Quilt Ladders

I enjoy reading the Tuesday Archives over at Val's Quilting Studio

This week, it's about quilt ladders.

Since I didn't have any old posts about my quilt ladders, I decided to create a new one.

It all goes back to my quilt studio in Idaho.

After we sold the farm and moved to Ohio, this was the only thing I missed!  I really love our new home here and I set up my studio here in my cozy basement.  At least I don't have to shovel my way back and forth to the BunkHouse in the winter!

So here is a quilt ladder I had in Idaho.

It was an old orchard ladder that belonged to my husband's grandparents. The Grandmother's Flower Garden top was hand pieced by my grandmother and the Glorified 9 Patch was hand pieced by her mother, my Great-grandmother. 

Of course, I still have the tops, but I left the ladder with my quilty niece when we moved, so it's still in the family. 

We made this skinny ladder and I just hang random quilts on it in the corner of my studio to fill up this empty space.

We also made this attached wall ladder for the entrance of my Idaho studio.  I used to hang the "next up" customer quilts on it.  We brought it with us and it's the first thing I see as I go down my basement stairs.  I have my own yet-to-be-quilted tops hanging here now.

This is my favorite ladder.

 It is an old painter's ladder I bought from an antique mall just down the road.

I have it in my living room to display a few of my more recent quilts.

The Beast is Tamed!

I am pretty excited to finally get my studio organized. 

I went from this... 

to this....

I have all my yard+ cottons on the upper shelf and anything under a yard, folded like a fat quarter on the lower shelf.

All of my future projects are up here in ziplock bags.

All the backings are sorted. Three stacks of flannels on the left and 3+ stacks of cottons on the right. 

I didn't want to ever unfold and refold another backing just to find out it was not big enough for a quilt top so I measured and labeled all of them.

 I found an odd assortment of orphan blocks, they are tucked in the yellow box.

  It is almost full of orphan blocks.

Flannels and homespun in a separate area.

I already had these 3 boxes of jeans precut into usable fabric from pants.  The tub under the shelf is full of denim too.  Guess I better get a denim quilt on the planning board!

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My scrap drawers under my quilting table went from this...

to this.....

 plus a drawer for kids prints...

These are all under my quilting table so I can easily pull out a drawer to sort and match with the fabrics on the shelves right behind me.

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We made this ironing table for storage.  Here, I have:

a drawer for mixed homespuns...

a drawer for mixed flannel scraps....

storage for all my minky scraps....yes I do make minky scrap quilts.

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My cutting table is my old kitchen bar from 1978.  I have cut fabric on this 39 years (back when my sewing machine was put on my kitchen table.)  In 2006, we redid our old kitchen and re-purposed this gem in my studio.  It is 70 inches long and 32 inches wide. I painted it and took out 3 useless shelves and installed 11 easily removable drawers.  

We added a 72 inch tape measure to the front edge and it makes measuring yardage a snap.

I usually have at least 2 quilts I am working on, so the larger drawers are handy for keeping a project all together.

The great thing about all these drawers is that I can take them out and move them to the ironing board, the sewing table or where ever I need them.

Now that I am organized, it will be super easy to keep it this way, I am very excited and what a great way to spend a few rainy days.

Keeps me humble...

I was sitting here this morning in my sewing room and looking at the cover on my serger.....

This was the very first practice piece I ever did when I got my APQS Millennium quilting machine.  I used an old black sheet and quilted it with a spool of Signature Rainbows thread.

Quilted Feb. 2008

My girlfriend, who is also a quilter, told me to save it and I could look back one day and see my improvement.   About a year later, I cut it up and made covers for all my machines. 

Every time I walk in the studio, I see this original work and know how hard and long I have practiced to master these feathers.

 I also have this practice piece hanging in my studio to remind how far I have come.

Quilted January, 2014

Work in Progress

I have a few WIPs going on:

1) As you can see, the Crown Royal quilt is still in the infant stage (lots more completed blocks in a box).

2) Some 9 patch blocks that will be part of a fun little baby quilt (blog to come this week).

3) Finished wall hanging that I will blog about April 1

4) Um....can't remember what that star is for....I think it might just be a decoration.

Here are a few of the "up next" April customer quilts queued on this ladder.  Don't worry, I have all the intake sheets pinned to the other side of the quilt so I know who's is who's.  I often get my inspiration for a certain quilt as I walk by each day and look at all these wonderful tops!

I like to have a quilt on the frame and one that I am piecing.  This way, if I get tired of one I can switch. 

I can also say that I LOVE having my studio in my basement so I can head down anytime of day or night to work on a project. 

