The Re-Organization Continues...

 The re-organization of the sewing room continues slowly but surely.  I have about 1 hour a day to work on all re-organization.  My son is moving home which means that the guest room needs to be cleared out.  So the sewing room has been more or less been put on the back burner.  However with that said, I do have some crafting related items stored in the guest room.  Knowing that more things are going to end up in my sewing room, I decided to see if I could add more shelving to the room.  The only wall space is in the closet.  I found this shelving unit and hope that it works out well.

This small shelving unit is 49" high x 26" wide x 11" deep.  It is just the right height to slide into the closet under the hanging bar.  The only thing I am a little concerned about is the depth but I am determined to make it work.  I can still use the hanging bar above the unit for smallish items and with "S" hooks I can hang things on the side.  I think I will eventually consider some sort of hanging unit for the closet doors.  Every inch needs to be used efficiently.

Happy Stitching!

Organization...Sewing Room Part 2

My post on Sewing Room Organization is here.  That post shows that basic room.  I have now drawn my furniture to scale.  Here is the furniture:

It was very exciting to get the furniture drawn.  After I cut out the pieces, I realized that I had missed drawing the miniature cutting table.  So, I measured the various sections of the table and created my piece.  Here is my current room set up:

The cutting table closed up is sitting between the Sewing Desk and the Singer.  Doesn't this layout look like it should work?  I really thought this would be a great setup but I can not seem to keep it neat.  Really I have too much stuff.  Here's how I thought this room would work:

This is how I thought the room would work when I needed to cut things out and the previous picture is how I thought things would when I didn't need the cutting table.  Perhaps, I should clean up the room and leave the cutting table open all the time.  This would allow easy access to all the storage areas under my cutting table.  When the cutting table is folded up and pushed into it's home, I only have easy access to one side of the storage.

I think I am going to rethink this whole re-organization.  I actually still like my room the way it is arrange.  I think that the real issue is my ability to keep the room neat.  If I leave the cutting table open in the middle of the room, I will have space to add an ironing board.  

So, does anyone have any advice on keeping the room neat?  I suppose the real answer is putting things away when I am done with them and then cleaning the room between projects.  I am really bad about not taking the time to clean between projects along with just dumping stuff in the room.  

Okay, I am off to start the cleaning process. If I can get the room cleaned up, I should be able to return the items to the room that have migrated to other parts of the house.  I would love to hear that you think of my layout.

Happy Stitching!

Organization...Sewing Room

 I have been in this house for three years now.  I did a few organizational posts when I was attempting to get organized.  Here they are - Rulers, Cutting Boards & Peg Board, Fabric Folding, and views of Fabric Storage (some).  Then about a year later, I wrote a post about reorganizing the room.  The reorganization isn't working either. The things that worked was the first round of organizing the rulers, cutting boards, peg board.  The things that haven't worked partly is how the room is set up.  This means moving furniture around once again.

With this round, I have drawn the room to scale.  Here it is:

It is not a large room at 11 1/2' x 10'.  One wall is mostly doorways either to enter room or for the closet. Another wall is more than 1/2 a window.  I do have a small cabinet that will sit between the closet and entry door.  You can see bits of it in the ruler post above.  There is a three tier cart that sits between the closet door and the window.  The peg board is behind the door which is the perfect place for it.  On the same wall as the peg board, I have an Ikea cabinet that somehow manages to hold a large portion of my patterns with a shelf above it that holds jars of buttons, and other small sewing related items. Then, there is a large Ikea book shelf that is full of sewing books, knitting books, quilting books, and magazines.  There isn't nothing wrong with the placement of the items on this wall.  

Currently, the corning desk is occupying is corner next to the window with a Singer treadle right in front of the window.  Between the sewing desk and the bookshelf is another Singer sewing machine (meant to be the machine for my quilting) and my folding cutting table.  The room is full.  The cutting table can be rolled out into the center and opened up.  At least, that was the original plan.  I can not keep my room clean.  I have spilled out across the house.  I need to come up with a way for this to work in such a way to keep things neat and clean.

Currently, I am contemplating putting my sewing table in front of the closet.  The next step is to draw my furniture to scale and start playing with the furniture placement.  It is possible that the cutting table will not open up with the sewing table placement in front of the closet.  Maybe the real issue is my table.  I have hauled it around for a very long time.  It is possible that it is time to replace it.

