My Dye Studio
Karoda asked months ago, when I posted pictures of my studio, if I could show my dye studio. I finally cleaned it up enough I’m willing to do so.
My dye studio is in the basement with the sewing studio, in the unfinished part, and it’s not very fancy. But I also do very simple easy dyeing and don’t need much equipment.
This is it (the door leads to the sewing studio):
Just to the right of this space is where I store batting, fabric to dye, my grandma’s old floor quilting frame and a bunch of other random things. You can see my furnace (that big shiny thing on the right of the picture) sits right next to all of this so it’s not exactly glamorous.
Storage:
My basement is, um, rather large. I have a storage area for camping equipment, holiday decorations, boxes and all sorts of other junk. I’m not showing it because I didn’t quite finish cleaning that area up. And how exciting can backpacking tents be?
But the largest part of the unfinished basement is an area for my kids (9 & 13) to make their art. They used to have no rules for what they could do in this area. Until they became modern painters and were flinging paint on the wall and floors. They called it paint boomerangs, mom called it a mess and put a stop to it. So now they are a bit more restrained, but not much. They love having this space to do their own thing and not have to worry about spills or messes. This past weekend we installed better lighting over their tables and cleaned up a few years of accumlated clutter. It is rarely this organized.
Kids art desks:
Running along the wall next to my dye tables is the kid art gallery (pinned to 2″ thick styrofoam sheets attached to the cement walls, which keep the basement just a bit warmer in winter):
Posted by Lisa in: Making Abstract Contemporary Textile Art
DebR said,
November 29, 2005 @ 10:12 pm
Ooooh, I LOVE the kids’ art gallery!!
Mary Timme said,
November 30, 2005 @ 7:55 am
Wow! Lisa, your kids art studio look a lot like my quilting area. Except they have more space for hanging their art! Actually our whole basement is unfinished (first we’ve ever had) and I love it! We painted the cement walls white for more light and I have tables for cutting and sewing. That’s it!
I have studio envy right now!
Mary
Felicity said,
November 30, 2005 @ 11:25 am
What a wonderful environment for your children! I haven’t visited your blog for a few days so I have to say your photos of Sante Fe are amazing and the instructions for basting a quilt are really useful! No. 1 is quite difficult though…
Pat Dolan said,
November 30, 2005 @ 4:33 pm
Your children are VERY fortunate - both in their artistic mom and in the amount of play/art space they have available!!! I used to have a huge basement - before the little townhouse…now I have none. When I did, the kids and grandkids did have lots of play and creative space. And if I did have such a basement now, my dye studio would look much like yours, but messier - as I suspect yours is much of the time, ’cause you USE it!!! I especially like the idea of the 2″ styrofoam for dual purpose practicality. Maybe in our NEXT house… when retirement becomes more than a dream!
Vikki said,
December 1, 2005 @ 5:30 am
Man! My kids would love all that space.
Karoda said,
December 1, 2005 @ 5:30 pm
This space is awesome and your dye space looks like the ideal image I have in my head for my own one day. Thank you for sharing.