garage until I am ready for them.

I am sore from all my antics today; but I mostly feel accomplished.

>4 lesmel: I mostly feel accomplished
You should! You've described what would've been months of weekends for me.
For the curious, do you have a photo of the FFDoD?
My dining table is once again acting as storage
Hah, mine does the same. As I rarely use it for dining, it becomes an available surface that doesn't block navigation.

>5 qebo: I do! This is from when I first moved into the house.

Now that I have message bombed the group, more thoughts on my craft room!

I think I may end up using Kallax IKEA cubical cases for my storage. At least two reasons:

most of the series is very affordable

IKEA now has other inserts beyond baskets and fabric bins for the cubbies.

I did see a video on YouTube (2+ years old) that showed an IKEA display for a craft room. There was a really great chest of drawers that I think were from the kitchen section. Of course, can I find the furniture on the website? No. A lot of sites recommend/use the Alex series or the Nordli series.

My goals for the weekend are to find flooring and visit IKEA to scope out my options.

Good work on the rearrangement of furniture. Hope it works itself out with the desk and storage.

I want to work on a jacket for Blue. I'm sure the pattern is buried in a tote. I'm not sure I can use the existing jackets to draw a pattern; but I'm going to try. Blue is currently 2-3 inches shorter (everywhere) than Crickett was at her full size.

I'm one step closer to getting flooring back in the rooms. That's the step before I can get the furniture back in the rooms. And THAT is the step before I can set up my craft room to something that really functions.

Practically, I could set up my craft room today. I would need to move some stuff out of the room and set up my machine; but I could be working on a project tonight if I didn't mind turning my living room into a warehouse (the dining room is already there). The urge is great.

In the meantime, I really should send off the quilts that have languished all last year. I have no idea what happened last year. Wait, well, probably it was Crickett dying that threw me off my game; but I don't know what happened between March and June of last year. March is when I basically abandoned all crafting AND my goal to get the quilts shipped to the long-arm service. I'm giving myself a lot of grace for last year and the year before. Both were pretty horrible for me.

In the meantime, I was thinking about my double star quilt. I had planned to put it on my bed; but I'm wondering if I should hang it in my new office. This is the color going in my office:



The quilt in question:



Either wall I am considering is 96" by whatever (more than 80"). Also, I was planning to put a soft or medium grey on the other walls.

I think it works. I do love that quilt. I did when you made it and I haven't changed my mind.

Oooh I absolutely LOVE the quilt and it will look fabulous with that paint color.

>10 lesmel: I agree with Laura and Betty - that quilt would look fantastic!

Thanks for that little tutorial on spray basting. I thought it was you who did that and I was going to stop over here to ask you about it later. Maybe I'll try something small. I have a table mat I was making for myself that I could try it on. I wondered what you used to contain the overspray. I have a bunch of that kind of paper (I think).

A table mat is a good first project. You could actually place the mat on top of a large piece of paper if you have one.

The office at the moment -- basically, I'm standing in the closet with my phone as far back I can get it and still see the screen (and using the 0.5X wide angle):



The quilt on the north wall (this the wall between the two rooms):



The quilt on the south wall (this is the wall between the room and the entry hall):



The north and south wall are the same size. The photos make the room look like a trapezoid. I thought the quilt is 80 x 80; but it might be 81 or 82. The north wall is 84" from corner to edge of door.

I have not decided at all how the desks (yes, two) will be placed in the room. I'm thinking they will face each other. One is a standing/walking desk. One is a sitting desk. If I place them facing each other, I can use a dual-monitor arm that I can swivel from desk to desk.

I'll know more once I get the room cleared and painted.

This is the paint chips in the daylight:



The grey is something Sherwin-Williams paired with the lime already. And for the life of me I can't find the page on the SW site. I'll have to find it later. The other color they paired with the two is something called "Feverish Pink" which is lovely and I can't use because I don't have pink in my double star quilt.

Painting update: https://www.librarything.com/topic/334015#8416327

Third coat's up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/334015#8417936
On to the guest room where there is a small mountain of wall surface area to paint!

I hate painting! You're doing a great job.

Great job on the painting!!

Isn't it fun!! I really enjoyed your moving and decorating posts.

I have reasonably crazy colors in our house. It makes me happy.

We'll look forward to seeing the final room!

Absolutely adore that quilt and your paint choices! My bedroom is bright orange and it was the best decision. Just automatically makes me feel a little more cheerful.

The design wall is done! https://www.librarything.com/topic/334015#8430855

I need to send the quilt off. I need flooring.

>25 lesmel: Wow! That green is bright!

Well done for finishing the painting of the room. I have a love-hate relationship with that. I love to get started but hate finishing.

Woohoo! Did a service project for work that was no-sew blankets for Project Linus. There were 11 of us. We made 12 blankets. It was a lot of fun. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I would love to do this sort of thing at a Joann location where everyone could choose their blanket, make the blanket, and donate the blanket all in one day.