Open Studio

To celebrate the completion of my new space, I had an Open Studio yesterday. The weather was perfect and I was pleased with the turnout. I rearranged the tables to allow for open space in the center of the room (love those rolling tables!), put out lots of food, and hung some work. In addition to inviting lots of fiber friends, I also invited neighbors on the street who had to suffer through the construction and look at the spot-a-pot and huge dumpster for several months. As I suspected, they were all very curious as to what we had constructed.

Everything is ready and waiting for the guests to show up. Several years ago I made a life sized doll, but she got tired of living in a dark bedroom and moved to Philadelphia. This is her new-born sister, as yet unnamed.

The doorway into the inner sanctum.

The space is all set up. Lots of food available, but everybody must have been on a diet because only a few people nibbled here and there. Cookies and fruit and veggies left over- I wonder which will get eaten first?

Everybody exclaimed about the light, and it is wonderful. It's as bright as day inside no matter what it looks like outside. 

I'm showing off my closet space, and received lots of oohs and aahs. If my calculations are correct, there is more than 600 cubic feet of storage. I had to accommodate for the sloping ceiling, so everything is arranged by height, but it is all being put to use. 

Smiles all around.

All in all, I think it was quite successful, and I'm thinking about another one in a year or so. Maybe I can recruit some other artists in the area and we can have a studio tour. 

EXPO 2013

Every other year my local quilt guild, Baltimore Heritage Quilters Guild, puts on its show. I always get involved in this, and have been in charge of hanging the show many times. I think this is the 4th time. Hanging the show involves planning where each quilt will be hung, hiring the pole and drape company, supervising the actual hanging, and also supervising the take down at the end of the show. It's easier now than the first two times I did this because we hire a company to come in an set up the poles and drapes. We used to rent a hanging system from another guild. It was made of wooden poles and used sheets as drapes. It was adequate, but looked home made. Getting it set up involved renting a truck to get the poles, getting volunteers to load and unload the truck, getting volunteers to set up the poles, getting volunteers to take down the poles, getting volunteers to reload the truck, drive to the storage facility, and unload the truck. This was a daunting task, not to mention physically challenging. We're not getting any younger. It costs to have this company come in, but when you figure the cost of renting the hanging system and renting a truck, and the huge hassle factor, it's worth every penny. And it looks very professional.

If you are in the Baltimore area the weekend of March 16-17, I hope you will take the opportunity to visit our show. There will be more than 300 quilts on display, plus multiple opportunities to spend money. We have vendors, a members' sale table, silent auction, and a room full of fabric remnants for sale at bargain prices. Hope to see you there!

I have been taken to task by several people for not updating my blog. They want studio pictures and more. So I have been guilted into updating this. It would just sound whiny if I tried to make excuses, so I won't.

It is very difficult to get back into the swing of things when you have been away from it for so long. I spent many days organizing my studio and putting stuff away, hoping that I can find it again when I need it. I just couldn't seem to get into an art mode, so I made some sock monkeys, some pillows, and some curtains. Then I decided to give myself a kick in the pants by doing some surface design. I have not done any deconstructed screen printing for a very long time, probably several years, so this was my choice. Dug out the notebook with class notes and thought it would be a good idea to review the DVD that Kerr Grabowski did.

I know I moved that DVD over to the studio and there aren't that many places that it could be. Still, it took several days of thinking and looking before I located it.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this DSP was to find out if my studio was warm enough for the dyes to batch without having to add extra heat. They need at least 4 hours of 70 degree heat, preferably hotter and longer.

I worked on the first pieces and let them batch sitting in front of a south facing window. The studio itself is only about 64 degrees, according to the heat pump control. But with direct sun in the window, that spot gets warmer. Batched them for at least a day, then washed them out and they came out as expected.

I had an idea - I could batch the fabrics in the powder room and put a little heater in there. That would jack the temperature up way above 70. Did that for the second set of fabrics. But they did not turn out as expected - all were a lot lighter than I thought they should be. 

There are a lot of factors that could have caused this. Maybe I didn't put enough dye into the print paste. Some of the fabrics were from the first session and I was over printing them, so I had to put the soda ash fixer into the print paste - maybe I didn't put enough in. Or maybe I was using print paste that had exhausted already. 

I did get some great markings and after putting my original expectations out of my mind, the fabrics all turned out great. Or mostly great, and certainly useable.

Here are pictures of the studio. All along the left is my design wall - 4 sheets of 4x8 insulation covered with fleece, 16 feet of design wall. 

I have 3 work tables. For the one in the front I took a large piece of cardboard that the table was delivered in, covered it with rug padding, then felt, then plastic. Makes a nice print surface.

All three tables are elevated and on wheels. This turned out to be a tricky project. I've used pvc pipe in the past to elevate tables, but the pipes sat right on the floor and splayed out. This wouldn't work for putting them on rollers. Turns out that the tables legs fit snugly into 1" diameter pvc pipe, and so they could be seated vertically in a support with casters on the bottom. Then we discovered that the tables were slightly different in where the legs attached and how wide apart they are, and one was slightly splayed. Each set of rollers had to be custom made. I named the tables Amy, Beth, and Carol and wrote that on both the tables and the rollers. 

