Finished my first Mom UFO!

So today was a banner day in two respects--got my sewing room back in shape, plus finally cleared enough space out to slap the label on Mom's quilt and call it done!

Mom's quilt is from a kit she bought through Keepsake Quilting. If you can't read the picture of the label I made, it's "Rose Garden Anniversary Waltz," Rose Garden fabric collection from Maywood Studio, designed by Marti Michell, (c) 2005. Mom finished it sometime in 2008, had it quilted at Mt. Pleasant in York, and I finished putting the binding on last month.

I chose a jewel-toned blue binding to pick up no the narrow blue piping that frames the center (inside of the inner border). I couldn't find the same blue fabric, unfortunately, but got one that's close enough as long as you don't peer at it too closely.

The photo I used on the label is one of Mom when she was probably in her early 20s or so--I did a little photoediting to jazz it up some but it was a wonderful photo to begin with. Great poodle skirt!

In terms of the usual theme of my blog, "life lessons through quilting," I'm not sure I actually learned any particular lessons through putting this binding on. But it was a good healing process for me, not that I'm entirely healed yet but doing slightly better than before. I had taken this quilt from the homestead while Mom was still in the hospital, hoping she'd have the gratification of seeing it finished. That was not to be, but I got the binding sewn on before the memorial service so I could work on it through the service--which was about the best way I could think of to honor Mom. And then it took me a few nights in front of the TV, curled up under it's weight and warmth while handstitching the back down.

I like the label best I think. Love seeing Mom young and stylin'.

It's finally done!

After weeks of pressing and folding, cataloguing and sorting, and eventually building a new shelving system and having my other shelves reinforced and bolted to the wall (!), my sewing room is finally usable again! Now let's just see if I can keep it looking this way.

I used Rubbermaid's "Homefree" series of adjustable wall-mounted shelves for the fabric, if anyone's curious. Perfect for what I needed, and easy enough to repurpose things from shoe and tie storage to yardage and strip storage! Note that my fabric is sorted by the ROYGBIV system (kinda sorta). We'll see how that works for me. Strangely, even though I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed by the amount of fabric I now have in my stash, I look at it and realize I'm still only at a fraction of what Mom had. Someone told me once, "That's because she had 30 years to accumulate." I'm not sure that explains it. I've had 10 and I only had a significant jump in size last month! I suspect it has more to do with expanding to fill your available space--as in, nature abhors a vacuum. Mom had a basement, so she filled a basement. I have these shelves. That's it. Something comes in, something has to go out.

OK, so to point out a couple of nifty little features of the Shelving System Remix. Note in the second picture the hanging rods at the bottom--nice place to drape my UFOs to keep them slightly more wrinkle free! (And to hide the bins stacked behind them--nice side effect.)

Note the two canvas pull-out drawers normally meant for scanty unmentionables. (Well, my unmentionables aren't particularly scanty, but that's a different kind of blog altogether.) The top drawer holds my entire fat quarter collection--what used to be tightly crammed in two fairly large plastic bins. Woohoo! The second drawer holds my jelly roll and accumulated 2 1/2" scrap strip collection. Another woohoo! Some of those were in a plastic bin, some were just stacked wherever I could find room on the old shelves. Much more enjoyable to look at now. Most of those jelly rolls are from Mom--she must have hit a sale because I found an entire shipping box full of them in her sewing room. I'm sorry she didn't get to enjoy having them. They're like candy.

And this final picture was my last Remix brainstorm--the pull-out tie and belt rack makes a great place to sort strips when I'm working on a project! Well, OK, we'll see how often I use it. But it's a fun thought.

So--my cutting table is finally cleaned off, my sewing table will be shortly (just a random collection of scraps I have to deal with), and I have plenty of elbow room. I'm good to go!