At least for a while I will be able to find a pen, that works, when I want one…As I was moving things out of my studio I put every writing implement that I found into one box…I then went through the box sorting the contents into pens, pencils, etc…I sharpened all the colouring pencils…and then tested every pen, the box on the right are those that have been thrown out.
  
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 Last year I showed this photo of my garden under the heading watch this space.
I have been digging into the clay, little at a time, the hole where I want paveing…and have purchased the bricks that I need.
Today, with the help of a friend, top right corner of the photo, the first load of sand went into the hole.
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 Yesturday a friend rang to say that she was at a quilting retreat a couple of hours drive from me and that she had a free afternoon and …It was on the spur of the moment that she rang me and asked if I would be able to visit her there?…Sounded like a good idea to me and it was, we had lunch and then wandered around the quilt show and market stalls, (being a quilt market there was no beads, buttons threads or charms to distract me, I spent my money on some practical items being some very fine pins, a new rotary cutter blade and a pack of machine sewing threads), I also ran into other friends and had a lovely afternoon.
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I found an old floor plan that I had done of my studio and have traced it twice and drawn in the furniture to show how it was and how it is now…The original was done on graph paper so it is to scale, the grey furniture stayed in place and I have colour coded the furniture that I moved…Strangly it wasn’t till I had moved the table that I realized a BIG Advantage of the new set up is that none of the cupboards are obscured by the table, before when I had to pull the table out, shift chairs aside and reach at awkward angles to pull the box I wanted out and because it was such an effort to get them out I tended not to put them back so the cluttered the floor until I did a clean up, now it is easy to pull them out and just as easy to slip them back into place so it should, in theory, be easier to keep the room clean.
 
As for the nook of shelves behind the design board and Sewing Machine, getting anything out of there is a real wrestling match as the whole floor area is piled with boxes and bags on top of which I have put anything else that I have wanted to get out of the way quickly…when my little helper below, was leaving she pointed in there and told me (with a twinkle in her eye) that it was the next room that I had to organize…My little helper is my neice and whilst she may be little in size she was a big help today, we sorted and put away the contents of several boxes of accumulated bits.
 
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 A couple of weeks ago when I showed my fabrics sorted into colour groups I said that one of my motivations was that I want the pink fabrics for an Album cover that I would like to have made by the end of September… The pink fabrcs are the only colour thus far to be ironed and put into there box, as I went through them I put everything that was a possability for the album to one side, about 50 fabrics…I took that pile of fabrics with me when i went to visit a friend and we reduced them to about 20 fabrics…This morning my sister came over and we reduced them to 10 fabics, when we were down to about 12 she was liking different fabrics to me, she liked the very pale pink lace and my first instinct was that it was to pale, she said but the sky in the photo is pale and lay the lace next to it, I looked down and said ‘it will work I can do a sort of colour wash’.
When I did a rough layout we both instictivley reached out to remove the fabric second from the bottom on the left and I think that the colour wash is going to look great…I have pixalated the image to not reveal who it is for just yet.
 
As for the other end of the studio…I am sorry that I forgot to take a before photo so that you could get the full impact of what I have done…basically my computer was on top of a set of draws beside my desk, beside it was another little cupboard and they both sat in front of a set of shelves and beleive me it looked cluttered…I put the computer box on a little trolly which can be pushed under the desk and be pulled out to give access for maintenance.
I have managed to get most of one side of the room in this photo…even though the stuff on the shelves is still a muddle of things that need to be sorted the overlook of the area is much improved.
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 I think my new studio layout is going to work…there is a set of shelves at the other end of the room that I put there temperaly so long ago that they have become permenant but have only ever been a place to put things to get them out of the way…If I empty them I can put all the not crazy quilting books there…Where to put there contents? is the question…
 …I put the shelves that I moved out of the studio into the hall and have put all the boxes of stuff and piles of paper to be sorted on them…The grand plan is to take it one box or pile at a time and put everything where it belongs or throw it out…Wish me luck…
While I was moving boxes I found this puzzle and was amuzed because I always think of this type of puzzle when I am trying to reorganize the furniture in my house, I have to make a little space and then move things through it till I have it where I want it…
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I am trying a new arrangement for my studio furniture….The rest may have to change again to fit everything back in….I have swapped the cupboard and shelves in the corner, they look a lot neater and will stay that way…I have also spun the table around so that it is 90 degrees to where it was, the aim of making the changes is to not block off the windows by putting furniture in front of them so that I can make better use of the natural light, the room does look lighter/less cluttered…and I hope that I can make it work, my problem is that I have moved a bookshelf from that end of the room, have nowhere else to put it and I have no idea where I am going to put the books that go in it…I will be able to make room if I can destash enough stuff but I am not good at throwing things away…
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 Last week I showed you my studio after the curtins had been hung…I decided that the best way to tackle it was to take as much stuff from the room as I could, Organize the storage and working areas and then return the contents of the room sorting and putting it away as I did…The job is started, a friend came over to help me and we took everything from one end of the room…
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 This first shisha is still very much in experimental phase…
I was playing around with the idea of needle lace surrounding the shisha…
I will need to do more experiments with threads and with working onto a firmer base thread…I worked this sample on one of the beaded samples which are stitched with a thin thread that fitted through the beads and it broke when I pulled on the needle lace web.
 The other idea that I have been playing with is using a spider type web to hold the shisha in place…The first sample is a simple experiment to see how the spokes of a Spider Web would hold the shisha on…it works…
 For the second one I made an odd number of spokes and wove the thread in a spiral, it was a bit hard to keep the tension of the spiral this may not work with other threads because the threads want to slip into the middle and I think the metalic thread catching on itself helped keep this one in place.
Covering the shisha with organiza (the gold spots are part of the fabric), as I have done in the last detail enabled me to stitch the Spider Web much the same as I do them directly to fabric…
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 On this shisha I was playing around with a different combination of stitches that would give more shape interest to the edge of the shisha.
For this shisha I have stitched 3 buttonhole stitches under the threads of the shisha…I have then done one buttonhole in the reverse direction so that it sits over the first 3…then one more buttonhole going in the original direction and putting the needle into the middle of the group of stitchs already there…pull the group of stitches away from the shisha so that it stretches out like a petal…seal the end by putting the needle through to the back…
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