My Portable Sewing Room

I finished up three wonderful days in Wickenburg and Marilyn and Thelecia volunteered to drive me three hours to Tucson...rumor has it Marilyn was only after chicken tacos at her favorite Mexican restaurant!

I am currently snugged up at a great hotel in Tucson and enjoying some down time before speaking for the Tucson Quilt Guild this evening and tomorrow morning. I have the perfect setting to set up my "sewing studio". Since my previous blog was destroyed on how I set up my portable sewing spaces I thought I would recreate it with my space here in Tucson.

I found an airplane overhead carry-on suitcase at Targetthat fits my Juki sewing machine perfectly. I have it heavily padded with green foam rubber chunks for protection and have silver duct tape on the outside marking the suitcase as fragile. I don't always get to fly on a big plane and have to check this bag planeside so this will hopefully give the baggage guys a heads up....right...I know...it makes me feel better though!

I always use a long ironing board to one side to hold extra stuff like my laptop and paperwork...bring an extra power strip with me to plug all my stuff into. I will usually use a hotel suitcase rack lined with a bath towel to hold all my threads and notions. This hotel room came equipped with bar stools so I am using those instead!

Hotels are not known for their quality lighting so I am lucky enough to have one permanently attached to my machine. It is a led lighting system produced by
Ecolux Lighting and I can sew in the darkest of rooms and have lots of light to do my fine detail work.

I always ask for a room with 2 beds and use one of those beds to lay all the quilts out on...it happened to be a sunny afternoon and when I tossed the Reflections quilt out on the bed I loved how it captured the sunlight.

I have been VERY busy and focused on The Nuns Quilt and am happy to report that I have about 12" left on one side to complete the heavy-duty quilting...whew. I have loads of little ripping and details to add but at least the majority of it will be done.

I have added an overall picture of the quilt to the top of this post for reference. I am contacting convents in France trying to locate the original convent that created this piece back in the early 1940's...I am referencing this blog so they can see what the linen looks like. If anyone has any information please let me know...

Hugs, Cindy