Entrance to the Artist's Studio

To get to my studio you walk down stairs to the basement and enter through an opening. I used to hang a Guatemalan weaving in the doorway but it got annoying having to brush past it all the time so I took it down.

Our basement is fairly deep underground so we only have small basement windows. Actually this is good as strong direct sunlight doesn't fall on my fabric stash. As you know direct sunlight is not good for fabric, it fades it. You open up a piece of yardage and find sections with bleached out colour and lines from the sun. If you do have a lot of light then put your fabric behind doors or some kind of barrier and they will be fine.

The other thing I do is put my fabrics in open wire cubes to let the air in. You never know how much moisture gets trapped in a basement and I don't want to find out!

In this photo you can see one of my fractal quilts in progress on the design wall behind the ironing board.

I like to have a message board available so the moment an idea pops into my head it can get written down. This board is also useful for keeping note of how many hours I work on any particular piece. If you look closely you can see the ticks for Upon Reaching Middle Age: Grease. It took me one hundred and twenty five hours to make it and I faithfully put a tick for each hour and crossed through every five.

My husband gave me the center table. It was originally in his workshop. The original owners of the house left it for us, the husband was a woodworker. Not surprising they left it as it was heavy. David glued a sheet of while formica on the top and then strips of wood around the edge to finish it off and make it a useable surface.

Underneath the table are crates holding it up. They have been turned on their sides so I can use the dividers as shelves. This is where I keep my collection of cigar boxes given to me by a friend. All my beads and novelty hand embroidery threads are kept in them. To protect the threads from the acid in the wood I put them in plastic bags without sealing them so air can circulate.

Back to the Artist's Home Studio

Rose Rushbrooke
Artist, Quiltmaker,
Fractalist and Character Animator