Unwanted guests..

Once again, the Monster (aka the family pc) and I need to become friends again.
Yesterday early morning  at 5 p.m. we found that our frontdoor was wide open. All the drawers of my fabric chest were open as well as some drawers and cabinet doors in the livingroom. My laptop, photocamera and the TomTom were missing..
My laptop was an oldie and can be replaced, but I truly mourn the loss of everything that was on it. I don't think that i need to explain that to other quilters with a 1000 sites bookmarked and even more patterns trusted to a harddrive. DH had just made a backup from the C partition, but not yet of the D on which all of my goodies were.
The type of camera I had (and absolutely loved) is no longer available, so we need to find another, just as great. The photos that were on it, are ofcourse lost as well. (I had them on the camera ánd on the laptop..)

Later the day i found my red and white polkadotted pc sleeve was also missing. I know, polkadots áre hard to resist.

Even with all new and extra locks installed, I didn't sleep very well. You can imagine that.
What 's there to do than whine on my blog, count my losses and start over?

Welcome!

...to my sewingroom! It is not always this neat and clean, I admit. I clean it frequently though; I cannot sit and enjoy my own space when it's a mess. That distracts and annoys me big time. Clutter is okay when sewing a quilt, but once a project is finished, all has to be in its place again.

My room is attatched to the livingroom. It used to be my former bedroom. When Quilting DD moved out, our bed moved upstairs and tadááá: I had my own space. Just slide the door open and step in!

On the slidingdoor there's a friendship star quilt, that Corrine made for my 50th birthday.

First the fabric treasure chest. I always have 3 small quilts on the wall there; they change according to the season..

Tins with thread, ribbons etc. on top, a glass vase with pincushioncollection and on the side a wooden quiltrack. Not for displaying quilts,but for quilting purposes. I use it mainly during summer, so you don't have to hold a quilt on your lap when handquilting. Corrine's DH made it for me for that same birthday.

Let's move to the left and there's my big table. I use it for sewing, drawing, cutting, the laptop is there often etc. I usually sit where the machine is, Corrine opposite of me. Oh I forgot: my room is for 2 (or 3 when Quilting DD comes to play along) C has no sewingroom and is a frequent guest in mine. She even has her own can of notions on her side of the table..
Where the white chair is, that's where other familymembers are allowed :) The family pc aka the Monster, pc stuff, cd's, printer/scanner. The monitor can used as a tv as well.  As you can see I have a window; not a spectacular view (the neighbours frontdoor) but it's nice to have daylight..

This is on the wall between table and pc desk: the embroidery I did 100 years ago for DH and the miniquilt in 2007. It's there for DH to make him believe it's his room too. (Dream on..) It prevents discussion about he wanting a room of his own too. Ah men, it can be so easy...

Okay, futher left: the desigwall! At this moment the Attitude Girls panel is on it, but almost empty when I took this pic. In the corner my manikin (is that the correct word?) showing an apron that I still didn't finish. Behid her back the part of the pc desk that holds my patterns (behind the door) and books. If you slide my door further open, you have acces to the rulers and quilt templates. Also the ironingarea..

..and that's it! (I'm happy to post more detailed pics for those who are very nosy)
Ranette showed her room, Myra VIDEOTAPED hers (if you haven't checked that out, please do so now!)
and I'm anxious to see other's . So..who's next?

What to say?

I was planning to invite you my to my sewingroom. I cleaned and de-cluttered, made pictures and even put them in a post in order to add text later on. I made coffee and Baking DD had delicious chocolate chipped muffins ready for you all to come and visit :)

Then the doorbell rang; the postman ...: "goodmorning, a package for you, have a nice day" and he handed me a rather bulky envelop.

Dianne, Melissa ánd ofcourse LuLu wanted to sent me something for my birthday in february, but when they read I wasn't doing all that well, they decided I needed it right now. In the envelop was a card saying they thought I needed an Attitude Adjustment. (They are só right!) These girls are not only very generous, they pay attention too.

Note the polkadot wrappingpaper for starters!

What was inside? (better to say: what was not..!) A complete Honeybun, lots of matching fabrics (ah..can you tell I love polkadots?) ánd a pair of soft, warm ,polkadotted (duh!) gloves!  All from Moda's "Attitude Girls", except for the gloves ofcourse, but wearing them just gives you an attitude *lol*          

To complete this absolute great, wonderfull, amazing gift: The Attitude Girls themselves..

ánd, as if things weren't overwhelming enough: another Mary Engelbreit panel

I am só thrilled that someone sent me ALL this, that I was without words for a while. Next project will be an Attitude quilt for sure. I already browsed the internet, looking for ideas and inspiration.

What more is there to say than THANK YOU and....

Sewing rooms..

Let me start by thanking you all for the uplifting and nice comments on the "I'm not doing so well" post. I'm doing a bit better, thank you. At least i'm not whining and crying all the time and that's a huge improvement :)

Secondly: Let's make 2011 a great year: health, love, creativity...

When I did some blogreading this afternoon, I came across Ranette, showing her tidy sewingroom. I enlarged and admired every picture on her blog and thought about my own spot where I keep my stuff.

I googled "sewingroom" and had a pleasant hour looking at all those different spaces  :)
People have small rooms, enormous ones, messy spots and very clean ones. Some even have their own fireplace!
Lots have different areas for sewing, cutting, ironing etc.
Some pics I randomly plucked from the internet:

Although I consider myself very lucky to háve a separate sewingroom, (only thing I had to do was to kick a child of mine out of the house and claim the space; easy!) I'd love to have different spots for every step of quiltmaking. (And ofcourse more storageroom!) My sewingroom has one huge table in the middle for sewing, cutting, eating, computer...and one fabric cabinet. Plastic fabric containers here and there... That's it.

No matter what sewingrooms there are and how big/small...one thing I don't get: why have so many people such small tables for their sewingmachine??? Even the lucky ones with a huge amount of space have tiny sewing tables. When I sew a quilt with my Husq. it's a huge mess on my table: piles of fabric, scissors, cutters, pincushion, tapemeasure, food.... You name it and it's there, somewhere..

Am I just messy and disorganised? (could well be!)

How does your sewingroom look like? Any great tips to get lots of stuff in a small room, organised?