Come in, come in!

Yesterday as I quilted in my sunny new sewing room, baby asleep in a bassinet by my side, I soaked up the moment for its delicious, undeserved perfection.  This beautiful new space coming to fruition at the same time as this precious, healthy new life - it fills my heart so full, so thankful.

Please, come in, come in!  I've hung some things on the wall and sorted myself out.  Would you like a tour?

Coming into the room, my desk and cabinets on are the left wall.  It's great to have my fabric cabinet right beside my desk for easy reference when fabric shopping online!

In the center of the room is my work table.  Then the wall opposite my desk has those three windows that look out towards the forest.  I love them so.

The room is rather large, since I plan to host weekend workshops for eight students in this space.  There is enough room to bring in another large work table.  But for now, Elora's rug is enjoying the sunniest spot in the room, under the two skylights.

When I asked for skylights in this room, I wasn't sure we could swing it.  Now they're my favorite thing about the space.  I'm so glad we made it work!  With five windows in this room, plus the two sky lights, it's well lit even on rainy, cloudy days.  And on sunny days like yesterday... it feels like I'm working outside!

The skylights are strategically placed near my design wall.  I wanted to be sure to have natural light for photographing works in progress, something I always struggled with in my dark sewing area.  We ended up stretching the whole twenty foot wall with batting!  Thanks to a bolt of Warm and Natural, I had a strong piece of batting large enough to do the job.

Brandon drew some level lines on the wall to mark the edges of the batting and of the window trim, which he'll use to frame it.  (You can see the skylight above his head!)  Then he stapled the batting around all four sides, stretching it tight, plus one horizontal row of staples through the middle for extra support.

After that, I just cut off the excess batting to within his marked lines.  Done!  Well, except for the trim.  We didn't have time for that this weekend.

Of course, I lost no time putting some things up on the design wall!  Those hourglasses are a scrap project just because.

It's tough to capture the size of the design wall with my lense, but this picture gives you a sense of things.  I could definitely fit two throw quilts up on the wall with space to spare.  Oh, joy!

It will be interesting to see how this wall holds up.  My experience is that Warm & Natural batting is sturdy enough to resist sagging.  But on this scale... time will tell!  The good thing is I can always take down the batting and use it for an actual quilt.  One of my old, moveable design walls has already been put to use as batting in my tunnel quilt.

I can see the design wall from across my work table.  It extends from the corner of the skylight area to the French doors of the entry.

So, sitting at my work table, I have the design wall across from me, my fabrics to the right, and if I swivel my chair all the way round...

My ironing board and scrap drawer system are right behind me in easy reach!

This weekend we hung Eleni's nursery letters in my new sewing room, as well as a mini Flowers for Eleni garland that was made in her memory.  In this glorious space with mementos of my lost baby and the sights and sounds of the rest of my family, I feel surrounded by love, nature and handmade beauty.  It often strikes me as strange to be happy again like this, to look with glad expectation towards the future, to feel lucky, blessed.  But it's real.

Joy and loss all woven together, the realest thing.