I have been working like crazy for the past few days! This month has been super busy! But I am seeing my months ahead get busier! And good kind of busier!

There will be a few changes here at 13 Woodhouse Road!

First, there will be a whole new site! Yay!
I finally succumbed and am building a store + website on Shopify
I'm super excited to put it all together. Last year, I designed my other website - www.shrutidandekar.com. Now I am combining both of these and putting them together on Shopify. If you click on any of those sites, you will land on the same page.
Sign up for my newsletter to stay informed!
There will be a store section where you have the option to buy my quilts, some PDF patterns (right now I have 3, but more will come - I promise), some online classes (videos too!!!!) and some FREEBIES!
All my tutorials will be put together in one place. PLUS, I will have a Basics of Quilting series on YouTube!
Now, are you excited?
Wait!
There's more!

I have recently started training and mentoring sessions for creative entrepreneurs! So all my friends who run a wonderful creative business from their homes, you will also have loads of content for you!
I will have classes (online) for various aspects of your business! I will also have articles for the same. My lessons will be (mostly) targeted at the Indian Women Entrepreneur, but I am sure everyone can benefit from them!

I already have a weekly session on a Facebook Group The Indian Women's Club. I discuss one topic related to Entrepreneurship every week. You can sign up to get the weekly posts (about 12-15 posts) right in your inbox by clicking here!

Is that all? NO!
There's more!
I also have a FREE 7 day eCourse for you all!!!

It will help you prepare for an upcoming Craft Fair (Shows) or Exhibitions (as they are popularly known in India)
You can sign up for the course here!

Now, are you excited???
Not as excited as me!
I'm hoping to get the website up and running by next Sunday!
The blog will still be there, but I will not be carrying over all the old posts. So if there is something specific that you want me to carry forward, do let me know!

There are many more things happening with me at 13 Woodhouse Road. All will be revealed in due course of time! One things is certain, we are all going to enjoy these new changes!

Cheers!!!

Hiya there!!!

Its my turn on the color wheel!!! And I am super excited. Especially since my color is my favorite - actually my brand color - Orange!!!

When Fat Quarter Shop invited me to be a part of the Art Gallery Fabrics Stitched :  Symphony Quilt along, I was overjoyed to say yes! It took my fabric ages to arrive. But I got it in time to make one block and make it into a mini quilt for my mother-in-law.



I will definitely be making a larger one with this pattern. It just comes together very fast!

You can go to the Fat Quarter Shop's Jolly Jabber  to find the blog post, video and the other wonderful quilters who are quilting along!

I chose to make mine in the beautiful Wonderful Things fabric by Bonnie Christine.



I absolutely love this line - especially the beautiful Wash Aquarelle Study that I used for the backing!


Here is the front of the quilt. I love the beautiful floral fabrics and the fact that the quilt came together super fast!


I used a zig-zag quilting stitch on Ross - my Bernina 710  with my Dual Feed System. I love how it combines the ease of straight line quilting and the crinkly look of free motion quilting!


Sometimes everything just comes together in a beautiful manner! This quilt brought my new favorite fabric (somebody please gift me a bolt of that lovely Wash Aquarelle Study!!!), my new favorite quilting design and a quick-to-come-together pattern!!!

I used Aurifil 2115 (Lemon) in 50 wt to piece and quilt it.



Super happy to gift this quilt to my Mother in Law!

BTW, here is a sneak peek at what is involved in getting that perfect shot of your quilt!



Sometimes its all just worth it!!!


Cheers!!!

I'm back with the Aurifil Block of the Month! And this month we have the super talented Sarah Maxwel as our designer of the month and she is using the awesome colour Red-Orange to make her block!!!



Head over to Auribuzz to read more about her and to download her June Challenge Block!

If you have been following me for a while, you must have realized I haven't been posting much on the blog lately. 

That's the reason I jumped and said yes when Cheryl announced the blog hop, I absolutely jumped onto the train!


That will give me a  reason to clean my studio, I thought!!! I had ignored my studio ever since i came back from Quiltcon. Other things had taken priority and needed my immediate attention. As a result I could not find ANYTHING that I needed and the studio had become an unbearable mess.

For those who are new to my blog, I had got my dream studio three years back! It was absolutely breathtaking!!!





It had a lot of things that were custom made for my studio!


And lots of flat surfaces.

But lately there was a problem. The crack in my studio wall that inspired this quilt grew wider. And soon the windows wouldn't close properly and closing and locking the main door became a task that was more and more impossible to do everyday!

The roof was also leaking. Renovation was inevitable. So I decided to move into a smaller cottage while the studio was renovated. 

