A New Studio at Home

When I first started Amanda Jane Textiles in 2014, my studio space was on the mezzanine floor of our home in County Durham. You can see the photos in a post here. Later, I rented a studio, along with other artists, in the historic buildings of Ushaw (see the post here). In May 2021, we moved to a small cottage in Kent (mentioned here) Since then I’ve been able to rent studio space in a nearby church hall, which has allowed me to use my sewing machine, store my fabrics and carry on my business.

Now it’s time for a studio next to the house. I did lots of research and settled on a garden office (a studio to me) from Dunster House. It was delivered flat packed onto the drive for us to assemble. This is how it went…

The first job was to disassemble the old shed which was on its last legs.

The pieces were taken away by an efficient refuse removal firm.

Then the base timbers of the new studiowere joined together and levelled up.

Here, the metal brackets that hold the walls are being attached to the base.

The panels go in and are linked together, starting at the centre back. They are screwed to the base brackets.

The three panels on the right-hand side are now in and the right-hand side of the door frame is being added.

The left-hand door frame is in and two of the left-hand side panels are in place.

The last left-hand panel is in and the final panel (the left back) is being linked to the right-hand panel.

The roof trusses are linked with the ridge beam.

The roof supports go in.

All the roof supports are in and are clamped in place.

The roof goes on.

The floor goes in.

The floor is screwed down (by me – someone else took this photo!)

The window frames and door frames go in.

The glass is added to the windows and doors.

An electrician comes in to run a new cable from the house and install the electrics in the studio – power-points and an overhead light.

Starting to paint the interior.

A lino fitter lays a floor.

The finished paintwork.

Time to move in.

From now on, my one-to- one class ‘Quilt in a Day’ (details here) will take place in the new studio

Big thanks to Tom, Luke, Chris and Mark for the initial build!

Thank you for reading my blog. Quilt patterns are here, Fabrics are here, Classes are here and quilts for sale here

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Here is my ‘Artist’s Stripe’ fabric, available from the Spoonflower website here

And here is the fabric made up into a bag (suitable for carrying a large cutting mat and a 6 x 24″ ruler (or, alternatively a large sketch-pad and a set of brushes. Get the pattern here