Happy New Year!

These past few years have made me take a left turn in my life, and it seems I'm heading in a new direction. So many endings - the loss of my husband of 40 years, the sale of my retreat business, adult children moving away, the sale of my log cabin in the woods of Tomball, Texas...so much to process. But now I'm looking forward to new beginnings!

I bought a beautiful house of Texas limestone in Georgetown, just north of Austin. Still in Texas, cuz you'd have to blast me out of here! 

I went from living in a log cabin on 8.5 acres, down a dirt road in the woods (for the last 33 years):

...to a one story limestone ranch. Pro: It's on an acre of thickly tree'd land. Con: In a neighborhood. With neighbors. And people. And cars. And lawnmowers. And people. 

I renovated the 2 car side of the garage for my new studio, and now, for the first time since 1986, I have an actual garage. With a real floor. Not like my dirt-floored barn at the cabin. The studio isn't quite finished yet, but with a few more tweaks it should be finished by the end of January. I'm working in it now, though, and I'm finally back to what I really enjoy doing! Can't wait for the SewHos to come for our annual retreat in July. 

The house is on a wedge-shaped acre that's shaped like the Flatiron Building in NYC. The front of the house faces the top point of the triangle, which means the left side and the right side of the house are on two streets, and the front isn't on any street! It also means I don't have any side-neighbors, which is a consolation for having to live in an actual neighborhood. Don't know if I'm going to get used to this or not, and I'm leaving my options open. We'll see.

OAN: I took my business name, CabinQuilter, from having my studio in my former log cabin. Now that I'm in a limestone house, it doesn't seem to fit. Maybe StonedQuilter...I am in Austin, after all. And that alone is culture shock. Aside from all the man-buns and stoners, there's more dogs here than kids! Go to any restaurant and you'll see more hippies with their dog-babies, than parents with their children.

I'm pretty sure I don't want that guy to be my server. For real. I'm also pretty sure they'd change their minds about dogs if I brought my 400 lbs of puppies:

Torque and Diesel making themselves at home the first night in our new house. That's a queen-size bed they're dwarfing. So, yeah...I bet I could change the dog-friendly restaurant policy overnight.

Hey. How about a couple of customer quilt finishes for 2019?

Dream Big panel for Darleena's Sew By The Bay Quilt Shop

and Darla's Hurricane Harvey quilt - not the best photo, but you get what you pay for!

That's as productive as I was in the midst of the chaos that was 2019. I'm looking forward to a much more settled and self-indulgent 2020, and hope that yours is the same. If that's what you want. If you don't, then I hope you get yours. So to speak.

Anybody Have a Shoehorn?

So we bought the neighbor's 25 year old farmhouse 6 weeks ago, and we've been slo-o-o-wly moving out of the log cabin, less than 1/4 mile away. Probably about 20% of our stuff has made it over here in the past month and a half. Which makes it really hard to find anything. If it's in the new house, it's in a box. If it's in the cabin, it's in a pile waiting to be put in a box. But that won't happen any time soon for 2 reasons:

1) I'm wanting to re-use the boxes we've already packed/moved so far - but not unpacked yet

2) I'm too cheap to go buy new boxes

It's driving my older daughter and her family nuts. They're waiting to get their stuff unpacked, but can't, as our stuff is still in the rooms, closets, and cubby holes. They'd like to settle into the cabin before the new baby comes in July. I get that. And I want that for them. I just need 6 more arms and legs. (I don't want to be confused with Octomom, though.)

Ok, so where was I going with that?

Oh yeah. A shoehorn.

My temporary studio at the new house is the size of a closet - a nice-sized closet - and I can only get a fraction of my stuff in there. Just to illustrate, here's some shots of my studio at the cabin:

Ok. Now how do I get all that in here:

And the one, sad little closet

It is so not going to happen!

Since these pictures were taken about 2 weeks ago, I've gotten quite a bit in there, after adding a mess of Elfa shelving in the closet, and wrapping folded yardage on more of those Fabric Organizers by DeNiece. And I've gotten my sewing table in there, too. No to the giant cutting table, so I'm using my old Singer Model 42 sewing cabinet (with my 201 inside) as a cutting table. I just finished cutting 240 3.5" squares and I can't get back to vertical...I feel like Quasimoto.

I could squeeze a little more stuff in there, but I've decided to commandeer my husband's new garage instead. He's waited a quarter of a century for a garage (all this time, we've only had a barn with no floor), and I feel kind of bad about it, but really, honey...priorities.

We compromised and decided to split the garage: he gets 25% and I get 75%. That sounds fair to me. The contractor says it should be finished by the end of next week. Maybe.

They put in a new French door and knocked holes in the brick for 4 windows. I'll post some progress photos as they get further along.

And just for fun, this is what I've been working on in my temporary studio: my first feathered star - it'll end up being a little under 60" sq; and an autograph wallhanging with signatures from Paula Nadelstern, Nancy Zieman, Mark Lipinski, Ricky Tims, and 12 other quilting celebrities. I'll post when I get them both finished.

Time to hit the sack...

Hob-Knobbing

OMG - These are fabulous! I saw a mention of sewing hardware in the latest issue of Love of Quilting (Fons & Porter) and went straight to Sewing HardwareThey've got knobs and drawer pulls, and even though they're a little pricey, I want them all! We're building our new house, and I get to outfit a whole new studio. These are so going to be on all the cabinets, closets and drawers in there.