Looking towards the sink area. I love having this right next to where I'm working. So much easier than my old studio. And much brighter.

And now to a Before and After set of pictures. The Before pictures are from a Blog Post from June 27, 2005. I had just come home from QSDS and did a major clean out and reorganization of my basement studio.  See the pictures here.

This is what it looks like now - new paint job, new carpet, furniture. All of the grandkids toys have been moved down here and also the tv. This is the new play area. Still looks a little spartan, but there is lots of space for doing acrobatics.

And have you ever seen such a clean and un-cluttered basement? All my wet studio stuff was back here, plus lots of power tools, and a fair amount of junk. A ton of stuff went to the studio, another ton of stuff went to the garage, and two tons of stuff went to the dump. With new walls, a newly painted floor (that you can actually see), and lots of light, it could be an operating room. 

Let's see how long it stays that way.

What I Found

In all the cleaning out and moving, I found lots of old stuff that I had forgotten about. In particular, many old quilts. Some of them weren't worth saving, so they are gone now. But then I came across a piece that I made when I turned 50. As I remember, it was a pretty traumatic event. Now, as I am about to turn 65, I would much rather be turning 50 instead. This piece is titled Oh No! 50! A little bit of editing with paint and now it more accurately reflects the times.

The signature required an amendment also.

This makes me wonder where I will be and what will I be doing in 15 more years. Sort of a scary thought.

Quilt Storage

After more than 2 decades of making quilts, I have amassed quite a closet gallery. Actually, it outgrew the closet many years ago and expanded into a former bedroom that also happened to be my photography room. Occasionally it served as a guest room, but there was always the hazard of pins that had fallen into the carpet. Now, with my new studio, my goal was to consolidate all my quilts into one of the storage areas under the eaves. I thought about a storage system for a long time and finally came up with the idea of making rolling racks that would slide in and out of the closet area. The challenge was to make sure that the rack would fit through the elf door. And it also had to accommodate the sloping ceiling. I needed to make two racks: one to hold quilts narrower than 4 feet, and one for the wider quilts. I store my quilts rolled onto pipe insulation and inside a custom made bag. The majority of quilts are in the less than 4 feet wide category, so this needed to be the larger rack. Larger in the sense that it had more shelves.

So here it is - 4 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high. Masonite boards cut to fit make the base of each shelf. Each shelf has 3 cross bars, which you can sort of see where the T-joints are.

Here it is loaded up with quilts. See how nicely it fits through the door? From the masonite that was left over, my husband cut 6" tall pieces. These help prevent the quilts from rolling off the edges.

The other rack is 6' long and also has 3 cross bars on each shelf, but it only has 2 shelves. It's narrower and lower because it has to fit in the closet where the ceiling is lower to the floor. The shelves on this longer one sag a bit. I couldn't figure out how to make a truss to support the pvc. 

I should make some sort of chart where I can note the location of each quilt. All the bags are labeled with the title of the quilt, but rifling through all those bag ends is tedious. But really, I need a chart that tells me where I've put everything in the studio. I tried to be logical and store things according to how often I use them and also put them close to similar items, but I'm still opening and closing lots of drawers and boxes. Eventually I will remember where everything is. I hope.

Moving In

It's been a busy few weeks, what with Christmas preparations and celebrations, and moving my studio. I've been working on the moving for at least two weeks and it's nearly complete. I haven't moved my quilts over yet because the storage racks have yet to be built, but that will happen real soon now. Most everything else has made the trip, and I have the sore knees to prove it.  Six steps up from the basement, out the back door, in the studio door, and up 15 steps, carrying boxes and stuff. Wow, do I have a lot of stuff.

These cabinets are for the wet studio area. I filled them up with paints, dyes, brushes, measuring cups, chemicals, syringes. I thought I would have enough room to also store all the stamps and other marking tools in these cabinets also, but that was a delusion. That stuff filled up two rolling metal basket carts.

Inside the larger closet. The builders left the roll ends of tyvek, and I used it to cover part of the walls. There was heavy aluminum foil covering the insulation and the tyvek will prevent me accidentally punching a hole in that when moving stuff around. Notice the nice shelves at the far end, courtesy of my dear husband. Behind the rolling carts are boxes with seldom used stuff. I need to make a map of where I've stashed things because I've already spent time trying to find stuff because I can't remember where I put it.

The view from the top of the stairs.

Same view, but now the work tables and sewing table are in place. I've ordered one more table.

The fabric stash.

Home Depot (where we have spent a lot of time and money lately) has these plastic shelves that are quite inexpensive, very easy to assemble, easy to move around (while not holding anything), and will hold a remarkable amount of stuff. They come in various sizes. There is a white one tucked into the corner in the previous picture, and then I also bought this one. This is going to be the spot where I dump stuff. Previously the only place I could do that was on my work surface, and it rapidly became so cluttered I was always moving stuff around  to open up enough area to work. Now there is a dedicated space.

