Tin LIzzie is Ready to Go!

I'm trying to stick to my plan, which means I'm not currently quilting on my Tin Lizzie, but I am anxious to. Right now my plan is:

September- finish as many quilt tops as I can
October- Quilt as many quilts as I can
November and December- work on Christmas gifts
January- back to quilting

It's hard to stick with finishing quilt tops when I've got a brand new Tin Lizzie to play with, but I know in the long run this is the best option. I had WAY too many projects going at once, and I need to get those cleaned up before I start on Christmas presents. The best way to clean up quilt pieces is to at least get them into quilt tops. I use skirt hangers, and hang all my pressed quilt tops in a closet in the guest room. They will be ready to quilt whenever I get to them, with a minimum amount of pressing to do. If I've pieced a back for the quilt, it gets hung with the quilt top.  

Last weekend, I moved my Bernina into the living room, and set myself up a sewing corner.

I replaced some of the plastic drawers that left with my kids, and now my scrap user system is readily available again. Having it in totes shoved into closets was not working for me at all. Drawers are much easier access, both when using the scrap user system and putting away scraps I've cut to the sizes I save. The drawers that were empty in this photo are now full of thread cones. I decided now that I'll be quilting more regularly, having my thread cones easily available instead of in a tote under the stairs was a good idea. 

I spied this cabinet at Hobby Lobby and fell in love. A scrappy bunch of drawers, how can a scrappy quilter resist that? This is now just to the right of my Bernina cabinet in the living room, and holding all my other sewing threads that aren't big cones. I had another cabinet for threads that I also got at Hobby Lobby a couple years ago, but now I'll be storing quilting rulers and templates in it. I'm hoping to expand my quilting template now that I have a long arm. 

Here is my Tin Lizzie in the Arrow Quilty cabinet. I am still using a set of shelves to the left of the cabinet to keep the quilts from falling off the cabinet. I like quilting in a corner, because if the quilt can't fall off the cabinet, there is a lot less drag when you are maneuvering the quilt. I still have quite a bit to do to get this set up the way I want it. I haven't put the accessories I want readily available in the drawer, or cleaned up all the quilt parts on the set of black shelves. I told you, too many projects, and now I need to sew like crazy to get as many as I can into quilt tops, just to clean things up a bit. 

The throat or harp space (whichever term you prefer) is 7.5 inches x 4.5 inches. The harp space on my Tin Lizzie is 18 inches by 6 inches. You want to see what kind of difference that actually is?

I took several measurements, and cut the green paper the exact size and shape of my Bernina 440 harp. Can you see how much more space I'll have quilting on the Tin Lizzie? This should make things so much easier. I'm sure I will still get sore quilting, I make a lot of king sized quilts and they get heavy, but not having to cram a king sized quilt through that tiny space? Amazing!

I've been sewing quilts into rows, and I have three ready to sew the rows together and finish assembly. I've been using the hundreds of 3" nine patches I need for DD#3's wedding quilt as my leader/enders while assembling. I have over half of the tiny nine patches done now. Next blog post I hope to have at least three quilt tops to show you!