Last week I finally got my very own dream sewing and embroidery machine – a new Bernina 830. As well as being a masterpiece of Swiss engineering, this is one big sewing machine! Add the embroidery module onto it and it’s even bigger. The jumbo hoop (an extra – but very essential in my opinion!) has the largest embroidery area of any hoop currently available for the home embroidery market.

When I brought the machine home it became very clear to me that I was going to have to do some rearranging in my quilting studio – which is also my living room!

Tuesday morning of this week – this is what my studio looked like:

My Bernina artista 200 is in the corner on a portable cabinet that has been extended on the left and behind by the addition of a couple of shelves. The cutting table is a free standing kitchen cabinet from IKEA – the perfect height for working at! It has been buried under “stuff” for a really long time. The portable cutting table gets moved around – and when it is open and in the middle of the room, there’s not a whole lot of space to do anything else.

Even the 830 box has “stuff” on top of it and is surrounded by bears, blankies and Jasmine’s new scooter.

On the other side of the room is the sofa – which hasn’t been sat on in months due to the fabric that is piled up on it – and in the corner are the wardrobes that contain my fabric stash. Heather’s scooter is propped up against the french doors. We’ve been getting out and about on the scooters since the weather cooled down – but you can probably tell that none of us (that would be Heather, Jasmine and myself) are very good at putting things away when we are finished using them!

After picking all the kid stuff up off the floor and transfering it to the playroom, the sofa was moved down a bit and the fabric stash wardrobes were moved to their new home – in the bedroom. That created enough space to move the portable cabinet minus shelf extensions for the 200.

Now there is enough space where the portable cabinet came from to move the cutting table into the corner.

This kitchen cabinet cutting table is one heavy piece of furniture, even when empty. It is, of course, full of stuff, and I was not about to empty it, so after a good deal of pushing and shoving, it finally found it’s new resting place.

I love open spaces – but they don’t usually stay open for very long! This is the space that the new cabinet that fits my 830 is going to fill. As of today, it has been shipped, so hopefully it will arrive on my doorstep of Monday or Tuesday next week.

I have found that if you contemplate a “problem” long enough, a solution will emerge. The “problem” in this case was what to do with all the fabric and other stuff that was burying my sofa.

The solution was to organize the contents of the cutting table cupboards which made plenty of room for the fabric which is now neatly folded, with all the small scraps saved in a zip-lock bag. The added bonus is that my stabilizer is now also organized and easily accessible!

Two mornings of work, and this is what my studio now looks like:

The cutting table is fully functional for cutting – not a thing on top of the 24″x36″ cutting mat. The storage underneath is organized (you’re going to have to take my word on that since I didn’t take a photo!), and underneath the whole thing are all the quilts that are waiting very patiently to be quilted.

The Bernina 830 has been moved into position – waiting for its’ cabinet to arrive before I unpack it. Although with the weekend coming up, that might not last!

The 200 is ready and waiting if I should need to use it. And it’s also ready for Heather to use if she should get the urge. All the accessories are neatly arranged on the shelf which was moved over from the other side of the room.

The sofa is finally back in action as a place to sit – and I did actually sit on it for a few minutes this afternoon! There is even a pillow that came out of the cutting table where it was taking up way too much space!

It’s good to know that my vacuum cleaner still works – not a scrap of fabric or a piece of thread to be seen on the carpet – and I can guarantee that will not last for very long!

I’m back, and more or less recovered, from 4 nights in Houston at International Quilt Market. This is definitely the place to go to find out what is new and exciting in the quilting world.

Quilt Market takes place in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston. When Market opens, you see all the beautiful booths showcasing their products. Everything is in it’s place, the carpets are laid and there isn’t a storage box to be seen. The day before was a different story, that I would like to share with you today!

Quilt Market opened at 9:30am on Saturday morning, October 10, 2009. The convention center opens two days before hand so that exhibitors can come in and create their booths. Noon on Thursday saw the Aurifil team waiting for their crates to arrive. A frustrated message went out on Facebook later that night – the crates had finally arrived at around 8pm, and a whole day of set up had been lost. Since I had no plans until my School house at 4:20pm on the Friday, I offered to lend a hand in helping them to get set up. Aurifil is after all my favorite thread!

9am on Friday, and two enormous crates are waiting in front of the Aurifil booth. A couple of tables are set in the booth, and the standard pole set-up is in place, waiting patiently for some drapes to make it look somewhat presentable. A carpet has been layed – a necessity if you want to retain feeling in your feet while standing in a booth for 3 days in a row.

The biggest of the two crates contains the booth walls that Aurifil uses to replace the standard drapes. And I must say it looks a whole lot nicer! This crate is locked with a padlock, and easy to open as Alex (Aurifil’s Italian Product Manager) has the key.

The smaller crate contains thread – lots and lots of it!!! It also contained the toolbox with all the tools required to open the crate which is well and truly bolted closed. Someone had a wrench – which took care of some of the bolts, but not enough of them to be able to open the crate.

This is where I decided to make myself useful – by going off to find some tools! Fortunately, the Brewer booth (who was hosting me) was just up the aisle, in even more chaos at that point in the day – with a tool box full of tools! So one fixed wrench and one adjustable wrench later, followed shortly by a hammer and a mallet, and all of the bolts were finally removed.

One thing I have learned about getting set up for Market – if you want to make any changes to the structure of your booth, you must have an “official” person do it for you. So down came the poles, and up went the Aurifil booth walls, nice and new and black – and covered with footprints!

Cleaning is not usually one of my strong points, but footprints on walls just have to come off, so out came my pack of wet wipes (I’m a Mom, and given the messes that the girls and I get into I should probably carry wet wipes with me more often) until Elena handed me a much larger towel and spray bottle of cleaning liquid.

From this point on, a remarkable transformation happened. Gradually thread stands emerged from the crate, and thread found it’s way onto the stands. A couple of beautiful quilts were hung on the (newly clean) walls, and the most gorgeous 1kg cones of Aurifil thread found their way into various places for decoration. Table cloths covered the tables, and a beautiful booth had been born.

I’m sitting at gate C2 of terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport – waiting for my flight to Houston to arrive. I’m on my way to Fall International Quilt Market, which happens every October at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Hundreds of exhibitors and thousands (hopefully!) of quilt store owners come together to find out what’s new in the quilting world.

I’m excited to be going to Quilt Market in Houston for the first time. On Friday I will be doing a “schoolhouse” called “Embroidered Applique for Beginners”. It’s a great opportunity for me to show store owners and their representatives all about what I do, and give them a brief overview of how to do it. I have 30 minutes to talk – and enough to say to fill up about 3 hours! A few lucky people will be able to walk away with a ready made sample – a couple from my Jewels in Chocolate CD, a couple from my new Hearts CD.

Saturday and Sunday you will find me in the Brewer booth with demos at 11am and 5pm on Saturday, and noon on Sunday.

If you’re there I’d love to meet you!

Now it’s time for boarding. More from Houston later!