If you have been following me for a while, you must have realized I haven't been posting much on the blog lately.
That's the reason I jumped and said yes when Cheryl announced the blog hop, I absolutely jumped onto the train!
That will give me a reason to clean my studio, I thought!!! I had ignored my studio ever since i came back from Quiltcon. Other things had taken priority and needed my immediate attention. As a result I could not find ANYTHING that I needed and the studio had become an unbearable mess.
For those who are new to my blog, I had got my dream studio three years back! It was absolutely breathtaking!!!
It had a lot of things that were custom made for my studio!
And lots of flat surfaces.
But lately there was a problem. The crack in my studio wall that inspired this quilt grew wider. And soon the windows wouldn't close properly and closing and locking the main door became a task that was more and more impossible to do everyday!
The roof was also leaking. Renovation was inevitable. So I decided to move into a smaller cottage while the studio was renovated.
My plan, use an adjoining room to temporarily hold stuff that I could do without for a while and only move things that I needed for the next 3 months.
Ha! ha!
Apparently, the expenses for the renovations are out of my budget for the moment! So it was either continue working in a leaking studio where I needed a handyman to just open and then close and lock the door every night or moving into the smaller cottage kind of semi-permanently.
I chose the later option. (Like I really had a choice there!)
I had two of our regular handymen to move all the stuff into the new space. After they finished tearing down a partition that was in the middle of the room, they only had one extra day to help me. So I got them to move ALL my stuff into the tiny new studio!
Wanna look what it looked like at that stage?
This still was after I had cleared most of my fabric and put it into my new plastic bins.
At the end of Day 1 it looked like I would finally have some sanity!
But it was far from finished! I stopped working when I could walk no more!
The second day was easier! And by the evening my studio was almost done!
This was sometime mid-day!!!
The process of downsizing was downright agonizing! But I finally managed to fit my 500 sq ft studio into a meager 250 sq ft.
I gave away 8 BIG plastic bags worth of stuff!!!
Wanna see my new space???
Clear surfaces!!! Quilts on the wall!!! Yay! I'm sure a happy girl!!!
My mini quilts on the design wall along with an Aurifil shade card. Thats because the cupboard under it holds all my Aurifil thread in clear plastic boxes!
My yardage sits in the metal cupboards while anything less than a yard sits in these plastic boxes under my cutting table.
The space where I keep Ross. The design wall in front of my worktable is covered with wonderful quilts I have received in swaps over the years!
These quilts remind me of the awesomeness I have experienced in the quilting community!
My sewing table and cutting table are side by side so that I can use the larger surfaces when I am quilting a larger quilt.
By the door hangs a quilt made by Sonalee - I loved this quilt the moment I laid my eyes on it and actually bought it from her! The sunflower had me mesmerized!!!
After all that hard work, I just sat back and had a cup of steaming hot tea!!! See that lovely coasted under the cup? I won it in a giveaway from my mentor Kathleen Probst! And she sent it to me via a friend at QuiltCon!!!
I love my new studio. I need to get a lot of things done here including some basic electrification as well as painting. The electrician will be here on Monday, but everything else will wait till after Diwali. I want to use the space for some time before I decide how I want to organize it.
To end with here are my tips if you ever need to downsize your studio.
First, put everything you have in ONE ROOM. Cover any and every flat surface that you have. Take a garbage bag and start filling it. Toss in all trash. Anything broken beyond repair gets tossed in. Anything that is 'yuck' gets tossed in. Fill as many bags as you have to. Get those bags out of the room.
Now take another bag. This will be the donate bag. Toss in anything that you have forgotten you had! Toss in anything you don't like. Toss in anything you haven't used in about 18 months! Toss in anything that you think is 'meh'. If you spend more than 30 seconds thinking whether you want to keep something, toss it in! Don't overthink. Be ruthless!!! Someone is going to be very happy to get all this stuff! Fill as many bags as you need to. Before you change your mind, put the bags in your car. Or better still, after you finish working on the studio, invite fellow quilters and ask them to pick whatever they want from those bags and go home! Make it a studio-warming party!
Now take a hard look at what you have left over. Group items together eg. Bag making supplies, cutting tools, finished goods, batting, fabric, etc. Assign spaces to groups. And then start putting away stuff. Keep one trash bag and one donate bag handy. When you put stuff away, you might be inspired to get rid of some stuff. Go ahead and follow your instinct.
After you have put everything in place! Clean! Vacuum and mop. Spray some air freshener or light your favorite scented candle.
Now its time to DECORATE. Use your imagination and resources to deck up your space. Your space needs to be functional but it also needs to inspire you. You have to want to get out of bed and rush there, especially after downsizing. Downsizing is hard. It has such a negative feeling to it. So when you beautify your space it inspires you to be positive. Make the space your own.
Do you like my new space?
Its not as glamorous as my old one, but I know I am going to love it.
Want to see what other bloggers are up to in the blog hop?
Here's the complete list
That's the reason I jumped and said yes when Cheryl announced the blog hop, I absolutely jumped onto the train!
That will give me a reason to clean my studio, I thought!!! I had ignored my studio ever since i came back from Quiltcon. Other things had taken priority and needed my immediate attention. As a result I could not find ANYTHING that I needed and the studio had become an unbearable mess.
For those who are new to my blog, I had got my dream studio three years back! It was absolutely breathtaking!!!
I totally adored my cottage studio!!!
It was large and spacious...
