This week, we’ve been on vacation. It. Was. Amazing. I only wished we’d planned more time at Padre Island National Seashore.

 

I had hoped to get more quilting done, but alas, that was not to be. We spent a few days at the beach, and we’ve done a lot of relaxing. One day was more or less dedicated to my daughter’s birthday. But the last couple of days I’ve been working to get my studio cleaned up and organized a bit better. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but a couple of months ago, I decided to my move studio from the ground floor where it occupied the formal living and dining space to a small bedroom upstairs. I know, I know, it’s sheer madness to give up a large space to move in to a smaller space, but I had my reasons. Mostly, the reasons are a five year old and one year old. My studio space called to them like a siren calls to a sailor. I had to move it to a less accessible spot in the house. Sadly, the only available spot is a small bedroom.

I had considered using the small bedroom for our room, because the master in this house is probably the second largest space. Only the den and breakfast area is larger, and frankly, not by much, because the master sits directly above the den and breakfast. And it takes up the entire back of the house upstairs. I changed my mind, though, and decided to use the smaller bedroom for the studio, and utilized unused space the master bedroom for storage. It has not been easy to come up with a plan to make it work. The pain was exacerbated when I started working from home in March thanks to COVID-19. I needed a quiet space where I could work without noise, so ultimately, I set up a corner in the already too small studio as an office space.

Sigh.

As you can imagine, the biggest issue with a small space is storage, which is why utilizing the master bedroom became so important. Also, there is not a ton of storage space in this house, so this week I rented a storage unit near the house. My plan is to use it for things like Christmas decorations and things that I have but I’m not ready to get rid of – like my grandmother’s end table.

Yesterday, Chris and I moved some stuff downstairs, and other stuff upstairs, in an attempt to make the storage in the master more workable. Now I know a lot of people like to have a master that’s “calm and relaxing,” and I’d like that, too. Sadly, our current situation doesn’t really allow for that, unless we go ahead and move the master bedroom to the smaller room. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility, and my husband was willing to do it, but I made the decision that it would be ridiculous for us to move all the furniture around. Fortunately for me, I have a very supportive spouse, so he’s ok with my use of the master as studio overflow. In fact, he’s the one that suggested it, and it was his idea to move more of my storage items in the master so it would free up some of the space in the smaller studio space. He’s a keeper, for sure.

We still have a ton of work to do. For example, we went to IKEA this week and purchased a Kallax unit for me to utilize as an ironing station. We need to get it put together, but I have high hopes for it. Also, I’m reorganizing fabric and other sewing items to store them more efficiently. This isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds, particularly when I’ve already invested a small fortune in various storage items and I would really prefer not to spend even more money on more stuff.

I’ve been burning up Pinterest looking for ideas on how to use what I already have, and I have come across a few ideas on how to store things like fat quarters. I will be trying those out this weekend, I think, because if there’s one area where I really need some help, it’s in fat quarter storage. I am addicted to fat quarters. I also have a lot of fat quarters that I purchased from an estate sale that had pieces cut out of them for applique, so I need to address all of that as well.

But that’s not all I’ve been doing. I did do a little free motion quilting practice.

It’s not great, but I won’t improve if I don’t practice. I’m thinking I will try FMQ Prairie Life. That will be LOTS of practice!

And I repaired my grandson’s stuffed animals he brought me like two years ago. It took no more than 15 minutes and I feel horrible that it took so long.

Today, I plan to spend most of the day in my studio, and toward that end, I must sign off for now. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!