Hey guys! And welcome to your tour of my current sewing space! I guess it’s not totally current; we moved stuff around just today, so I’ll be sewing from a different corner, but it’s all essentially the same.
For the record, we’ve lived in lots of different places and I haven’t always had a spot to call my own for sewing. I’ve spent many years being the cause of curse words said in the kitchen/dining area for the brief periods when my sewing stuff was taking over. I’ve dealt with having to set up and take down in a single sessions of sewing (and having that be a necessity because of children). Not having a space for your hobbies is challenging. Which makes it easy to say that I am so, so grateful that I have a space here!
We have an extra bedroom in our current apartment. It serves multiple purposes including being a guest room. But I get a corner all to myself. And most of a closet. And, okay, I basically take over the entire room when no one is visiting.
I did not take a picture of the entire room (as I’m sure it was messy in every other corner) but now I’m wishing I had. Oh well. To orient, this is my sewing table. Behind it is a queen bed (you can see the corner of it). The closet mostly has sewing/crafting related stuff (and it’s very disorganized in this photo, but that is real life, folks) but it also has random stuff that doesn’t really go anywhere else in it as well (like luggage). I’ve thought about doing an organization post or one about keeping stuff neat in small spaces but the reality is that I don’t have any great methods on this. I’ve read other posts and I think the truth is that there is no perfect way to keep your sewing space organized. And I think that’s the case because it’s an always changing space. Maybe if I had an entire room to devote to sewing, I’d do things in a different way, but for now my goal is mostly to keep things contained and in a general area.
Right now, most of my apparel fabric is stored in those blue bins you see in the closet. It’s definitely not the best method, but it can fit a good amount of fabric and is stackable. I keep my quilting cottons in a separate box. And then I have random bags all over that contain scrap fabric (both quilting and apparel) that I always think I’ll someday get around to using (who knows?).
In the corner to the right of my desk is a very small table that has a small(ish) tv on it. I actually don’t watch a lot of tv (and never watch it while sewing on my machine) so it rarely gets used, but occasionally my girls will sit on the bed and watch a show while I finish something up, so it works out well. More often, the table is crammed with fabric because even while I’m working on something, I can’t help but pull out a bunch of other fabric while envisioning future projects. I have a problem. And then along that same wall is where I normally have the iron/ironing board set up.
The top basket in the above picture has rolled up patterns. I also have patterns stored in the middle drawer on the left of my sewing table. Rolling them up is just so easy, so I guess I’ll keep doing that. In the bottom basket, I have all my unusable scraps. I’ve heard of people using all their unusable scraps to fill pillows or poufs or whatever and I liked the idea so I’ve been slowly saving those scraps…but I’ll probably trade the scrap bag to a trash can and use the leftover basket for more patterns..
That cute blue sewing machine hanger thing? My brother made that for me! I’ve never had a place to hang that thing before here but I’ve taken it with me cross country multiple times because I just love it so darn much. It’s very convenient for hanging scissors and always having them nearby.
I did want to mention, briefly (who am I kidding, I’m never brief!), sewing with small children around. The girls definitely spend a good amount of time playing in the sewing room (whoops, just gave myself away. That’s totally what we call it). And since sewing uses lots of items that are decidedly not safe for toddlers, I really try to keep things that are sharp, pointy or dangerous out of reach when I’m not in the room. Since Wendy’s older and understands things pretty well, I’ve talked to her about the things she can’t touch and why she can’t touch it (it’s dangerous vs. something could break) and she thankfully does a great job listening. Greta’s not quite there yet so some extra measures I take when she’s up and out of bed (she’s normally sleeping when I’m sewing) are: Scissors and pins are in a box that go on the top shelf in the closet. Machines are turned off. I push my chair in or move it away from my machines (since it’s on carpet, it doesn’t move easily). I unplug my iron and move it on to a more stable surface. The girls still find stuff to get into, but I do what I can to keep it more headache-y and less injury-y.
The last thing I wanted to talk about before talking about my machines (because of course I’m going talk about my machines) is that gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful sewing desk. When Ben’s grandma decided to sell her house of over 40 years to move somewhere smaller and more manageable, there was a lot of stuff that needed to find a new home. One of those things was this desk, a sewing desk used by Ben’s great-grandma Dutch. I feel super lucky that they let me take this beautiful desk. It’s a Singer, and it does have the sewing machine in the under-carriage. I haven’t spent much time looking at the machine, since I already had one when I inherited the desk, so I don’t know if it works but Ben is pretty handy and if all else fails, my dad knows how to fix everything. Aside from the machine, the drawers are filled with little treasures: sewing tools I don’t recognize, gobs of safety pins, a tin filled with buttons. Every time I open one of the drawers, I find something new. It’s amazing. Someday I’ll go through it and organize it. Someday, someday, someday.
So. My machines! Spoiler alert: I love both my machines! Neither is fancy or expensive, but they’ve been great for me so far.
My sewing machine is a Bernina 1010. As far as I can tell, it was made in the late 80s or early 90s. My parents gave it to me as a graduation gift over…7 years ago and the only issue I’ve had has been with the buttonhole settings (but it’s easy to overshoot). I love it. It’s pretty basic. It has maybe 15 stitch options (?), but I only use a straight and zig zag stitch. It’s very easy to operate. I love it. Haha whoops, I keep saying that. It’s a lovely machine and I have no desire to get a machine that’s newer/nicer/computerized. It does exactly what I want it to and runs smoothly.
Sorry. Blurry pic! This is my serger. It is a Brother 1034D. I bought it on Amazon about 2 1/2-3 years ago. When I bought it, it was about $140, which is incredibly cheap for a serger. I have been so impressed with this machine. It’s given me no issues (save for the ones I’ve unintentionally caused), it cranks projects out and it requires little maintenance. The first year or so that I had this serger, I didn’t really mess with the settings at all. I was way too nervous about ruining it. But lately, I’ve tried different settings for different fabrics and the machine has quite a lot of capabilities. For what I paid for it, I’m very impressed by it, and if anyone is looking for a serger that’s in a lower price range (read: you can’t find a serger cheaper than this), this is a great option. I’ve really loved it (not to mention, having a serger seriously changes your sewing game).
So that’s it! My lovely sewing space! What kind of space do you get to sew in?
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