Sewing Studio Tour

I am so thankful to Christina from 2 Little Hooligans for giving me the perfect kick in the pants to clean up and organize my space and take you on a little sewing studio tour!

My “studio” is our dining room, which is smack dab in the center of our house.  Our home was built in about 1918, so it has some cool features like arched doorways and original hardwood floors, but it also has small-ish rooms and not much natural light.

My cutting table is my favorite part of my studio – well, aside from my sewing machines!  I used to cut hunched over on a dining room table.   And not even a standard height table; this was an antique from my husband’s family and was at least two inches lower than modern furniture.  Ouch!

With hubby Dave’s blessing, I made a trip to IKEA and made myself a nice tall counter height cutting table.  This is a GALANT tabletop, two EXPEDIT cubes and CAPITA legs.  I built this about a year and a half ago and my back thanks me almost every single day.  I love standing there and cutting or pinning a project!  It’s tall enough that *for the most part*  little hands are deterred from playing with scissors or pins, and I only occasionally find a cat making himself comfortable up there.  I make sure to cover up projects for customers to avoid any kitty contamination while I’m away.

I have plenty of room for a large cutting mat, a metal bucket for clippings, and various tools at the ready – including a cut-resistant glove so I don’t have another rotary cutter incident.  It does not always look like this!  I timed taking photos in here so that I was ending a few projects and getting ready for a big one – an Etsy order for one of my playhouses – that would need all the available surface of the table.  Usually there are piles of fabrics on one end and stacks of pattern pieces all over the other.

On each side in the EXPEDIT cubes are baskets which store more tools and my fabric.  I try to have each basket with a dedicated purpose and things neatly organized inside.  I manage this pretty well until I’m looking for just the right fabric for a project and then everything comes undone.

I added a hook to hang my clear rulers and drafting curves right where I can grab them easily.

A few months ago as I was getting ready for Project Run & Play, I bought a RASKOG cart from IKEA which I utilize as my “on deck” cart.  I’ll put fabrics for upcoming projects or mending I need to do on here and I can roll it out as I need it.

This is where the rest of the work happens!  I have a Janome Memorycraft 9700 and a Bernina 800DL serger.  The table is made using another IKEA tabletop – this time the SANFRID stainless steel top, and the two cabinets are from the Bedford line at Pottery Barn *affiliate link.

I usually keep the ironing board to the left of my sewing space so I can iron easily as I work.  The cool houndstooth ironing board cover is from Compelled to Craft on Etsy.  It was one of those “yeah, I could totally make that, but it never seems to happen” things.  Sometimes it’s just easier to have someone else make it.  I absolutely did not realize when I was choosing the fabric that it coordinated with the dress in the polyptych painting above my sewing table.  That artwork is called “The Quilt” by a local artist and was Dave’s wedding present to me.  Maybe it was a subconscious thing?

I keep tools and things like zippers and bias binding in the drawer to my right.  This catch-all drawer received a nice tidying up a couple weeks ago while I was searching in vain for the buttonhole elastic I thought I had to make my Hosh pants for the Perfect Pattern Parcel.

Some more storage is found on the ladder shelf I built using reclaimed lumber from our old garage after we demoed it to buld our new garage a few years ago.  I share space with the girls’ dress-up stuff and hats and gloves for going outside.  Thread, batting and larger scraps of fabric destined for floor pillows are on the next shelf.  Then some odds and sods in the antique wooden crate and trims and bindings and jewelry stuff in the little basket.

My button jars have a happy home there, along with some washi tape.  Many of the blue canning jars were centerpieces at our wedding and reception.

So my space is not a peaceful, color-coordinated retreat like some of the ones I envy.  However, it allows me to be in the midst of my daughters while they’re playing and still get some sewing done.  I can finish an entire project in a handful of five minute bursts while they’re occupied in the play kitchen right next to me, or playing dress up in the living room.  While it’s not relaxing, it is conducive to productivity and I get my quiet time after the girls are asleep.

Is your sewing space a retreat, or are you in the thick of things like me?