Sewing Room Organization – Stage #1

First, I must tell you that we live in the house where my siblings & I grew up. My parents bought this house in 1956. In 2003, my husband and I moved in to assist my mother & brother. Just imagine decades of multiple generations of furniture & storage. This Summer my DH has been working in the yard, but as it got too hot/humid to be outside he has started going through the basement. Let’s just say I come by my pack rat tendencies naturally, and we’ll leave it at that.

While the many discoveries could fill countless posts, we’ll leave that for another time. What has happened was that he cleared out 2 tall wooden bookcases and asked if I wanted them for my sewing room. My sewing room has evolved over the years with no particular order and was becoming very frustrating. Boxes and bags were used for storage & I was spending way too much time moving things trying to find items/fabric I knew I had but couldn’t find.

So, being the planner/Project Manager that I am, I sat down one night & worked out a 5 Stage Plan.

• Stage #1 – North Wall/Shelves, Part of East Wall/Sewing Machine Table
• Stage #2 – South Wall/Cutting Table
• Stage #3 – West Wall/Ironing Station
• Stage #4 – Closet
• Stage #5 – East Wall – Embroidery & 4th Bookcase

Now these stages are evolving & being a bit modified as we go along, but having a plan is helping me not “chase rabbits’ as my DH would say. I try to keep focused on the stage at hand, and not bounce around.

Another goal to this “transformation” is to also allow myself some sewing time while all this chaos is going on. I realize this is a hugh project and I don’t want to get frustrated and just dump everything.

So last week Stage #1 begun. We set aside 1 week to accomplish most of Stage #1.

First, moved stuff from the middle of the room so we could move. We also placed tables in my DH’s office, Living Room & Dining Room so we had temporary storage.

No wonder I have problems finding things.

Emptied the wire shelves & canvas drawers. As fabric was removed it was sorted – fabric to go back, fabric to be reviewed to give away or trash.

Run power strips as the new bookcases would completely block the outlet. Also removed a 1950’s telephone jack that is no longer usable.

Moved existing wood bookcase to make room for the additional 2 bookcases & bring in the new shelves.

New Shelves will help be be more organized

Label shelves – 3 yard quilt kits, Scraps, Fusible interfacing/fleece, Projects, Books/Binders/Patterns, Precuts, Yardage/Holiday, Yardage/Novelty, Yardage/Misc, Yardage/Backing, Thread/Misc supplies, Pillowcase Fabric and Batting/Pillow forms. As fabric was brought into the room, it was stored on the appropriate shelves. Fabric still needs to be folded to appropriately utilize shelf space. I do a little every day. It’s not finalized as other storage will be available later when we get to the next stages.

Shelves filling up, but still needing re-folding

Moved an old desk out so it can be used elsewhere. Set up an additional sewing table which will also help me spread out when quilting larger quilts.

All sewing room items have been removed from DH’s office as he will be teaching two classes this week (online classes). There are 3-4 boxes in the Living room of fabric that needs re-folding and several boxes of fabric that I probably won’t keep. The Dining Room has non-sewing items to be dealt with, including some shredding.

Part of Stage #2 is replacing my wobbly cutting table. I had purchased a kitchen cart that was the right height, but the top wasn’t quite as big as I wanted. So DH spent Friday making a removable top. Ironing board cleared & sewing machine set up – space is ready for some stitching.

We’ll take a break while I continue to re-fold fabric before we start on Stage #2.

So, how organized is your sewing space?

Happy Stitching!

Quilt Mouse