I've been busy!

Not busy blogging, obviously. But busy shopping and sewing. Most importantly, I bought a new sewing machine! It's a Janome Memorycraft 4900QC, which is a computerized machine with a good variety of stitches, and it came with a few accessories geared for quilters - a 1/4-inch piecing foot and a walking foot, most notably. It also has an automatic buttonhole foot which is pretty nice, although I think it tends to make the buttonhole too big if I just put the button in the slot like I'm supposed to. But it's smooth and quiet and I really like it. Even the little flip-down automatic needle threader attachment has endeared itself to me. And my fabulous husband made a cut-out in my desktop so that it can sit with the workspace level with the desktop - giant extension table, woo!

I'm not even sure what I've completed since the last time I blogged. In all, in recent weeks I've made three different marine-themed Hawaiian shirts for my older son, including one of this really nice fabric:

And a really spiffy Hawaiian shirt for my husband, using this fabric:


I've also finished a very cute long-sleeved knit top and a couple of woven tops for Amelia, plus a pair of elastic-waist corduroy pants for both her and Owen, hers purple and his dark brown. I'll try to get some photos up one day soon. And currently I'm assembly line-sewing five one-piece suits for my friend's dear little boy, severely autistic like Amelia - using some of the 35 yards of cotton quilting fabrics I bought from Connecting Threads a while back. Some of the rest will become five more for her younger boy, also autistic, and four more for Amelia.
Sooo.... that's about it, I guess, at least for the sewing projects. Last weekend my husband and I tackled my sewing/craft room and got it pretty well whipped into shape. Here is my collection of crafting books - quilting, sewing, cross-stitch, knitting, crochet - it's all there! Oh, and that stack of plastic bins in the corner? Yeah, that's my yarn stash:


Here is my main work area:


That table on the left is my cutting table and overflow workspace. I still need to raise it up just a couple of inches to put it at the ideal height for me to stand and cut. And I need to get some blinds up in those windows so it's lighter in there at night, and less sunny in the afternoon. And here is the rest of my storage shelving:


The lower shelves are holding my two other sewing machines - an older, basic Kenmore and the Bernina 1080 - a few of my smaller knitting UFOs, small fabric scraps in plastic shoeboxes, my sewing patterns in the largest basket, and on the bottom my three unfinished quilts. The tall shelves are holding the rest of my fabric, plus batting, interfacing, and polyfill. Probably 80% of that fabric, by volume, is just from the last month or so of shopping. Um. I'm all done fabric shopping for a while. Mostly.....