Before I had my present longarm studio, I needed a space just for me, so...
When my oldest daughter moved out, I commandeered her loft bedroom for my studio. It has a balcony that overlooks our family room, and is flanked with large windows that overlook our woods and creek. Despite the fact that some of the pictures are dark, the room is actually very bright. Click on the thumbnail for a larger picture.
This is the view from the doorway, showing the front of my cutting table
and the sewing area in the background.
This is my sewing table. It's actually a home-office, armoir-type cabinet
where everything, including the desktop, can be concealed behind the doors.
(Not that that's ever happened.) Grayson, one of our Tonkinese
cats, can be found either sleeping here or on top of stacks of fabric.
Some fabric and pattern storage, wip's (works in progress), and my fold-down ironing board on the inside of the bathroom door.
The backside of my cutting table, which I purchased when a local quilt
shop went out of business. It has lots of room to store fabrics, batting,
and miscellaneous tools. My husband refuses to move it again. (But he
acquiesced one more time when I moved this whole studio into my longarm
studio. He swears that's the last time.)
My 8'x8' design wall is on the right, as is my 170lb English Mastiff, Bronte.
This is my Grace Z44 Quilting Frame, which reminds me of one of those
creatures from Star Wars. After years of struggling, I can finally turn
out hand-quilted quilts that have perfect 90 degree corners. It comes
with extensions that allow you to quilt from a crib size to a king size.
(Not that THAT's ever gonna happen!) It's set up on the balcony of my
loft studio, so I can still keep an eye on the tv in the sunroom, or gaze
out at the treetops. The only two drawbacks are the sun and my cats. When
I'm not working on the quilt, I cover it with a cotton sheet to protect
it from the sun that streams in through those windows in the afternoon.
To keep the cats from making a hammock out of it, I cover the sheet with
a long piece of aluminum foil. Looks odd, but it does the trick - the
cats hate it. BTW, the quilt in the frame is my Y2K swap quilt, "Magellan
2000," which hung in the special exhibit, "Y2K:
A Millennial Celebration," at the 2000 International Quilt Festival
in Houston.
I also have a beautiful 18" Jasmine Dreamspinner hoop, that stays downstairs in the sunroom, for when I'm working on small projects. It's the Victorian style, in solid red oak.
