Accomplishment! Design Wall Monday!

This is my Design Wall Monday Report.  Since I am engaged in CLEANING UP I thought I would show you what I am doing.  I have several posts this week about the whole deal, so come back and see what I can accomplish!

Even though you didn't tell me you were astonished at what I was ACTUALLY going to do, I totally feel like I accomplished a lot.  Wait till you see the before and after shots!  Prepare to be AMAZED!  If you want to read the story of the bookcase my dad built, go here.

Of course I have to do before shots for you to ogle.  It really is a mess, but there is no place to put any of this stuff.  I started by moving the pieces of stuff, I don't dare call it JUNK, to clear out a space for the bookcase to go.  It slid easily in place and is not going to interfere with the fan, thank goodness.  All puffed up in his best OSHA voice, he says, "WE need to make sure it doesn't cause undue damage to the fan before any of this can happen."  Yeah, right, power to the man!

Here is my poor ironing board laden with my extraneous stuff.  Remember, not junk.





After about 3 hours of work, I came to this place.  Did I throw away a lot?  Did I put any in a pile to give away ...........only tossed one paper bag and three huge Hobby Lobby bags I kept for some unknown reason.

 I guess that puts me squarely in the category of Ultra Pack Rat.  I accept that designation.  UPR Proud!



Here is the bookcase in place.  Or most likely  very close to where it will live.  I want it closer to the other bookcase to form an L.  Like a nice quiet library.

Now I will work to fill it.  I warn you, when you see the next picture, it will be of my stuff put on the shelves in no apparant order.  That will come in later bursts of energy.

 Here is the bookcase filled with my precious stuff.  There are many things there that represent the entirety of quilting.  From just plain ideas, to fabrics, to cut out fabrics ready to be put together, to blocks ready to be assembled to tops, to tops, to things that just need to be quilted.

Keep in mind that I still have to go through and organize those shelves yet.  I think I want to get the same size containers and organize like that. the small drawer unit between the bookcase and the window is a series of drawers.  I can clean the useless office supplies out and put in my sewing notions and small stuff.  It is not really sturdy but it will hold a lot of small things in a small space

Before

After

 Here is the far shot of that part of the room, I can put a Before next to it, wait a second.......well, this is how ie worked out to be.

I really feel open and  cleaner.  I did sweep and debated about how much of the tiniest scraps to toss.  Yes, really.  You never know when you are going to need those splinters of fabric.  What if they stopped making fabric and you needed a quilt?

Stash Report - You Are Going To Be Entertained!

Have I got a treat for you!

I didn't get much done, in fact I don't think I got ANYTHING done this week.  It was a wild week with Frank spending a week in the Houston Airport one night.  (Think about that one for a minute.)

But I have great news.  You know how I have to clean up my quilt room, DESPERATELY   Well I took a step in that direction on Saturday.  But first let me tell you a story.

When Frank and I got married 40 years ago, we were really poor.  Like $400 to our name poor.  And we moved into an apartment in Baton Rouge for him to finish college at LSU.  And we had no furniture.  My friend had made a sofa.  I sure wish I had pictures of it.  It looked sort of like a huge bean bag.  And it was the most comfortable thing ever.  Her husband bent over to pick up the newspaper one day and threw his back out.  No more low-on-the-ground sofa for them!  So we got it.  After we were able to afford a real sofa, my cousin got it.  And she used it until she got married when she turned 40.  It was certainly a comfortable and well loved thing.  

My dad was a fairly good woodworker and he offered to make us three bookcases.  They would give us our 3rd, 4th and 5th pieces of furniture ever.  After he graduated and enlisted in the Air Force we moved those bookcases from Baton Rouge, to San Antonio, to Wichita Falls, to Abilene and back to Kenner, LA (a suburb of New Orleans where we grew up).  When we bought the house in Hammond, north of us, there was no place for the bookcases and Frank's mother took them in Shreveport, LA (the very farthest north of Louisiana).  And when she moved to Baton Rouge to die they went to my mother in Laplace and then to Baton Rouge when she moved to Assisted Living.  Now, with her in hospice, they live in our storage shed that holds most of the stuff that used to belong to Frank's mother (because he can't get rid of it).

So this long story has brought you to my quilt room.  I was impatiently waiting for Frank to get off my computer and I was folding up some fabrics.  I imagined being in a library with a bookcase extending into the room and holding all my stuff that is sitting in the middle of my studio floor.  It hit me that I needed a bookcase!

So we have struggled for the last two hours, putting one of those bookcases into my studio and cleaning up some of that center room area.  I think I can get a lot of stuff into that bookcase.  It is currently standing in the hallway, waiting for me to make room for it tomorrow.

My hallway? you inquire.  Carrie and I painted it when she was a wee girl of maybe 12.  I can't imagine painting over it.  She designed it, created the stencils, and chose the pattern and the paints.  She was a designer even then.  That is a commissioned watercolor of my beloved Max, my greatest dog ever.  He was my shadow, my thoughts were his.

I am excited.  My room will be cleaned.  And my dad would be very happy to know I am still in possession of his work.  He has been gone since 1989.  Not all my memories of him are happy, but this one is.

Yes.  And I still have two bookcases left!  LOL.