Wednesday Work – of Quilts and Shops

Posted on 10/21/2021 by Andrew Reynolds

Yeah, it’s really Thursday but when you’re retired the months kind of merge together. Currently my time keeping is more like: breakfast time, tea time, dinner time, and not a good time to be out driving to the store time.

Last Friday Heather and I attended the church’s quilting group. It’s not a formal kind of group, they just get together once a month in the social hall and everyone brings a project along to work on. I was able to take advantage of the large tables to do the pinning on my quilt. This step pins the batting, top and backing together. Next step will be doing the actual machine quilting to sew all three layers together. I didn’t do much on the quilt over the summer as there was a lot of work to do outside, but now that winter is settling it, there will be more indoor time to work on things like quilts.

The pinned up quilt. Next step is the quilting process. Coffee is a necessary supply for quilt pinning – in fact I should have bought the larger size.
Close up of the pinning for the quilt. My fingers hurt just thinking about putting those all in.

On the woodworking shop shed, I finished installing the floor and baseboards in the shed shop and have started moving stuff in. I also started unboxing tools and projects. I’m hoping to get a couple of Christmas decoration projects done on the scroll saw and get started on some projects for my sewing room.

Here’s the current progress (still a mess):

Moving in. Two racks setup, some projects unboxed and for those concerned about safety, that’s one of two fire extinguishers I have for the shed. Now the idea is to never need them, but I do have two just in case.

The shed shop is for small projects – mostly scroll saw and marquetry work so the real workhorse in here is the scroll saw:

The scroll saw and marquetry bench in place and almost ready to work. Yes, that’s a frying pan on a hot plate. It’s not for lunches – the pan is filled with sand and is used for sand shading veneer.

I set these up so I’ll have a view of the garden when I’m working. This space is heated so I can work in here over the winter.

In the garage shop, or what I’m starting to call my heavy tool shop, I’ve moved enough stuff out to the shed so I have room to move:

Here’s the progress on the garage workshop. There is now real room to move around. The table saw asked for the hat, it said it liked the hat and thought it would look good wearing it … I never argue with table saws …

This space will have my larger, duster machines like the table saw, planner, jointer, sanders and router table. I’ve got dust collection in here. It’s harder to heat this space so I expect there will be winter days I can’t work out here. This is where I’ll be doing larger work like cabinets or anything that needs the table saw. The idea is that most of my machines will be on carts so I can pull out the machine I’m working with to the center area. It’s a long narrow space so it’s a bit of a challenge to figure out where to store things and how to get the machines setup. Now that I’ve freed up some space, I can really get started on setting this up.

That’s it for this week – if you need me, I’ll be in the shop(s).

About Andrew Reynolds

Born in California Did the school thing studying electronics, computers, release engineering and literary criticism. I worked in the high tech world doing software release engineering and am now retired. Then I got prostate cancer. Now I am a blogger and work in my wood shop doing scroll saw work and marquetry.
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37 Responses to Wednesday Work – of Quilts and Shops

  1. wolfsrosebud says:
    11/02/2021 at 5:31 am

    Yes, a Big table us a must. I admire the fact you take on such a big project. I have my hands full with small projects 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Dave says:
    10/29/2021 at 10:15 am

    Okay, I’ll bite Andrew. What is “sand shading veneer” and why do you need to heat the sand beforehand?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Andrew Reynolds says:
      10/29/2021 at 1:15 pm

      sand shading is related to pyrography. Basically you heat the sand very hot, stick a piece of veneer in it and this slightly darkens the wood. This is a way to vary the color of a piece or shad it. An example would be a bird’s wing tip is darker than the rest of the wing. In marquetry, we’d cut the piece for the wing and stick the wing tip in the hot sand to darken the tip. Personally I don’t use it much, but like to have the option.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Mama's Empty Nest says:
    10/25/2021 at 8:16 am

    So…are you busier now that you’re retired than when you worked because it just seems to be that way for a lot of us? 😉 I really like the quilt!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Diane Henders says:
    10/24/2021 at 9:46 am

    Wow, your shop is taking shape – how exciting! I love your quilt’s colours – so subtle and warm. I’d be afraid to leave a cup of coffee anywhere near my workspace, though. I’m just not that lucky… 😉

    Liked by 1 person

  5. G. J. Jolly says:
    10/23/2021 at 6:30 pm

    Does this mean your car sits outside in heat and rain?

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Baydreamer says:
    10/23/2021 at 6:56 am

    You are lucky to have space for your hobbies and they look great. And the quilt is beautiful!

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Debra says:
    10/22/2021 at 5:14 pm

    You definitely make the most of your space, and seem to have set aside individual rooms for each craft. I envy that, to be sure! Your quilt is coming along brilliantly!

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Sheila Landry Designs says:
    10/22/2021 at 3:35 pm

    Beautiful progress. Such a bright and wonderful place for you to create, Andrew! I don’t know why but I didn’t see this post until now. Can I blame Gmail? 😉 You are getting to the finish line after a long road. I am excited for you! Have a great weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Nadine Gordon says:
    10/22/2021 at 7:35 am

    You are very busy!
    Your quilt looks awesome!
    I can’t wait to see how your wood working projects progress!

    Liked by 1 person

  10. jfwknifton says:
    10/22/2021 at 12:04 am

    If that’s a mess, they haven’t invented the word for our cellar yet.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. June Lorraine Roberts says:
    10/21/2021 at 5:52 pm

    It’ll be a great space 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Dave Foyle says:
    10/21/2021 at 3:03 pm

    Wow! Your work shed is definitely getting there. It looks like you’ve got a music setup for blasting the newest sea shanty releases!

    Happy retirement! (It’s great, huh?)

    Liked by 2 people

  13. davidprosser says:
    10/21/2021 at 1:15 pm

    Busy, busy, busy. Watch that back. Answer me a question. When you quilt is the finished product like a throw to decorate a bed or sofa? I just want to see if it’s that, or as we would see a quilt as a thick duvet to go on the bed for warmth.
    Hugs

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Pied Type says:
    10/21/2021 at 12:57 pm

    You are so industrious!

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Jacqui Murray says:
    10/21/2021 at 12:50 pm

    You have been very busy!

    Liked by 1 person

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