I covered four 4x8 insulation boards with white fleece and put them on the long wall. This is a huge amount of design wall space and right now it's giving me artist block. I need to put something on it. Yesterday I made curtains for the windows that face the street, as I was feeling rather exposed up there. And I have to figure out the  "work flow" - where to put the things I use so that they are close to where I use them. In the basement studio, everything was very close at hand since the space was pretty confined. Now, everything is more spread out and I don't want to spend too much time and too many steps to find my rulers and rotary cutters. It's a very nice problem to have.

Almost there

The end is in sight (just in time for the end of the world...). Needs the bathroom fixtures and my work sink and cabinets. The plumbing needs to be hooked up. But it's really looking good and I'm really eager to get moving in.

The floor is linoleum. A real wood floor would be lovely, but I do not want to have to be careful with the paints and the dyes. My current studio has a rug and it has been highly decorated with spilled paints and hidden pins. 

The view on October 25.

From the same spot today. The earlier view is from before we decided to add the powder room. I regret loosing the space, but in the long run, having the facilities close by is a better choice. There will be a chair and  end table and such comfy stuff in the yellow alcove. It will be a nice place to sit and contemplate my good fortune.

And looking back towards the stairwell. That very long wall on the right measures 18 feet and I'm going to cover 4 4x8 sheets of insulation with white fleece and it will become the design wall.  We're really getting down to the nitty gritty stuff at the end of the project. I have so much stuff located in so many places around the house that it's going to take a massive effort to relocate everything into the studio. I sure hope there is room for everything.

Heat and Doors

Things are really starting to move along quickly now. A few big things and a bunch of details. It's the details at the end that usually get us. The projects we do ourselves get to the 99% complete stage in a reasonable amount of time. It's that last 1% that can take months, nay years to get done. But when you've hired a contractor to do the work, he has a very strong incentive to finish it 100%: the final payment.

The steps up to the patio are finished and the brickwork is beautiful. I guess when you've been doing something for 30 years, you get really good at it. There is going to be a wrought iron railing up the right hand side. Apparently the building codes require it - a safety feature so someone doesn't fall off the edge.

This is the heat pump. I've heard positive and negative things about heat pumps so I was so-so on this. But the other option would have been to install a regular furnace. The carpenter who is working in the studio cutting trim and doors has it set at 60 degrees, but it felt a lot warmer than that. There is a ton of insulation, double the required amount in the floor, so I think it's going to be toasty. In the studio there is a unit that blows the air around; it's located up near the ceiling. It's so quiet I had to stand directly beneath it to hear the fan running. I wouldn't have liked a noisy fan.

The powder room now has a door.

One of the elf doors going into the eaves area. 

This is the garage side of the stairwell. That door leads into the area where there will be a hot water heater and another heater to keep the area warm.

Classy brick steps coming from the walkway into the garage.

Painting on Monday, garage doors on Tuesday or Wednesday, flooring after that. Finish up the electrical work and plumbing, install the powder room fixtures and my work sink and cabinetry, lay a new front walkway and put in a new driveway. Bank balance, zero.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, a day late. Although at this house, it's a day early as I do the big cook on Saturday. Have to work around other peoples' families' plans. Here are a bunch of pictures. The siding is almost completely up and the brickwork is moving along nicely. The spackle guys are beholden to the humidity and have to wait for each layer of spackle to dry before sanding it. There are fans blowing full blast in the studio to help the process along.

Door to the studio, notice the beautiful step.

These are the steps from the walkway up to the patio. They weren't part of the original plan but the drainage issue forced quite a few alterations and this is one of them.

We paid extra for these fancy garage doors.

This is the covered walkway from the house. It's going to make a very nice little sitting area.

The interior of the garage. Another change resulting from the drainage issue: those two windows in the back had to be shortened because the grade is coming up a lot higher.

The stairway up to the studio.

At the top of the stairs, looking into the studio. The half wall on the right goes to a full wall and my work sink and cabinetry will be located along this wall. The doorway on the right goes into the powder room. The short doorway goes into the eaves storage area.

Looking into one of the storage areas. It's not totally obvious, but at the far end we were able to extend the available area into the space above the stairwell. So that's about 16 square feet of extra storage. Can never have too much storage space.

This is the other storage space. I'm working on a plan to build moveable racks for quilt storage. Have to think in 3 dimensions in order to allow for the sloping ceiling. 

What's left: finish the siding and trim, finish the brickwork, paint, install the flooring, install the powder room fixtures, install the work sink and cabinetry, install the fixtures and lights, install the garage doors, install the HVAC system, rip up the driveway and make a new one, rip up the walkway to the front door and lay a new one, finish fixing the window in the master bedroom that had to be adjusted to compensate for the drainage issue. I'm sure there are lots of other things on that list, but this is what comes to mind immediately.