My plan, use an adjoining room to temporarily hold stuff that I could do without for a while and only move things that I needed for the next 3 months.

Ha! ha!

Apparently, the expenses for the renovations are out of my budget for the moment! So it was either continue working in a leaking studio where I needed a handyman to just open and then close and lock the door every night or moving into the smaller cottage kind of semi-permanently.

I chose the later option. (Like I really had a choice there!)

I had two of our regular handymen to move all the stuff into the new space. After they finished tearing down a partition that was in the middle of the room, they only had one extra day to help me. So I got them to move ALL my stuff into the tiny new studio!

Wanna look what it looked like at that stage?



This still was after I had cleared most of my fabric and put it into my new plastic bins.

At the end of Day 1 it looked like I would finally have some sanity!



But it was far from finished! I stopped working when I could walk no more!

The second day was easier! And by the evening my studio was almost done!

This was sometime mid-day!!!



The process of downsizing was downright agonizing! But I finally managed to fit my 500 sq ft studio into a meager 250 sq ft. 

I gave away 8 BIG plastic bags worth of stuff!!!

Wanna see my new space???

Clear surfaces!!! Quilts on the wall!!! Yay! I'm sure a happy girl!!!


My mini quilts on the design wall along with an Aurifil shade card. Thats because the cupboard under it holds all my Aurifil thread in clear plastic boxes!



My yardage sits in the metal cupboards while anything less than a yard sits in these plastic boxes under my cutting table.


The space where I keep Ross. The design wall in front of my worktable is covered with wonderful quilts I have received in swaps over the years!  

These quilts remind me of the awesomeness I have experienced in the quilting community!



My sewing table and cutting table are side by side so that I can use the larger surfaces when I am quilting a larger quilt.


By the door hangs a quilt made by Sonalee - I loved this quilt the moment I laid my eyes on it and actually bought it from her! The sunflower had me mesmerized!!!


 After all that hard work, I just sat back and had a cup of steaming hot tea!!! See that lovely coasted under the cup? I won it in a giveaway from my mentor Kathleen Probst! And she sent it to me via a friend at QuiltCon!!! 


 I love my new studio. I need to get a lot of things done here including some basic electrification as well as painting. The electrician will be here on Monday, but everything else will wait till after Diwali. I want to use the space for some time before I decide how I want to organize it.

To end with here are my tips if you ever need to downsize your studio.

First, put everything you have in ONE ROOM. Cover any and every flat surface that you have. Take a garbage bag and start filling it. Toss in all trash. Anything broken beyond repair gets tossed in. Anything that is 'yuck' gets tossed in. Fill as many bags as you have to. Get those bags out of the room. 

Now take another bag. This will be the donate bag. Toss in anything that you have forgotten you had! Toss in anything you don't like. Toss in anything you haven't used in about 18 months! Toss in anything that you think is 'meh'. If you spend more than 30 seconds thinking whether you want to keep something, toss it in! Don't overthink. Be ruthless!!! Someone is going to be very happy to get all this stuff! Fill as many bags as you need to. Before you change your mind, put the bags in your car. Or better still, after you finish working on the studio, invite fellow quilters and ask them to pick whatever they want from those bags and go home! Make it a studio-warming party!

Now take a hard look at what you have left over. Group items together eg. Bag making supplies, cutting tools, finished goods, batting, fabric, etc. Assign spaces to groups. And then start putting away stuff. Keep one trash bag and one donate bag handy. When you put stuff away, you might be inspired to get rid of some stuff. Go ahead and follow your instinct.

After you have put everything in place! Clean! Vacuum and mop. Spray some air freshener or light your favorite scented candle.  

Now its time to DECORATE. Use your imagination and resources to deck up your space. Your space needs to be functional but it also needs to inspire you. You have to want to get out of bed and rush there, especially after downsizing. Downsizing is hard. It has such a negative feeling to it. So when you beautify your space it inspires you to be positive. Make the space your own.

Do you like my new space? 

Its not as glamorous as my old one, but I know I am going to love it.

Want to see what other bloggers are up to in the blog hop?


Here's the complete list

Its that time of the month again!!! This is May and the Aurifil Designer of the month is Mathew Boudreaux! I have been following him for a long time now and I'm a huge fan of his work too!

His colour was Red and he has done a great job with it!!!


Head over to Auribuzz to know more about Mathew and download his Faux Weave Block!!!

Its April, and once again, its time for the Aurifil Block of the month, This month we have the colour Red-Purple and the Designer is Sue Marsh.


Head over to Auribuzz to know more about Sue and her work and to download her New Direction block.