Sewing Room / Quilt Room Progress

When last we left our heroine, she was building cabinets for her sewing room. Well, there has been a great deal of progress on the sewing room since then, and it's just about done. Mom says if the room was five feet longer and three feet wider, it would be perfect, as she'd have all her stuff in one place. For now, her long quilt frame is on the porch, along with a few boxes of fabric, and will probably stay there as "a summer sewing room." There are a few more boxes in the basement as well. But she's essentially crammed a houseful of sewing and craft projects into one room--an incredible accomplishment! I told her I believed it would happen, but didn't really think for a moment that everything would fit.

It's all about the cabinets. For years, Mom has dreamed of a sewing room built from scratch. Before, it was a hodge podge of hand me down furniture. Now she has all of her fabric stored in three large cabinets purchased at Lowe's with one of those great "Welcome to the Neighborhood" coupons.

Here they are:

They're so big it takes two photos to capture it all! They are lined up on the south wall. On the west wall, just below the window, is her sewing machine. The window looks out to the corner crossroads, so there's always something to look at. She plans to build shelves above the radiator. That cute little hand print hanging by the window was done by my brother, when he was about five.

On the north wall is a long table; at present, it's covered in those loose odds and ends that need to get tucked away somewhere. She may put shelves on this wall as well.

The east wall (not shown) has a closet (filled with more boxes) and a "quilt wall," a large felt square that Mom uses to lay out quilt pieces to get a sense of what they'll look like before she stitches them all up. I'll have to update this post with a photo of that, too.

My favorite part of her sewing room is the cabinets filled with fabric. Do you want to see them up close? I love going into her sewing room every now and then for a bit of color therapy--just to open the cabinets and stare at all the pretty colors. She spent days folding all the fabrics and sorting them into a pretty rainbow.

There's a shelf with nothing but green fabrics:

Another with red fabrics:

Half a cabinet devoted to African prints, Egyptian prints, and Batik fabrics:

There are shelves devoted entirely to pinks, to yellows, to oranges, to browns, and to creams--lots and lots of creams and beiges to contrast with all the bright colors.

And then there are the blues. Oh my! How I love these blues. Go ahead. Click on the picture to zoom in for an up-close-and-personal look:

Although if you get too close and stroke the fabrics a little too vigorously, you might accidentally knock down one of the shelves (cheap Lowe's shelf pegs) and get banished from the sewing room for the rest of the evening:

But if you apologize nicely, she'll probably let you come back in.

Here she is at her small quilt frame, which she can drag out to the middle of the room when she needs to use it. She is currently working on several lap quilts that will be given to wounded soldiers getting treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) down in Texas. She has made and donated a number of these already. (I feel very guilty and a little selfish that I ever grumbled at her for not finishing a quilt planned for me--which I have now, it's gorgeous--when she spends her free time on something worthy like this.)

Look at that "smile." I think she's just humoring me and my camera.

For an article about how senior groups across the country are helping soldiers and their families, go to: Seniors Helping Ease Burdens. There's a bit about the quilt groups. I also found a photostream with images of some quilts collected for families of soldiers at BAMC. You can also go to Quilts for Soldiers.