Young Artists At Work

What a whirlwind month. Recitals, school performances, holiday parties and gift preparations. Not to mention a deep cleaning for the house and holiday decorating. The month flew by. Yesterday morning I woke up and looked at the clock. 6:00 am. We told the girls they had to wait until 7:30 to wake us up. Darn. An hour and a half. I was eagerly awaiting their wake up squeals. At 6:45 I wondered why my girls were not up yet! Then at 7:00, only a half hour early, they came into our room and exclaimed: "It's time It's time! Let's see if Santa came."

Of course, Santa had come and left a passel of presents by the fireplace. Each girl went through their stocking and opened their Santa gifts. Then came the family gifts. I gave each girl a Hello Kitty sewing machine made by Janome. These are not the toy machines you see at major retailers. These are actual sewing machines, which make nice stitches and are easy to operate. The larger machine uses the feet and accessories from my Janome 6500. I was not expecting much from the girls. Perhaps a quick playing around with them, and then on to the toys they got for Christmas.

Well I was wrong. The girls sewed for hours. This morning, they woke up and near first thing wanted to sew again. Sarah is well on her way to finishing her first wall hanging. A scrappy strip pieced block with quilting lines throughout.

One of the greatest gifts of my lifetime is the time, instruction, and encouragement given to me by my mom and my aunt. I hope to pass those gifts on to my children.

New Studio Space

I am married to a musician. His day gig is working as a creative director for a creative marketing agency which does a lot of work on the internet. He writes music all day long. Then he comes home, greets our girls and sits down at the piano and plays more music.

It's great to be married to a creative guy. He gets it. He understands when I am fixated on something and cannot get it out of my head. He understands my need to stay up all night and finish. He understands the need to have the right tools for the job. He understands my need for the right space to work in.

He understands enough to give up the 15 x 15 foot room off my old studio. This room held the baby grand piano he plays every night when he comes home. A few weeks ago we began the process of finding a new space for the piano. No small task. It's huge. And heavy. Moving it means you have to know exactly where you want it to go. It's not like shoving a couch around a room until you've found just the right spot. So off I went with my graph paper and a tape measure and figured out where the piano could go.

This was not an easy decision. You have to take all kinds of things into consideration. Like where the floor joists are, where doors to the outside are, how close to a fire place and how many important football games are on television (which will prevent any friends and/or neighbors form helping you). After considering the possibilities, we settled on the family room. Joel and I hauled the piano across the house to its new home. It's the perfect place for it. You can sit and play the piano and look out the window. I think it is very happy there.

Here's Joel trying to move the piano by himself.

And moving that piano left a big hole in the corner of that 15 x 15 foot room which I think the builder considered the formal living room. Our house was built in the mid 80's and is a formal layout with the formal dining and living areas separate from the family room. I previously had my studio in the formal dining room space.

So now I've branched out and am in the formal living room as well. I have two big rooms. One for storage and "messy" work. And the new larger room for my sewing machines, drawing table and computer space.

New studio space.

Old studio space.

While cleaning and sorting through piles I found all kinds of drawings and notes on projects I'd like to do. I had to stop working on the studio space last night to flush out one of those ideas. I would show it, but you know Christmas is right around the corner and the recipient is a reader of this blog and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!

It is amazing how much stuff I have. I did sort through and get rid of a tremendous amount of junk, but so much of the things I hang on to are relevant to what I do and want to do.

Tonight is Saturday night so my hubby will be playing some rock and roll on his weekend gig. It inspires him throughout the week when he's working his corporate gig.

Me? I'm back to the studio to sort through more stuff and work on that Christmas project.