Sewing Rooms.
I finally had some time to organize my sewing room over the weekend. When I say organize, I mean get everything put away and off of the tables :). It’s far from being as organized as I’d like. I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas for organizing my fabric, and have been debating between a dresser, shelves, or some sort of combination maybe? I thought I’d share a few inspiring rooms with you today.
I’m sure you’ve all seen The Sugar Shop:
Yep, the talented Heather Bailey spends her time creating in there. Wouldn’t that be nice? I think I’d definitely be more creative in a space like that.
Jenny from Allsorts used bright blue and red to accent her amazing room:
Take a closer look at her fabric hutch:
And since I’ve always wanted a pink sewing room…
Chaletgirl’s room certainly makes me jealous!
Obviously we can’t all have sewing rooms like these. In fact, most of us can’t. Some of us have a whole room to dedicate to sewing and crafting, some have a corner in another room, and some use the good old dining room table when it’s time to create. No matter what space we have available, I’m sure we can all agree on one thing. Organization is essential. So here is the question for you:
What is your best tip for organizing your sewing space?
It could be a favorite place to store fabric, a way that you KEEP things organized (a hard one for me), or the great place you discovered to store scissors! I’d love to hear your thoughts. Maybe one day I’ll get my fabric out of the rubbermaid bins (I seem to like those, huh?) that it’s in :).
I have a little space in our family room… far from what I would like, but better than nothing! I have no tips so I’ll be coming back to read the other comments… :-D
Wow… I would love to have any one of the craft rooms you featured! As for my space, it is one of the rooms you see as soon as you walk into our home… and it has an archway, no door… so I am forced to keep it clean.. LOL! I have found that the old adage of a place for everything and everything in its place works for me… I have plastic see-thru bins (labeled) for all my different sewing needs, as well as baskets for larger items. I have used the same color (green) as the room for all my accessories.. it just makes it feel more like a complete space, and one that I enjoy working in every day.
Drool, Drool, Drool. Those sewing rooms are amazing!! Thanks for sharing–except now I will never be satisfied with my own little sewing corner! :oP
I have no ideas or hints..my space is a non space..I have a spare room in the house that is a den..no doors on it, just a double doorway opening..you see it first thing. what I did to hide it was put up some draperies on a rod with a tieback so they loook good open or closed.
Right now I have an oversized office desk suite in there with my desktop computer. I need to take everything out and start fresh. If only I had the energy to do that. I will keep an eye out here maybe someone in my same kind of mess..
Barb
Wow! I even have my own craft room, but they aren’t near this fabulous!! Okay, my number one tip: SPRING CLEAN! I know all of these rooms are fabulous, but if you really look at them, there isn’t a place to actually work cause they have so many supplies taking up so much room. I go through all of my sewing and crafting supplies quite regularly. {Eww, I just realized that I sounded kinda negative, I am not trying to be} :)
My craft space is actually a little nook in the kitchen with a peg board, a few shelves, and a sewing table. Very small! I have to be organized because I have such a small space. The peg board helps A LOT! You can buy all different kinds of hardware to go on it to hold just about anything. This is where I keep my scissors. I also have a bunch of photo boxes from hobby lobby that I have labeled and put things in. I also know that there is such a thing as a scissors rack. And also I have heard that a magnetic strip that you would see in a kitchen wall to hold knives, works with scissors. Good luck on your room!
Currently I have a tiny corner of our living room, stuck back behind the couch where I do all my sewing. I keep my fabric in a Rubbermaid drawer set in another room.
My best organizational “tool” is the cork board I stuck up on the wall right next to my sewing desk. I can keep a list of all my current project, notes for patterns, extra pattern pieces for dart markings, etc hung up right next to me. I even use my old sewing machine needles as pins to hang things from (they don’t work well for items that you have to take the needle in & out a lot since they leave a bigger hole & need to be pushed in further).
I also use a plain pork & beans can (I haven’t even had the time to cover it with fabric to make it look pretty!) for my scissors, pencils, seam ripper & everything else, but got sick of my embroidery scissors getting lost on my desk. So I added an elastic pony tail holder around the outside of the can, so it holds my small scissors against the can, then added a piece of fabric scrap tied on to make it easy to pull the elastic away from the can when I put them away.