I will share the scaled furniture and the various placements as I figure this out.  There is one more thing that isn't working with this room.  It is my fabric scrap storage.  It is literally just crammed into a small three drawer cabinet.  Nothing neat about it.  How do you store scraps?  The majority of my scraps are cotton ones that could be used for quilting type projects.

I will share as much as I'm comfortable sharing.  It is very possible that I will not show the room set up with machines.  I know that I talk about my various machines from time to time but I don't necessarily want to show all of them at once.

If you have organization or furniture arrange ideas, please share.  I will listen to all ideas because I need help.

Happy Stitching!

  

Organization....Fabric

Here's a view of some of the fabric organization in the closet:

In this picture you can see the collection of denim, fat quarters, holiday fabrics, interfacing, and mostly contained quilting scraps.  There is a shelf above that can not be seen.

In this picture, you can see the carefully folded fabric.  Fabric in this area is larger than 1/2 yard.  You can also see the sleeve board, a few hangers, towels awaiting applique, and more interfacing.

This is some of the carefully folded fashion fabric.  There are a few pieces in this batch that will be for muslins only.  This is a couple of shelves above this picture and a shelf below.  This is also a sewing machine under the last shelf.

This is another view.  Additional carefully folded fashion fabric with magazines, patterns, and a tiny bit of yarn (this is the only knitting stuff that has made it to the room).  There is a couple of shelves above with more fabric and a shelf below.  You can see the corner of my cutting table which will be in the closet and moved out to line up with the sewing table when needed.  Also, hidden by the cutting table is a couple of my sewing machines.

I think the biggest surprise with doing this organization is the amount of denim that I have collected along with the amount of quilting weight cotton fabrics.  Some of the denim is destined for a quilt and some of it is destined for jeans.  I suppose some of the denim can be used as a muslin for jeans.

If nothing else, this whole experience has certainly slowed down the desire to purchase more fabric.  Now that I can see the majority of it, I'm hoping that it will be considered first before purchasing more.  I do not have a large amount of knits so that will most likely be the exception.

Fabric folding techniques can be found in the blog post "Organization....Folding Fabric".

Happy Stitching!

Organization.... Rulers...

My room is slowly coming together.  I hope that it works as well as I hoping.  I used the vertical surfaces on cabinets and my shelves for the rulers:

On the bookshelf, I have a long skinny ruler and my tube turners.  There is a little bit of space left to add additional skinny rulers should I find them or acquire more (I hope not).

This side of my little cabinet has triangle rulers.  Additional space below for some additional rulers.  I'm currently out of hooks and have two more small rulers to hang .  You can see my largest mat behind this little cabinet.  Not ideal storage for it but it was the only spot I could find.

This side of the cabinet has the hexagon rulers with a variety of other rulers below.

One on side of my pattern cabinet, I have all my large cutting rulers.  There are 2 stripology rulers and a 12 1/2" square.

On the other side of the pattern cabinet are the remaining rulers.  I think most of the rulers have been found.  At least, I hope that have been.  There is always the chance that some mini rulers may be discovered yet.

I used the Command Medium Wire Hooks to hold up the rulers.  So far they seem to be holding up well.  This particular hook will hold up to 3 lbs.  Here's a better picture:

FYI:  I'm not affiliated with this brand.  Just a happy customer.

Happy Sewing!

Organization...Folding Fabric

I have been folding a lot of fabric the last four or five weeks.  In fact, I've found a lot of fabric that I did not remember having. Nothing more fun than finding cute/beautiful fabric that you have completely forgotten about.  However, it has caused a bit of storage problem.  Basically, I am using three ways to store fabric:

1.  Ruler method of folding fabric - In generally, you use a 6" x 24" ruler for this method.  It is very neat and you can store a lot of fabric using this method.  Here's a very quick youtube video on this method of folding.  This method works well with 1/2 yard and larger pieces of fabric.  I have been using it for fashion fabrics, quilting fabrics, and other types of fabric.

2.  Card method for folding fat quarters or pieces smaller than 1/2 yard -  I found the instructions for this fold at Nancy's Notions.  It is a pdf labeled Fat Quarter Poker.  At this point, I am not re-folding purchased bundles that are currently folded.  I have not decided yet how those will be displayed/stored.

3.  Scrap storage - I haven't figured out yet how this is going to work out but I'm going to give it a try so that I have access to fabric pieces that can't be folded using the method in item 2.  This method is described at this Quiltville link - Scrap Saver's System.

