Day two of the New Year. Day two of my new studio!
I spent yesterday evening unpacking my main quilting fabric (prints and batiks) and putting it into the microscope cabinet. It has 30 cubbyholes. I had packed away two cubbyholes of fabric into each small size U-Haul boxes (which I numbered so I would know where to put them back), so it was a simple matter of filling the cabinet back up. In a very short time I had 15 boxes unpacked and that cabinet was filled! All on Day 1!!!
On Day 2, I was gone all day helping my mother. She is moving out of a big house into a condo. We’ve been doing lots of cleaning, and we’ve been filling up my little car multiple times every week and carrying loads over to her new home. We pretty much have her new kitchen in order, and we’ve started bringing over things from her sewing room. Yes, she has lots of fabric, too! By the time I was done today, I was pretty exhausted, but after I ate some dinner, I decided to tackle my Kona cottons.
Years ago I was learning about working with value, and I decided organize my Kona cottons by value to see if it would help me work differently. I liked it so much, that I decided to keep it that way. But now, my Kona cottons were very disorganized! Long story, but I had planned to attend another Nancy Crow workshop in October 2015. I had started packing up the fabric I was going to bring, which meant I had removed at least a third of the Kona cottons and packed them in plastic bins to take with me. Two days before I was going to leave for the workshop, my sweet hubby passed away. Naturally, I did not go to the workshop, and the cottons just stayed in the bins for the last three years. So, last night I took the time to sort out the Kona cottons again by value.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. It wasn’t that hard. The first time I did it, I took the time to write the value number on a corner of each piece of fabric and most of the fabrics were pretty much stacked together by value. So today it was just a matter putting the stuff from the bins back where they belong with the stuff from the shelves. Plus, my cat “helped” by keeping me company, mostly by laying on the next box I wanted to unpack (see him laying on that box?) and, occasionally, by laying on various stacks of fabric.
Here’s what it looks like when I convert the photo of the Kona cottons into grayscale. I see a few pieces that could be moved to the lighter shelf above or the darker shelf below, but I probably won’t bother. It’s close enough, as far as I’m concerned. It’s beautiful enough to admire like it is, but I look forward to messing it up and make something.
I also got the drawers in the library card catalogs filled. Again, it was easy because I put stuff from each drawer in a ziplock bag and numbered them. Then it was as simple as putting the stuff from the bag into the drawer. I love the easy stuff!
The best part of the night was my 2-year-old granddaughter kept running in to admire all the pretty colors. Then she’d pick out a color that caught her fancy and I would unfold it and put it over her shoulders like a cape, and away she went, running through the house! Sorry I don’t have a picture of that to share with you, too!
Both granddaughters have enjoyed seeing me unpack my fabric. I think I’m going to have to make some kids quilts in the very near future.