Welcome to my Sewing Room, or How to Fit 10 Pounds of Sugar in a Five Pound Sack

Tweet My sewing room looks like a tornado hit it right after a show or busy time in my Etsy shop.  After the mess from preparing for the Irvington Halloween Festival last weekend, I spent a few hours Tuesday straightening things up.  I thought I’d take some pictures so I could share my sewing area with you guys – after all, it’s where I spend all my free time these days!

This room started off as our game room.  My husband has always been a fan of pool, and we bought the house when we didn’t have kids so we had plenty of room for one (and the expendable income to buy one).  As two kids took up our two spare rooms, the office-y stuff got moved in here. All of our household paperwork, our board games, and old pictures and CDs all ended up stored here, too (we have a tiny attic and no basement).  So I guess this room is now our game-room-office-storage-unit-sewing-room.


Much to my husband’s dismay, the pool table has become my work table.  I don’t usually cut fabric there – the island in our kitchen is higher and big enough to cut most things comfortably – but sometimes I cut smaller things on a cutting mat on top of the pool table.  I have come thisclose to cutting the felt a couple of times, so I have to be extra careful.

My husband built me this awesome corner desk after he bought me my serger for my birthday last winter.  I LOVE it – it’s big enough to use both machines, plus has room for the stuff that gathers on top, like that square plastic thing that holds thread and bobbins waiting to be put away, and the big tin bucket of pens and markers.  He also made the shelves above the desk, which hold my works-in-progress and future projects (in the Liberty print bins), boxes of scraps, my plastic boxes full of thread, and some fabric.  Above the desk are my two inspiration board areas, where I keep ideas for bobaloo! and stuff I want to make for myself.

 
One of my favorite things in my sewing room is this metal organizer bar from IKEA.  The little buckets hold groups of different tools – one has my sewing machine and serger feet, one holds my pins and seam gauges, one has my marking tools (like rulers, chalk, and disappearing ink pens), and one has sewing machine and hand sewing needles.  The little hooks hold my scissors and rotary cutter, my hammer for attaching snaps, and whatever else I can hang up there.  The whole setup keeps everything I need close at hand.

The stuff I don’t use as much is on the storage benches on either side of the room (which the talented hubs also built).  This drawer tower (also from IKEA – do you notice a theme here?  This one is similar) holds all of my fabric for bobaloo!.  The top level is interfacing, stabilizers, and fleece.  The drawers all hold fabric – the bottom is yardage, the next one up is big scraps, and the one above that is little scraps.  The top drawer is home dec and specialty fabrics.  They are organized by color right now, but chances are pretty good that won’t last long.


This bookcase holds my non-business related fabric, my knitting stuff, and lots of binders, books, and patterns.  On top is our bragging area – my State Fair ribbons, our medals from runs, and my husband’s pool trophies (from back when we actually used the pool table for its intended purpose).  We also have a big wardrobe from IKEA in our bedroom that holds most of my shipping boxes, all my packaging supplies, and my completed inventory.
 
Thanks for joining me in the tour of my sweatshop!  I have some fun things coming up – I shot a couple of new tutorials yesterday – plus my first giveaway is coming up.  When I reach 20 followers, I’ll have a 20-related giveaway, sound good?  So go ahead and click on the “follow” button on the left so we can get to the giveaway quickly!