Thread Cabinet ~~ Richard's Finish!

My husband. My wonderful, loving husband. Forty years we've been husband and wife. 

He's is one put-together guy and knows oh-so-many things. Sometimes I think he just knows all the things. I have no clue how he can know or understand all these concepts and mechanics and stuff. 

He can fix a leaky pipe, cook a meal, cut down a tree, explain a football game. He can tell you how safe (or in danger) you are, how to fix just about anything mechanical, figure out interest rates, grow a garden to feed the neighbors. I've barely begun, but I'll stop because there's something wonderful that I want to show you.

Most recently he's been showing off his carpentry skills. It's taken a while but finally, it's finished. Even better, his carpentry has been working for me!  

Check out the drawers in my cabinet: thread drawers, you see.

There are five drawers, each one with three shelves. The number of spools depends on the size of said spools, but I've put at least 10 on a shelf. Which means it can easily hold up to 150 spools regular embroidery spools. 

The drawers pull out completely so I have easy access to the spools at the back of each shelf and can see all of the colors at once. (Isn't that a cool feature?!) Don't look at the paint job. That's my mess. Rich wanted to clean it up, but I insisted that he deliver the cabinet instead. I'm leaving it. And that's the end of the discussion.  

I've arranged the spools by color, of course. The librarian in me insisted. It's the same system I use for fabric...white, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, navy, gray, black. Sort of ROYGBIV, Mary style.

The cabinet sits on my sewing table close to my embroidery machine. Custom made for that spot, which I chose. It's a great improvement over the open system that I had before, thanks to Richard's thinking: the cabinet has doors to keep dust and light out. So now do you see why I give such accolades to the man with whom I hope to grow old? 

More cleaning {scour and scrub 2}

I did a little cleaning when Richard made my new shelving unit, but why stop there? For some unknown reason, there is a table in the studio that I don't need. You know what it became...you probably guessed it: a dumping place for all the stuff that we don't need but it's too good to toss out. 

www.thirdshiftvintage.com

Most of that belonged to other people, some had come home with me when I retired, and some needed to go back to Walmart. We worked on that table early last week because it meant not really dealing with my studio stuff. The good news about some of it: I returned several items to Walmart and found $53. 

www.thirdshiftvintage.com

Eventually, though, I had to get over my emotional self and look at the real problem: I have too much sewing/quilting stuff. I'm working on getting some of that stuff and the emotions under control, and I've made some difficult decisions. 

• New items that I don't need can go to my guild as door prizes
• Fabric that is not 100% quilting cotton will be sold 
• Fabric I can't sell will go to Salvation Army (someone else can wash and use it in charity quilts)
• Fabric that is not good will go into the trash (okay, don't judge--it is fabric)
• Fabric that I don't like (but is quilt quality) can go into a backing stash or be sold

www.thirdshiftvintage.com

Notions are a big problem. I used to make garments, so I have buttons, zippers, lace, etc. Plus, I've tried almost every craft at some point: needlework, beading, sculpting clay, silk flower arranging, and goodness knows what other crafts. I'll try to get into that area of the stash closet once I've moved a few boxes of fabric.


I have no idea how this crazy happened but it probably began many, many years ago when I could barely afford anything for sewing. And it continued for many, many years while I worked and could afford almost anything I wanted. I was very good at bringing in fabric under the guise of other shopping. Do you have ways to sneak fabric in?

pegboard of thread in my studio

Then there were "the Garan gifts." Richard worked at a garment manufacturing plant for 25 years. Garan is the parent company that creates Garanimals clothing for children. There was a plant in Marksville, where he was head mechanic/maintenance supervisor. 

He is such a sweet husband: he'd bring scraps home and my mom and grandmother would make quilts from them. Then the factory closed. Rather than incur the costs of shipping items overseas, the company sold thread, huge pieces of fabric, and other items. Anything that was left was to be thrown in the trash. And so I got quite a few Garan gifts, especially thread, fabric, and elastic. And buttons, hook and eye fasteners, and snaps. And fabric. And thread.

It's time to edit and let some of it go. I hate doing that because it seems as soon as I do, I find a need for some of the things I tossed. Friends tell me I'm silly but it's true, don't you think?

Storage in the Studio {scour and scrub}

I've wanted to do a little cleaning in the studio for a while now. The problems of stuff piled and stacked in every inch of real estate overwhelms me. Additionally, there are things that simply do not belong in the studio. Period.

The new cabinet the middle part
with drawers is what we started with.

I started working on the problems a few weeks ago when I asked Richard to help me. Now, Richard is one of those people who is patient and loving and truly wants to help. Now. Right NOW.

After painting, there's lots of storage in this baby

I tend to forget that he's a "get it done" guy, because he often anticipates my needs, and they just sort of appear when I need them. In this case, there's no way he could anticipate what was happening in my head. Let's face it: my head. 

Right next to the long-arm, it holds all of my thread, rulers, and tools
for the long-arm and a few other items like interfacing and Heat and Bond 

So I asked for help: please take this little bench with the drawers  and build it up so there will be a base with more cabinets on the bottom and a few shelves on the top of the cabinet.  The base came in that afternoon, and I had to stop everything to get it in place. The following day we had plans or an appointment, so it took two days to get the shelves in, but then he had to take them out and do some more work. He's OCD about things being "right." 

I convinced him to help me paint, which means he painted most of the cabinet because I was too slow and didn't do it correctly. But they got painted and look great. 

Oh my! What a little paint will do! I haven't completely finished putting things away in this cabinet, but Richard almost filled it with things he decided needed to be put away. Let's hope I can find it! No matter, I have a wonderful, loving husband.

Pin It Weekly #84

Welcome to the weekly opportunity to enjoy a few pins from my favorite Pinterest boards.  Tonight . . . 

upcycled vintage sewing machine tables, 

dress forms, 

and odd shaped vintage cabinets.

Thank goodness I can't afford all these vintage items!  I'd buy every single one!  Yes, I have a crazy need to save things.  

Not like keep them.  Well, that, too.

But no, I mean save them from being lost or destroyed or damaged. I want everyone to love things of aged beauty, to protect them, to use them.  Yes, use them!  They are too beautiful to waste away unloved.  

What do you think?  Do you agree?  Do you have to save stuff, too?

Come In and Visit

Here are a few pictures that I took of the studio last week, when it was a bit picked up.  

Since then we've added a few more things and I've made something of a mess.  Hope you enjoy.

The Studio Cutter

The Stash!

Small items for garment sewing

Thread

The cabinets that Richard recycled for me.

My Bernina 440 QE on the shelf Richard built when he built the studio.

All of my stuff on the right of the Bernina, the Juki serger, and the computer.

The rest of the crafting stuff.  These drawers are all  labeled.

A small vintage cabinet from Richard's grandmother's home.

Please take a moment to click on the Picket Fence button on the top right of the screen.  I've been getting a few votes lately and am almost 100 votes!  Yes, I'm a little excited about that.  It just shows that a few of my followers and visitors appreciate my work....and that's a sweet thing to know, indeed!