Oh man, Heather Bailey’s room is insane . . . and of course she is a Mac girl ;) I have a closet . . . well at least part of a closet, and everything gets stored in there then pulled out when I’m sewing. My best tip is don’t let your toddler know what is IN the closet!
Oh, the second is my favorite, but they’re all dreamy!
I think my favorite organizational thing I did in my craft room was hanging a peg board on the wall and covering it with fabric. It’s pretty and super functional. I also love using old jars to store anything from paint brushes to buttons.
You can check it out here…
http://craftopotamus.blogspot.com/2010/06/craft-room-redesign.html
i have half a room and one closet to store all of my sewing, crocheting, knitting, AND scrapbooking stuff in! one thing i do for yarn is put it in one of those hanging shoe organizers that velcro over the closet rod. i imagine you could store fabric/whatnot in there too? i too am looking for a good way to store extra fabric. what about a tall narrow dvd/video holder?
Ah, Sewing Room Porn. We can dream, can’t we?
Such beautiful rooms! Wow! Maybe some day…
For now, the best thing in my sewing room are the cube storage units (you can get these at wal-mart or similar stores) they are wire squares that you put together to make cubes. They are great for storing fabric, and you can buy baskets that fit them (which I use for scraps) and all of my scissors and cutters fit nicely through the holes on top and are ready for use, and easy to put away.
i just started sewing so I don’t have any great tips. I can’t wait to see what everyone else says!
Wow. Totally crushing on these rooms right now!!
I wish I had an awesome tip. For me, it is constant reorganizing and purging/donating things I rarely use. It is hard to part with supplies – but I have a very limited space to work in. Someone else can put those items to use (I hope).
Great topic… I am currently trying to get my husband out of the spare room he uses for an office so I can turn it into my sewing room. Or total redo my current little sewing room/office. Mostly office at this point. I will keep an eye on this post to see any good suggestions. For all my sewing notions I use one of those makeup caddies from targets dorm room essentials area. It is snapware and has three little box stacked. The top two are great for scissors, rotary cutter, other sharp things, fabric pens and pencils, quilting gloves, wooden press and such. The bottom compartment is my favorite because it has two removable trays that have little lids and three compartments each. They are the perfect size for sewing machine feet and needles.
Ooooh…they are so pretty! My sewing room is pretty uninspirational right now. :( Just the spare bedroom/catch all where I have my sewing table, a shelf to hold my fabrics, a hutch for supplies and my ironing board. A sewing room makeover is definitely on my to do list!
I felt pretty good about my sewing room at one time, but I am due for a total makeover now and I could use some inspiration. I am lucky enough to have an extremely large space (it is 18″X30″) but it is dull and uninspiring.
I have tried all kinds of organizing shelves and bins and I still tend to let everything pile up on tables and even end up with piles on the floor, boxes of supplies stacked everywhere and plastic bags of supplies that I search for but have no clue where I dropped them.
I have certain items that I am meticulous about keeping in an assigned place because I can’t stand searching for scissors or seam rippers or marking pens etc.
Something I realized when looking at the pretty craft rooms is that the space itself would motivate you to keep it tidy and organized so that you can enjoy the feeling of working in a beautiful space.
So I think that is the direction I am going to take, is to actually design a pretty room with colors and furnishings I enjoy and then organize my supplies within it. This is what I have been trying to put my finger on all along, so thank you for getting me on the right track. I’ll hopefully be posting some pics of new room soon on my blog, will let you know!
I made a craft room earlier this year and it has made things so much faster & more organized. You’ve shown some gorgeous examples. You can see how I did mine here: http://sewcando.blogspot.com/2010/04/85-craft-room-unveiling.html
My tip is to always put stuff back in the same place when you’re done. Even if I’m going to work on a project the next morning, I still put all my gear back so that it’s easy to find and within arm’s reach (and out of kids’ reach).
Love the sewing room. I am currently working on mine. Just trying to figure out what color to paint the room right now.\
Sharon