All I wanted for my birthday was thread! That sounds like I am not asking for much….but I didn’t just want thread, I wanted THREAD. I am tired of machine quilting and running out of the color I am using somewhere in the middle. I like lots of quilting. It used to be that I only used neutrals and monofilament thread but in the last year,  I started using color and I love it! So I have been doing some research and searching for a deal. Price IS an issue for me.

So I talked to my DH and he agreed that thread would be my gift. I placed the order and tracked the package all week. Today, despite the winter storm, it arrived!

It felt like Christmas! The next step was to unwrap and set it all out on my thread rack:

Isn’t it pretty? 66 beautiful spools all lined up. Here is what my thread wall looks like now:

Oh, in case you are wondering. It is the Essentials Collection from ConnectingThreads.com. I bought one of eash spool .  The thread on the racks on the right and the top half of the middle are all for machine embroidery. I bought this collection from Threadart. The bottom of the middle rack is monofilament, some varigated and more embroidery thread.

And this is where all the miscellaneous spools I removed from the rack ended up. I would like to get more racks and get this back on the wall where I can see it. It will  get used but for machine quilting large areas, the stuff on the wall is what I will use.

My birthday isn’t until next week. I hope to spend the whole day sewing. When I get that day, I will be ready!

I have so enjoyed looking at the pictures people from the QA list have posted of their work areas.  I have been working at cleaning and reorgainizing some and decided to share pictures of my sanctuary. It is my happy place . I’ll start at the door and work my way around the room.

My Bernina 155 in an Arrow folding table.

The wire basket units are from my favorite store, IKEA. The set is called ANTONIUS. I still need to go through all of these baskets and weed out the fabric I don’t want to keep and refold the rest. I like using a flip and fold for that.

This is my embroidery corner. I keep my old latop connected to my Singer CE-200. The drawers hold more thread, fusibles, interfacing, templates, beads, machine accessories for the serger and embroidery machine. In the foreground is my main worktable. It is 6 feet long.

The white cabinets hold my serger and Singer IZEK machines, magazines, books, machine parts, and paperwork stuff. On top of the cabinets are my vintage toy sewing machines. Most of these I collected when we lived in France. We didn’t have any bathroom storage and very little in the way of kitchen cabinets there so we bought these tall white storage units then. When we came back to the US, I got them .

The closet has bolts of fabric, batting, quite a few vintage Singer sewing machines, more bins of fabric that wouldn’t fit in the wire baskets (oops!), and pretty much everything else that I do not know what to do with!

This is my design wall made from foam insulation and covered with the back side of a flanel table cloth. The ironing table was a gift from my dad. It was originally a lab table from an old biology classroom. I covered it with a couple layers of Warm & Natural and then a length of ironing board fabric from Jo-Anns. I LOVE it. The basket in the corner holds scissors, rotary cutters, small rulers etc.

This is my most often used machine, my 1955 Singer Model 201. It will take any thread without complaint. I can sew through a tin can as easily as fine fabrics. It is the best $25 I have ever spent! The “clotheslines” are actually curtain hanging wires from IKEA. They come with great little clip/hook dealies so you can easily clip up works in progress or small finished pieces. I LOVE this. I got the idea from another brilliant blogger, Cheryl at muppin.com. Thanks Cheryl!

My room is in our finished basement. It is usually nice and quiet. Often when I am working, one or another of my kids will show up. We’ve had a lot of serious talks in this room!

Thanks for taking a tour with me!