Necessary Repairs

Oh my gosh! It worked! I have pictures!!!

It occurred to me that Blogger may be having issues because of the brownouts in southern California. They've been suffering a heat wave and demand for power is high. Who needs to blog when people need air conditioning?! "Not I!" said the Sewing Magpie. So I put the final beads on my Tree of Life journal quilt, backed and bound it, and it's DONE. All I have to do now is get a decent picture of it for you.

In the meantime, let me show you another slice of my studio. This is the spot - literally, just a spot - where I do most of my work. My sewing machine is just to the right. The area you see here is where I do my handwork.

And what you see below is some hand work that needed to be done because of the Vicious Reilly Dog. The awful mad kitty is losing it's tail and the poor chipmunk has lost a paw. The kitty was just poorly sewn at the factory. Hopefully the repair I've done will hold. The chipmunk will forever be a gimp now though. Reilly has a thing for polyfil. Once he gets a plush toy open it's only a matter of time before it's been reduced to a mere shell of it's former self. So I figure the chipmunk got off easy.

Another thing I should get a picture of is the sign I have that says

"Creative Minds are Rarely Tidy."

Third Time Wasn't the Charm

I have been trying to post my progress of the last few days.

Blogger is not co-operating.

I will keep trying.

Maybe I'll find that magic window of time when all the forces will work for good instead of evil!

Scattergories (or, How to Avoid Doing What You Really Should Be Doing!)

So Lora at Lora's Keyhole has started a game for us. I came across it on Beading at the Beach and thought I'd play along since I'm avoiding the sewing table for some reason. The game is SCATTERGORIES. I figured I'd better jump in early as the answers using my letter could get used up in a hurry!

Here are the rules:

~ Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the questions.
~They MUST be real places, names, things ... NOTHING made up!
~ If you can't think of anything, skip it.
~ You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.
~ If your name happens to start with the same letter as mine, sorry, but you can't use my answers!

My name is Sue:
1. Famous Singer/Band: Springsteen
2. Four letter word: S**t!
3. Street: Salem Ave.
4. Color: Scarlet
5. Gifts/Presents: Skeins of yarn/thread
6. Vehicle: Saturn Ion
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Souvenirs - duh! (Oh okay, Stickers)
8. Boy Name: Sean
9. Girl Name: Shaunna
10. Movie Title: Serendipity
11. Drink: Sparkling mineral water
12. Occupation: Sales
13. Celebrity: Susan Sarandon
14. Magazine: Scenic Byways
15. U.S. City: Saugatuk, MI
16. Pro Sports Teams: Steelers
17. Fruit: Seedless watermelon
18. Reason for Being Late for Work: Stuck in traffic
19. Something You Throw Away: Soiled disposable diapers
20. Things You Shout: So long!
21. Cartoon Character: Snagglepuss

And now maybe I can settle down to sew...

Thank You, One and All!

Thanks for the suggestions for dealing with my action papers. Every last one of them is a good and workable solution. I think we even have a clear acrylic wall pocket around here somewhere that I could use (I used to use it, in fact, but had forgotten that we had it). I'm going to wait just a bit before I install anything though because I want to also raise the monitor off the surface of the desk a little and that may affect where or what I can put on the wall over the desk. There's still a pile of stuff I need to go through but I moved some books and things around the other day and the improvement is noticeable:





Once I got the most essential items dealt with I had to do something creative and fun. Remember those log cabin blocks I'd pulled out? There was another block in that pile that I didn't share with you then:



I had it off to one side on the design wall and was contemplating using it as a starting point for my August journal quilt. Do you see the little purple house in the center of the block? Earlier in the week I built a composition around it, with the house block dead center. At the time I was content with it but I didn't have time to sew it together. The more I looked at it over the course of the next few days the less happy I was with it. Finally I took the house block out of the center, moved it to another spot on my design wall, and started over. This time I moved the house to the upper right hand corner of the journal page. Then I put a leftover 'X' block in the upper left corner. In my mind it could serve as a "sun" shining down on whatever picture I was creating. Next I found a couple of those orphan log cabin blocks that featured greens. I used them in the foreground of my picture. To me they were fields of crops. Without being consciously aware of it I was creating a scene from my youth: My folks had a cottage on a lake in the middle of farmlands in western Michigan. All I lacked was the lake. Granted, mine is orange, but that's what works. ;- )




I am much happier with this composition than the first one. (I meant to get a shot of the first one to share with you but got so engrossed in creating the new version that I missed my opportunity.) I have basted the top to a piece of batting but couldn't decide right away whether I wanted to do any machine quilting on this one or not. Overnight I decided to just do handwork to quilt and embellish it. I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do with the "sun." Not as sure about the house or the fields but we'll see what develops as I work on it...

I Have A Question

This past weekend DH installed a computer in my studio on what used to be my sewing desk (before this room became my studio). This is how I was using my desk:



This is how it looks now (sort of; I have already made a few changes):



With the monitor and keyboard and speakers there's no longer room for a lot of the trinkets and stuff that I had on the desktop. I'll eventually find a place for them. My biggest challenge at this point is coming up with a new, better, system for dealing with the papers that come in. Most of them get filed or dealt with fairly quickly (There are hanging folders in the blue crate on top of the desk.). But there are always those papers that I either don't know what to do with or that will require action on my part eventually. Being a visual person, I want some way to keep them out where I can see them and be reminded of the need to act on them. But I don't have room on the desk now for a tray or basket (or the cardboard box I was using!). I'm thinking of using a clipboard that I could hang on the wall. I expect to be rearranging the books in the bookcase to the right of the desk, moving some out in favor of others. I've thought about using a bit of that shelf space for my papers requiring action but that idea doesn't "feel right." So my question is, Do you have any suggestions? How do you cope with the papers you don't want to deal with (or don't have time to deal with) right away?