organization

The Machine Kit: Right Where You Need It

| ellenanneeddy

I have a tendency to lose things. I have four million screwdrivers somewhere. That does not mean that I can find them when I need them. Samuel Delany said that the coathangers turned into paper clips, just when they were needed as coathangers. I believe that, sort of.

I also don’t organize well. I am ashamed that any time I move, I have 100 boxes that are full of the same mix of threads, machine feet, odd tools, and fabric bits. I’m working towards a better sense of that. I can’t find anything because everything is everything.

Most of my machines come with a space for accessories. That’s nice. Except that they have to fit in all the accessories. Which means they’re kind of big and quite clunky. And they don’t fit on my sewing tables. They also make a tremendous crash if they fall off the table due to the vibration when I sew.

So I tend to have kits for different tasks and for the machines I use for those tasks.

I’m obsessed with these tin pencil boxes from Dollar Tree. They come in different patterns so I know which one I need for each machine.

What is in the box? What I need to clean a machine and the feet I use for the tasks I do with that machine. So each box has oil and a good cleaning brush, Each box has fresh 90-topstitching needles, And an appropriate darning foot.

The tools are not the same. The old 930 and the 770 both take different non-standard screwdrivers. The 770 is prone to thread caught in the take-up lever, so I have a tool in the 770 box for slicing through=thread tangles.

I have a box for my 99 and 66 Singers. They are a short shank machine that needs a foot that is completely different from the Berninas. They’re a straight stitch machine so they aren’t set up for cord binding. I use them mostly as piecing machines.

But I use the other machines for corded binding, so there is a regular pressure foot and a Bernina #3 foot for buttonholes along with the darning foot.

Am I more organized? Bless me, I hope.

How can you be more organized?

  • Analyze the tasks you do in your studio
  • Gather the tools you use for those tasks
  • Find a container and space where you can keep those.

I’m not going to live long enough to sort through a bag of all the sewing machine feet I own to find the one I need every time I stitch. If I have a kit set for each machine, I’ve eliminated the time I waste hunting what I need.

Next organization:

I need a place to put in tools for each machine: pins, clips, scissors, bobbins, hemostat, the feet and tools I don’t use all the time but I want available. I have these already, although I’ve moved machines enough that they’ve taken on the quality of “this is where I dumped stuff.”

Then maybe we organize cutting room. If you haven’t seen me in a while I’ll be under the table, trying to find the floor.

Next stop, will I actually try Swedish Death Cleaning? Probably not.

telling the Story: How backgrounds Change Everything

| ellenanneeddy

Today I needed a color break. I’ve been frantically finishing the Stitch Vocabulary Book for three weeks, and I was terribly tired of computer work. So I sorted out the fabric I intend to bring to sale at Gems of the Prairie in May, That meant I set aside the pieces I wanted to work up.

Of course, that was an immense pile, Somewhere in it, I found this owl.

He really wasn’t lost. I knew he was around. I just wasn’t sure what pile. He was the third of three owls I made for a quilt that simply never worked.

I found several pieces that I thought would be amazing backgrounds. But a very strange thing happened. It wasn’t just that the fabric made the owl feel different. They actually started telling really different stories about him.

So this had a golden open door he’s going through.

Investigating a flower in the garden. Perhaps with small mice or butterflies.

Flying toward a red moon. Or is it a rose?

Is that a fire or a sunset? Is he flying towards it or in flight away from it?

Or somehow a moonlit winter night. Perhaps with snow. Or a flowering tree with moths?

I’m always astonished by hand-dyed fabric. It’s so versatile and offers so much to design. But I hadn’t seen it as a backdrop to a story. And that’s exactly what it did.

Which will I choose? I’m not sure yet. Normally I’m drawn to color. But there’s something fabulous about that winter moon. And while I work on it, perhaps it will tell me its story.

Fiat Lux: Studio Illumination

| ellenanneeddy

You can’t do art in the Dark

Normally I talk about quilting, art and design technique. But my beloved sewing machine is currently at the vet. So my 230 is on the table and I’m puddling along with projects. I thought about the lighting makeover we did recently.

Light is sight. We see nothing without lighting, and without good lighting we just don’t see well enough. That affects everything, from threading needles to photography, to fabric choices. And my eyes aren’t getting younger.

I’ve done my sewing in attics, and basements and back closets, and in class in all kinds of lighting, most of it pretty bad. But a studio makes it’s own demands. Besides, I was hunting everywhere for my reading glasses, all the time.

Lighting has changed drastically since the beginning of leds. I decided to put Don on it. There had to be a way to make this better. He had the best ideas. We made some mostly cheap changes that changed it all!

Led Lighting

Some simpler changes that are really effective. Don changed the 60 watt warm ceiling bulbs to 100 watt bright white leds. It’s not a restful change. But it’s real illumination, even at night. The change is dramatic. It makes the room crackle with energy and it takes out the dark spots. I can even see the things I dropped under the machine on the floor.