It had a lot of things that were custom made for my studio!
And lots of flat surfaces.
But lately there was a problem. The crack in my studio wall that inspired this quilt grew wider. And soon the windows wouldn't close properly and closing and locking the main door became a task that was more and more impossible to do everyday!
The roof was also leaking. Renovation was inevitable. So I decided to move into a smaller cottage while the studio was renovated.
My plan, use an adjoining room to temporarily hold stuff that I could do without for a while and only move things that I needed for the next 3 months.
Ha! ha!
Apparently, the expenses for the renovations are out of my budget for the moment! So it was either continue working in a leaking studio where I needed a handyman to just open and then close and lock the door every night or moving into the smaller cottage kind of semi-permanently.
I chose the later option. (Like I really had a choice there!)
I had two of our regular handymen to move all the stuff into the new space. After they finished tearing down a partition that was in the middle of the room, they only had one extra day to help me. So I got them to move ALL my stuff into the tiny new studio!
Wanna look what it looked like at that stage?
This still was after I had cleared most of my fabric and put it into my new plastic bins.
At the end of Day 1 it looked like I would finally have some sanity!
But it was far from finished! I stopped working when I could walk no more!
The second day was easier! And by the evening my studio was almost done!
This was sometime mid-day!!!
The process of downsizing was downright agonizing! But I finally managed to fit my 500 sq ft studio into a meager 250 sq ft.
I gave away 8 BIG plastic bags worth of stuff!!!
Wanna see my new space???
Clear surfaces!!! Quilts on the wall!!! Yay! I'm sure a happy girl!!!
My mini quilts on the design wall along with an Aurifil shade card. Thats because the cupboard under it holds all my Aurifil thread in clear plastic boxes!
My yardage sits in the metal cupboards while anything less than a yard sits in these plastic boxes under my cutting table.
These quilts remind me of the awesomeness I have experienced in the quilting community!
My sewing table and cutting table are side by side so that I can use the larger surfaces when I am quilting a larger quilt.
By the door hangs a quilt made by Sonalee - I loved this quilt the moment I laid my eyes on it and actually bought it from her! The sunflower had me mesmerized!!!
To end with here are my tips if you ever need to downsize your studio.
First, put everything you have in ONE ROOM. Cover any and every flat surface that you have. Take a garbage bag and start filling it. Toss in all trash. Anything broken beyond repair gets tossed in. Anything that is 'yuck' gets tossed in. Fill as many bags as you have to. Get those bags out of the room.
Now take another bag. This will be the donate bag. Toss in anything that you have forgotten you had! Toss in anything you don't like. Toss in anything you haven't used in about 18 months! Toss in anything that you think is 'meh'. If you spend more than 30 seconds thinking whether you want to keep something, toss it in! Don't overthink. Be ruthless!!! Someone is going to be very happy to get all this stuff! Fill as many bags as you need to. Before you change your mind, put the bags in your car. Or better still, after you finish working on the studio, invite fellow quilters and ask them to pick whatever they want from those bags and go home! Make it a studio-warming party!
Now take a hard look at what you have left over. Group items together eg. Bag making supplies, cutting tools, finished goods, batting, fabric, etc. Assign spaces to groups. And then start putting away stuff. Keep one trash bag and one donate bag handy. When you put stuff away, you might be inspired to get rid of some stuff. Go ahead and follow your instinct.
After you have put everything in place! Clean! Vacuum and mop. Spray some air freshener or light your favorite scented candle.
Now its time to DECORATE. Use your imagination and resources to deck up your space. Your space needs to be functional but it also needs to inspire you. You have to want to get out of bed and rush there, especially after downsizing. Downsizing is hard. It has such a negative feeling to it. So when you beautify your space it inspires you to be positive. Make the space your own.
Do you like my new space?
Its not as glamorous as my old one, but I know I am going to love it.
Want to see what other bloggers are up to in the blog hop?
May 1 – Teri Lucas – www.terificreations.com
May 2 – Tammy Silvers – www.tamarinis.typepad.com
May 3 – Emily Breclaw – www.thecaffeinatedquilter.com
May 4 – Amalia Morusiewicz – www.FUNfromAtoZ.com
May 5 – John Kubiniec – www.bigrigquilting.com/blog/
May 6 – Debby Brown – www.higheredhands.blogspot.com
May 7 – Melissa Marie Collins – www.melissamariecollins.blogspot.com
May 8 – Delve MIY – www.fronddesignstudios.wordpress.com
May 9 – Misty Cole – www.mistycole.com
May 10 – Sam Hunter – www.huntersdesignstudio.com/blog
May 11 – Dale Ashera-Davis – www.dalead.wordpress.com
May 12 – Sara Mika – www.mockpiestudio.blogspot.com
May 13 – Sarah Trumpp – www.Wonderstrumpet.com
May 14 – Carma Halterman – www.beanstrings.blogspot.com
May 15 – Jessica Darling – www.jessicakdarling.com
May 16 – Lisa Chin – www.lisachinartist.com
May 17 – Sally Johnson – www.sallysquiltingcorner.blogspot.com
May 18 – Mandy Leins – www.mandalei.com/blog
May 19 – Shruti Dandekar – www.13woodhouseroad.com
May 20 – Jane Davila – www.janedavila.com
May 21 – Ebony Love – www.lovebugstudios.com
May 22 – Cheryl Sleboda – blog.muppin.com
Cheers!!!
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