More studio progress

My studio setup is taking forever or so it seems to my impatient inner creative.  This last week brought some significant progress, however.  Jeff & James set up the upright elfa shelves that I will be using to store finished pieces and my framing supplies last weekend.  And this week, they went to the hardware store and got the exterior plywood for the work table surface.  I also took down the wire shelf on the back wall which clears space to put up even more elfa shelves on that wall.  So now all the hardscape is in place, except for the last bit of walls.  (It's a 9 ft wall so we need to borrow a ladder to install the shelf unit.)  I hope that the next time I talk about it everything will be in place and I'll be working away.

new shelf unit

The picture above shows the forward end of my workspace with the upright shelf unit (right under the garage door opener) acting as a divider from the bicycles.  The 2 sheets of plywood, sized 48" x 78", which have been glued together and are now drying, will be covered with batting and vinyl to give me a good work surface for screenprinting.  And in the back, I've got my white board up above the sewing cabinet so I can keep track of what I want to do next.

At the other end of my work area, the wall is now bare so I can install new shelving and the spot for the sink (lower right corner of the photo) is cleared of the stuff that needed to be moved into the house but was waiting on unpacking to clear its space.

It's starting to look like a functional workspace!  I'm hoping to have it all set up before the next weekend but we'll see how it turns out.  Neither developers or artists are known for being good at meeting deadlines.  I expect it's because we forget to estimate the time for solving the inevitable problems.

Unexpected going away gift

Often we don't know what impact we've had on others.  During my studio sale days before the move, I found out some of it.  One particular person really touched me by making the effort to come and chat.  She'd been in a class with me and we worked together well and enjoyed each other but once I opened the Georgetown studio, and then started having medical problems that just disrupted everything, we drifted apart.  So I was really happy to see her and enjoyed catching up.  Then, she gave me one of her small watercolor pieces as she was leaving.  I just found it during some unpacking in my studio so I'm sharing it here.  

I think it was intended as a bookmark,   so I can either laminate it and use it for that or frame it and add it to my wall of art gifts from other artists.  I'm leaning toward the latter but since I don't yet have my framing supplies or tools unpacked I have some time to think about it.

Studio beginning to emerge

Between running off to do some excellent birding and unpacking and organizing in my studio, I have not been very chatty lately.  But today I began to see the studio layout emerging and so I took some pics to share.

You may remember I posted my plan for the studio layout about a month ago.  Today, I finished putting the elfa drawers in their appropriate location and separating the boxes of supplies so they were close to where their drawers are so unpacking should be much easier.  And my sewing table is now where I can actually sit down and sew, assuming I get the power source set up.  The shot of the same space in April had the bicycles in the front.  The bikes are still there, I just cropped them out.  Because the studio is the star, right?

From front to back on the left:  sewing machine table (machine has red cover), elevated ironing and fusing table along the wall, corner cutting table with boxes stacked on top.  The boxes on the right are hiding the main work table from view.  It will be 4 ft wide and 7 feet long once I get the padded & waterproof work surface made.  (Plywood & batting with fusible vinyl).

And below is the view from the door leading to the house.  The cutting table is in the back on the right, the work surface elfa drawers are center/left and that table on the right is the dye table.

Tomorrow, I work on unpacking those boxes, putting the already full drawers in the right stack and setting up the sewing machine.  And if I have the time and energy, putting together a stopgap work table top that will let me work on printing some fabric before I go to the hardware store and make the final work surface top.  I'm at that point where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so I'm getting set to dash for the finish.  How quickly I'll finish totally depends on the weather because if it's sunny, the call of the birding will be very strong.  It feels really wrong to hope for a rainy weekend but there it is, my no lose situation.  Birding or fiber art?  What a choice!