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.

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.

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.

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).





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.





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.