Calico Cali Designs

Friday, July 15, 2016

Mom's Studio Makeover

Last year I flew to Boston to visit my family and help my Mom set up her studio. When my parents first built their house, Mom was given a room to be her sewing studio. Of course as it often does, life got busy and her room became many things over the years, but sadly a sewing studio was not one of those things. It was my goal to change that!

Like me, Mom has lots of sewing supplies, and I could tell that she was a bit overwhelmed at having to organize and entire room full of stuff. Luckily for her...I LOVE and I mean LOVE organizing. I think I was more excited about the project than she was.

I started by clearing out the entire room...and then slowly bringing items in. It took myself, my Mom and my Dad to get that nice new chair put together. It was a stubborn chair!

Mostly empty room.

After a quick trip to Joann's I was able to hang up thread racks on the wall. (okay, okay, Dad hung them up. I'm not an expect with power tools)


YES! Thread racks!

I put hooks on the wall to hang her embroidery hoops and quilting rulers from.

I had a little too much late night fun putting together furniture. Wait....is there really such thing as "to0 much fun"?!?! Maybe I should re-phrase that.


So many organizational options!

When I was sorting through her supplies, I found the floral plaques that I had given her as birthday gifts and Mother's Day gifts over the years. So of course I had to hang those up!

I filled this cabinet with baskets full of embroidery stabilizers, designs and other goodies.

Remember that furniture from earlier.....all filled with notions, patterns and more!

The completed thread wall! I just love looking at a wall full of color!

Counter top, cabinets, and everything Mom needs...right at her fingertips.

Super organized hoops! (The candle is one that we both bought on a shopping trip in Sisters, OR earlier in the year, therefore I had to put it on the counter so that she could think of me every day.)

Did I mention that I love to organize? I had my Dad install shelves in the closet. Meanwhile, I cut up cardboard boxes and spent a little bit of time, wrapping her fabric around them. And, of course, I put it on the shelf according to color.

Patterns, books, and magazines also got their own spot. As did sequins, beads etc.

Everything is now labeled too!

Dad also helped me adjust her cutting table to the correct height. An viola!! An amazing, organized sewing studio! Here are a few more after photos.

Once the room was done, I spent the rest of my trip visiting family, digitizing and test stitching out my designs in her new studio. Ergo, I'm confident when I say the new room is very functional.

I hope this studio makeover inspires you in some way.

-Kat :)

Saturday, July 9, 2016

2016 Sisters Outdoor Quiltshow

Today (Sat 7/9/16) was the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show! For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the show..it's the worlds largest outdoor quilt show, and I had a quilt displayed at the show this year so there was no way I was missing it. I had heard about this show long before I moved to OR, and for the past few summers my schedule just didn't work out, but since I had a quilt at the show this year, I made sure that I was free. And I'm soooo glad that I did. (warning this post has lots of photos!)

The highlight of my day was meeting the sew-lebrities. I got to meet my quilting idol Angela Walters.
You can tell by the photo just how ecstatic I was to meet her. (I had tried to sign up for her class, but it filled up soo fast that I was unable to get a spot). She very sweet and nice and I'm still in awe that I got to meet her, she even gave me a hug and complimented me on my hair. I was in fan girl heaven. Just an amazing moment that meant so much to me, and I'm grateful that she took that few moments out of her day to stop and make my day.

Me and Angela!!!!!!

Next up, I got to meet Quilt Dad!! I've been following John Q. Adams on social media for a long time now....so I was incredibly happy to actually get to meet him in real life. He creates amazing quilts, and he's a published quilt author! He too was very nice and took a moment to chat with me. Again..so greatful that he stopped and took a photo with me.


Me and Quilt Dad!!!!!

And lastly, I met Rob Appell from Man Sewing! Rob does fantastic sewing and quilting tutorials online, and it was so cool to see his work in person, and to meet him. He also took a few moments to chat with me. He has an great laugh, and fun energy just rolls off him. Thanks for photo Rob!!

Me and Rob in front of his quilt.

Now onto the quilts!! Sooo many cool, amazing, beautiful, wonderful quilts. It truly was great to be surrounded by all the quilts, so many like-minded folks & artists, and of course the mountains. Sisters really is the perfect setting for a quilt show.

My quilt was part of the Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild special exhibit. Our exhibit was all about "cool colors"...and they looked fantastic all hung up in a group. It was definitely a "cool" moment to see my quilt hung up among all the other amazing works of art.


Me and My Quilt.

COMQG Cool Colors Exhibit.

And now just some random photos that I took while at the show. This years show had 1287 quilts!!! There were soo many gorgeous quilts that it's impossible to photograph them all..so here are the photos that I did take. They are in no particular order, just quilts that caught my eye and I had to have a photo of them for one reason or another. Some photos I took because I loved the colors, some I took because I loved the pattern, others because I loved the theme of the quilt. Some just took my breathe away and I wanted to be able to view them over and over again. My favorite part was seeing the quilts amidst nature. I loved seeing flowers in front of the quilts. Soo pretty. Enjoy the photos!