When I have finished the fabric organization, I will share pictures from the sewing room.  It may be a while as I still have a lot of fabric still in bags or boxes.

I would love to hear how wool fabrics are being stored to prevent infestations.

Happy Stitching!

A Little Bit of Organization...

Things are getting along well enough that I feel like it is OK to show a couple of pictures.  Don't get me wrong, the new sewing room is still pretty much a disaster and not ready to use by any means but it is slowly getting there. This is the corner behind the door entering the room:

I used an over-the-door hook and a couple of skirt hangers to hang three of my cutting boards.  The larger mat is hanging on a hook that is attached to the door.  I either got this idea from pinterest or a quilting board.  I still need to figure out where to put my largest mat besides on the floor.  That mat is slightly larger than the lower mat that is hanging on the door.  Originally, it was suppose to hang from a skirt hanger but the hanger didn't have enough strength to hold it up.  I'm sure I will figure it out but I will welcome any ideas.

This is a smallish pegboard (2' x 4') that DH painted to matched the wall.  It is hung at the top of the door level to leave a bit of space for pattern paper rolls.  The top portion holds the vintage quilting hoop and my embroider hoops with the lower section holding machine hoops.  There is a little bit of space for other items that hang.  I have some small scissors shown as an example.  I did attempt to put the rotary cutter in there but it didn't work out so well.  I'm sure this idea also came from pinterest.

Well, I'm proud of the little bit of organization that I have accomplished.  I only get to spend about an hour a day in the sewing room because there are so many boxes that still need to be unpacked.  It gets better every day.

Happy Sewing!

Days are sliding by...

...and I want to sew but my sewing area isn't ready yet.  The new sewing room has been painted and has new flooring.  Here's another glimpse:

Looks a little better than the lavender room with the tan carpeting.  I will not miss any holes or crayon drawings on the walls.

I'm still in disbelieve on the amount of fabric that I have but have slowing been working through the boxes and re-folding the fabric. i have found some really beautiful fabrics hiding in my stash.

 I'm using the ruler method for folding the fabric and it seems to work well for both fashion fabric and quilting fabric.  Although it does seem to work a little bit better with items that are 45" or less in width.

I'm trying really hard to make my space work for me.  Currently, all of my machines have made it into the room.  Some are out on display and some are in the closet.  I'm trying to use the same desk that I have had in my sewing area for years.  In the past, I have two sewing machines and the serger on that desk but for now I'm setting it up with one sewing machine and the serger.  It will definitely feel less crowded with this set-up.  The previous set-up never slowed me down and I can certainly bring out one of the other machines should I decide to do some embroidery work.

Off to fold more fabric.

Happy Sewing!

Another week gone by....

Oh, another week has gone by and as usual I have been busy. The electrical work is now complete. Yippee! I won't be worrying about the iron causing black-outs any more. It now has it's own 20 amp circuit. Sounds extravagant doesn't it? However, the iron is a 1750 watt baby. I do like using this iron but its a steam generator and it takes up a lot of space. I was thinking about getting a different iron -a Reliable V95. If you know anything about this particular iron, please let me know. I go through a lot of irons maybe one every two years. So far, it hasn't matter how much I pay for them. They all last about the same amount of time. I just need an iron that I can use when I'm in a hurry. I also have a new circuit for my machines. Again, no worries about someone turning a vacuum on and causing problems.

The floors will be started tomorrow. Although I see the work in this room as minor, I'm hoping the floor guys do to. There are a couple of places on the floor that will need attention - one is definitely a patch replacement, and the other will most likely just be a spot with filler. Won't know till they are done. Thursday, the floors will get the second coat of polyurethane and we should be able to work on the trim by Sunday. Yippee! Once the trim is up and painted, we will be able to start building cabinets and working on finishing up the closet.

I wanted to share my room layout but my scanner refuses to scan my drawing and the camera is missing. I will keep looking for it. The next project for this room will be organization. I do not want to just bring everything back to the room. I think that would defeat the purpose of bringing everything into the same room. I need to know what I own especially the fabric. Right now, everything is contained in boxes and plastic containers. I found some moth holes in a wool skirt that was stored closed to a other wool fabric so everything will need to examined closely. I'm hoping that I have not lost all of the lovely wool fabric that I have purchased. Any comments of fabric storage would be great to hear.

Happy Sewing!