Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Doodads and Organization

Since I finished my last big project I've been side tracked making a mini messenger bag for my sister, which was such fun, that, of course, I have to make another so that I can include all the things I thought of doing better the next time.

So a little shopping for bag hardware and parts was in order. I tried the selection at my local Michael's. I was not impressed, even though I did manage to find some handles for a knitted bag I had finished and some interesting buttons and some zippers to experiment with.

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I'm getting to feel more and more that it is better to let my fingers do the shopping on my computer because I can locate exactly what I'm looking for in the right sizes without spending a lot of time and gas (all types of shopping is 30 to 45 minutes away from where I live) looking all over, only to not find what I'm looking for.

Maybe it would be different if I lived in a metropolitan area, but as I don't, I thank the internet and UPS!

With my collection of doodads and embellishments growing, it was finally time to do a little organization. I had purchased a wooden tower of drawers and so I started to add the drawer dividers to organize my embellishment threads.

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The dividers are heavy watercolor board cut to size and then taped in the drawer. Simple but effective.

It actually took me so long to start this organizing because I had it in mind to find some organizing trays to buy, but was having trouble finding some that were the right size. I'm now glad that I didn't find what I was looking for because the using the watercolor board, which I had already, was a whole lot cheaper and more flexible as to how wide a spot I make for whatever I what to put in the drawer. You probably don't need to use watercolor board. Any stiff cardboard or poster board would work.

Saturday, April 07, 2012

New Movable Design Wall

I finally put together a moveable design wall using a method that I first heard about from Pamela Allen, a fabulously imaginative artist from Canada.

The basic materials are:

  • clothing rack on wheels
  • Two 4' x 6' 1-inch thick insulation board
  • duct tape
  • a white sheet
  • pins


  • The two insulation boards are put on either side of the rack and then duct taped together. Then I pinned the twin size flat sheet on one side using regular straight pins. If I find that the pins are not holding when I start loading up the design wall with designs, I'll substitute the straight pins with upholstery pins (pins with a curly-cue at the end).

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    Nothing fancy, but it does the job and now I can easily move it to get at the contents of the shelving unit that is behind it.

    This is the back/other side that I haven't covered yet. I'm going to cover it with black fabric. This way I'll have either a white background or a black background upon which to photograph finished art quilts.

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    The one thing I may change later is to use a heavier white fabric, maybe flannel, because the sheet is a little thin and you can see the shadow of the duct tape behind it.