The old incandescent bulbs took a lot of energy to create light and threw a lot of heat off as a byproduct. The compact twisty florescent bulbs were more efficient, but they had mercury in them and it made them really bad to clean up after they broke. I’ve had ott lights, but I never really noticed a big difference with them. Leds create light just through electricity. They can be very bright without the heat and so much safer. And I can adjust the temperature on many of them. The link on top will take you to a great Cnet article about leds.

Swing Shop Lights

I’ve already discovered shop lights. My favorite ones have a ring in the center with a magnifying glass. These are one pivot and can be swung directly to the spot where you need one. My first one had a florescent and an incandescent bulb. Now the new led ones can directly change the temperature and intensity. The table clamp means it can be anywhere and won’t fall over. These are a bit pricey but lovely. I have one on each machine table. Pay attention to the lums, the magnification and the size of the arm. The wider the arm, the wider area it illuminates.

Floor Lights

We also put in a pole light at my sewing table with a reading light on it. These are a cheap fix. A pole light reflects light off the ceiling and brightens the whole area. The reading lamp is direct light on your work. They both help a lot. They’re available at all kinds of places at a full price range, and help particularly as a hand sewing or ripping light. Remember to change the bulb to a 100 watt cool blue and the shade to white.

Under Arm Lights

My 770 Bernina has a bright light under the arm of the machine. One more reason to love it! But you can buy those lights, and put them under all kinds of sewing machines. Light right where you need it. Even on old machines.

Photo Lights

We have some excellent photo lights. But they are big and unwieldy. For smaller pieces it’s like chopping vegetables with a machete. Just too much power for the task. So we put in some smaller photo lights that can change temperature and intensity at the push of the button. The heads on both of them are about the size of a large post card.

Consistency with lighting makes for a consistent portfolio. Work is has a consistency in color ranges and tone. Having consistent lighting confirms that and makes it shows off better. In a way, it’s good branding. And they work well for vlogging and videos.

If you aren’t regularly taking photos of your work, start now. If your critics don’t care, your grandchildren will. Everyone’s art deserves to be documented. Yours too.

Neon Signs: My Warning Lights

Did you leave the iron on? Is the mangle plugged in? Are the machines running? Unanswerable questions unless you’re really willing to look hard at every appliance at the end of a hard day. All satisfied by a florescent light and a power strip.

These aren’t about illumination. But they let me know when the electricity is flowing. They’re plugged into a power strip with the other studio electrics. When they’re off, everything on that power strip is off. When they’re on, you know just by putting your head in the room. Some go on the wall. Some are free standing. I have one for each room so I know when I’ve left something on. Do I have the same kind in each room? Don’t be silly. I have a dinosaur, a whale, a star, Jupiter, and a flying bat.

Power Strips

The downside to a lot of this lighting is that is that they use USB plugs. I can’t say I understand it. They just do. You can buy power strips with USB plugs or use an adapter.

I’ve put in links so you can easily find these things. But they’re universally available.

Look for the lighting that lights up your life.

There’s another byproduct of good lighting. Bright lighting makes me happier. That never hurts either.

What Makes You Clean Your Studio?

| ellenanneeddy

It’s not a natural thing for me. I clean. Once every twenty years, if necessary. There’s something to be said for that. You don’t want to rmess up a functioning system. Right.

I used to perform a service for people with unsupportive life mates who did not understand creative clutter. I would take them through my studio, through the thread wads, archeological book dig, archeological project dig, past the dye puddles do the archeological dirty dish dig. People would run out the back door of my one bedroom screaming that their mate could do anything, have anything, if they didn’t let it get that bad. I’m not quite there yet. I’ll offer the service again when everything silts up.

Forward to this morning. I couldn’t find my clip on magnifiers anywhere. Not anywhere. And there is no way for me to thread monofilament nylon without them. After two hours of breaking thread and taking twenty minutes to thread the machine each time I looked over the 9 pieces that needed monofilament nylon and decided I could either go home or sulk properly in a corner. I ended up emptying 9 drawers of polyester thread looking for Bottom Line. And sorting my whole polyester thread collection.

How do I sort thread? By content, by size, by purpose and by color. I’ve learned that if I pull out 10 spools of thread for a piece, unless I’m careful, they go into a basket that gets dumped into a drawer somewhere where none of it’s friends live. Finding them after that is an exercise in chance. All at cleaning up doesn’t sort anything.

All the #40 weight polys, the #30 weigh metallics, the #8 weight metallics, the #5 and #10 pearl cottons have a section of their own. And then I sort them by colors. So I can pick up a bag of thread and have all of that color at my fingertips. Until that messes up.

Bottom line, I don’t clean until I can’t find what I need. I’m also missing a bag of moths. I’ll either clean and sort until I find them or make more. Whichever comes first.

Nine drawers later, not yet, I will have sorted out all the poly embroidery thread. It wouldn’t have happened at all if my glasses hadn’t disappeared.