Did you miss March’s Sewtopia Sewing Club highlighting sewing rooms in our area and seeing organizational ideas? We have uploaded all the sewing room pictures that I took or that were e-mailed to me. Check out Cleo’s sewing room, and before and after pictures of my sewing room after a good cleaning!
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Shown above: Darlene’s sewing room
I was surprised to see how many sewing rooms have more than two sewing machines set up and ready to use, and how many people have a cutting table completely open and ready for the next project. What a treat!
Highlights
Gerry Lynn creatively used the sides from her own baby crib, hung them on a door and then displayed finished quilts on them.
Cleo combined an ironing and pressing station to an all-in-one unit. The top is padded and covered to press on. Then lift it up to rotary cut. Notice the iron sits off to the side so not to get in the way!
Darlene owns more than one of the Horn drawer units with shallow drawers to help keep trims, beads, paints, rulers all contained yet easy to find and organize. She also enjoys having a rotary cutting mat right next to her sewing machine as she works on small art quilts with many pieces.
“Magic Curtains” were found in many sewing rooms to disguise additional storage areas and to keep sunlight and dust off of fabric stashes. Watch the entire slide show to see what is behind these two curtains!
Did you know that a freezer is the perfect height to use as a cutting table?
Here are my before and after pictures of the closet in my sewing room.
Getting Organized
You don’t want to spend the time looking for supplies and getting set up. A couple of hours organizing now will result in more time to sew later! If making time to organize is hard, try the “Fly Lady” way (see flylady.net) for inspiration to organize just 15 minutes at a time! PS: I use the Fly Lady website to help with keeping my house clean and break everyday tasks into manageable segments.
5 Steps to an Organized Studio
1. Sort. Go through your studio and sort each general element (e.g. fabrics, books and patterns, paints and dyes), then sort within the area (e.g. fabrics by color, books by theme).
2. Purge. As you sort, set aside materials and supplies you seldom—if ever—use. Make a plan to sell or donate those items.
3. Assign a home. Look at the materials you have left and think about how you use them. Keep all the supplies you use for a specific task together, or near each other (e.g. sewing machine, threads, bobbins, pins, in close proximity).
4. Contain. Now that you know what you have and how you use it, you have a better idea of your storage needs. See-through containers help you identify what’s in them instantly, but opaque containers—especially if they’re uniform—help reduce visual clutter. Mainly, it’s a matter of personal taste.
5. Equalize. Now that you have your space set up, set up a routine to maintain order daily. That doesn’t mean you have to clean up everything in the midst of a project. However, it’s a good idea to put away utensils like scissors, accessories and, etc. so that you can start right in the next time. A good way to do this is to stop working 10 minutes before you need to, and use that time to position your tools for the next use.
Click here to view all the sewing room pictures. Click on any picture to begin the slideshow!
Join us Tuesday, April 14, 2009 for a special “Baby Themed” Sewtopia Sewing Club at 10am, 2pm or 6:30pm. Click here for more information about Sewtopia!
Countdown: 63 days until the arrival of Baby Snuggerud!