Door to studio in Ohio

When we lived in Idaho, my studio was in a separate building (which I absolutely loved)  I just didn't love shoveling my way back and forth all winter to get there.  I had a curfew too--couldn't be out wandering around in a blizzard at 11 o'clock at night.

Door to studio in Idaho

New Design Wall

We left the design wall in the Idaho studio since it was built right on the wall.

They are easy to make and terrific to use!

This was my old 72'' x 72'' design wall in Idaho.

 Here is my new one in Ohio measuring 77" x 90"

Yep, it's floor to ceiling.  I was always wanting more room than I had on my old one.

Here's how we made it:

Install wood frame directly on the wall.  Here it's on a cement wall. 

I have to digress for a moment.  I have never seen a basement wall done like this--the cement forms were stamped to look like brick.  The previous owner had painted the entire basement and it looks great!  This room is white with silver stripes.  Interesting. Luckily, the quilting room and family room next door is done in a warmer beige.

                                       Anyway, install your frame, we just used a simple pine 1x3 boards.

We bought 2 -4x8' sheets of 1/2" house insulation and cut them to fit the frame.

It's a lovely raspberry color huh?

When you have them both cut to fit just right but not too tight, we used a high tech method to put them together: duct tape.  Used it on the first one we made and knew you can't get it off without tearing the insulation apart.  I already had my flannel yardage sewn and laid down on the floor.  More duct tape ensured a snug fit. 

It ain't pretty, but it works like a charm!

Remember rolling up tape and sticking it to itself when you were a kid to stick your artwork on Mom's fridge?  More duct tape rolled up here to keep the plastic side of the insulation "stuck" to the wall.  Yes, we could spread caulk, glue, or silicone on the wall, but who wants that under neath here some future day?

Once you have the whole flannel-covered insulation slab back in your original frame, nail a smaller board onto the frame with half of it on the frame and half covering the insulation slab. (we used a 1"x 2")  This will keep your flannel board nice and snug.  Took us about 3 hours including making a trip ALL the way across town to Lowes and JoAnns!  In Idaho that would have been a 180 mile round trip just to get supplies!  ugh..

Now, you can simply stick your blocks on the flannel, or if you need to you can stick a pin in the board.  Works wonderfully well!

As you can see, I have a few of my Hereford quilt blocks up here....more to come!

Sewing Butler

So, here I was pinning on a quilt and thinking how much I liked this little gem. It's just two 3-drawer units stacked together.  If you take the lid off of one of them, you can just click them together. Casters are on the bottom so it rolls around where I need it.

I call it my Butler.  Here's why:

I like to keep all my cleaning and sewing tools accessible and this keeps everything at a perfect height!

Since I wear bifocals, I even keep a pair of magnification glasses so I don't have to do acrobats when I need to get down under the machine to do cleaning and oiling. Those of you with bifocals, know what I'm talking about!

No, my seam ripper and tweezers are not missing, they are sitting on the quilter's handle attached to a gadget  my daughter found in a flea market-type store in Minnesota.   It's a magnetic surface on a webbing wrist band with a Velcro closure.  I never wore it on my wrist, because first time out of the box I found the perfect place for it here.

It also keeps my itty bitty screw driver that I use to adjust that pesky little screw #8 (needle up-down speed for APQS owners).  I have found this adjustment is related to ambient temperature. With cold nights-hot days in Idaho, it can never make up it's mind! 

My sister-in-law gave me this little weighted pin cushion/bag.  I use it for tread trash and cleaning rags. 

Hardly ever use it as a pincushion, as I like my little Auto Zone magnetic bowl for pins.

Drawer 2

This is full of little ~6x6 rags all made from t-shirt material. 

I fill this right when I cut t-shirts for a quilt. I stack a few trim strips and cut them into rags as I go. See, I just roll my "butler" over to my cutting table and toss my new rags into my drawer.  Everything else goes in the trash.

Drawer 3 & 4

These 2 drawers hold all the books, accessories, feet, bobbins, tools, etc for my 2 Berninas and my serger.  Again, I just roll my butler over to which ever machine I am using and I have everything at just the right height.

Drawer 5 & 6 

When I am cutting out fabrics, all the cotton scraps that are of a usable size but less than a fat quarter go into
drawer 5....flannels go into drawer 6.

When these little drawers are full of fabric scraps, I just dump them into one of my large storage containers:

Some under the ironing table.

Some under the quilting table. 

The beauty of this kind of storage, is that I can just pop out a drawer and bring it over to the cutting table for a project.  They also make great "book ends" for my packaged batting and misc. project storage on top. 

I use up a lot of scraps when I have more time to sew projects in the winter.

Looks like I still have some room here!