Dood Day!!!

My small group met and we had a birthday party for Kelly.  I gave her a little quilt I had made for a guild challenge.  She liked it, and said it will look great hanging in her sewing room.


My new Innova longarm machine was delivered and set up yesterday.  Yippee!  I am so excited that I got up early and went right out to the studio to play.  This machine does not look like an Arabella - it looks too modern, so I decided to name it after my Dad who was a scientist. That seems more appropriate for such a high tech looking machine!   I'm calling it Dood, which was his family nickname.  Apparently when he was a baby before he learned to walk, he scooted around the floor on his bottom using his hands to pull himself.  His parents thought he looked just like a doodlebug and called him that.  Eventually it was shortened to Dood, and I can remember my Grandmother still calling him that as an adult. 

While I was waiting for the arrival of Dood I had lots of free time so I totally cleaned and re-arranged  the studio.  My Gammill had a 14 foot table and I decided to switch to a 12 foot table for my Innova, which gave me a little more room to work with.  Peter says women must have a gene that men don't have: a gene for re-arranging furniture.  He just doesn't get why anyone would re-arrange their furniture once it is in place for a few years. 

I decided to move all my quilting books and magazines into the house, since that is where I usually look at them.  That meant I first had to start moving stuff around inside the house to make room before I could bring the shelves in and start hauling books.  (I didn't make Peter move anything except the big stuff I needed help with!)  It was a long process.  Before I started moving I made a little scale plan of the studio and cut out the furniture to scale so I could play with it and find the best arrangement.  This is another thing that just makes Peter shake his head in amazement, but it really saves a lot of time.  It's also fun, kind of the grown-up version of playing with a dollhouse. 

I put Dood on the short end of the studio.

This machine is smaller than Arabella, I chose a 22" machine.  Since I do mostly custom quilting, I quilt mostly at the front of the quilt.  I feel like I lose control if I try to quilt further away from me.  I don't do pantographs and seldom do freehand edge to edge designs, so I think this will suit me.

The sewing table and ironing area got moved closer together, which is more convenient.  I spent several days refolding my stash.  I started this over a year ago and had gotten stuck halfway - it looks so much better now!

The cutting table is now near the design wall (which has Mary's still uncompleted quilt on it).  This is an improvement, because we use the design wall for photography and it's real easy to wheel the cutting table out of the way for that purpose.  The sewing table used to be in the way and that was a pain to move.

This is my Mom's old dining room table which gets used mostly to hold piles of stuff.  Since I just cleaned up there aren't any but they will soon start reappearing.

I think I need to finish this up so I can go out and play!