Thanks to everyone that stopped by on the Holiday Lane Blog Hop and left me such nice comments!
I love reading what you have to say and it is the best form of encouragement!
I am in the process of moving my current sewing space from the middle of my living room
to the recently vacated upstairs bedroom.
It has been an uphill battle with my hubby as he wanted to make it into a "guest" room.
We have not had overnight guests in the entire time we have been married, almost 30 years!
So I told him I didn't think that was a good plan.
Then there is a twin bed and 2 dressers in there.
He wanted to keep the bed and use the dressers and the closet for rotating his clothes by season.
Nope, not going to happen.
It will just become a crap hole.
You know it will.
I know it will and now he knows it will.
So, DD1, who just recently moved out, took the bed, but left the trundle portion.
**Sigh**
I am going to let him keep that until after Christmas
so that when DD2 comes home she will have a bed.
After that it's a blow up mattress baby!
I decided to keep the dressers, but I need to empty them out so I can use them for storage.
I also cleared out the closet.
I have steam cleaned most of the carpet
just have one small spot to do now that one of the dressers is moved to it's new place in the room.
I know you are dying to see my current messy room so here you go.
My sewing space in all it's messy glory!
This weekend I need to move all this stuff to it's new home and reclaim my living room!
I have sooooo much more fabric and stuff in bins in the basement too.
I am going to let you in on my plan for that stuff.
I am going to have my big, strong son carry some of the bins to the new sewing room.
He will have to do this several times!
There are a LOT of bins.
I will go through said bins and sort out stuff I want to keep.
The stuff I don't want/need anymore will go through a process.
First I will be listing it for sale here on my blog every week
(and this will probably go on for many months).
It's true, I am a fabric horder!
You probably already suspected but now I am out of the basement!
I think I will choose a day of the week and
do it on the same day every week until I finish going through the bins.
What doesn't sell in a week will go over to my ETSY shop for a few months.
Whatever doesn't sell there will get listed as destash/swap or donated.
This way I will have what I want to work with and clear out the clutter.
Will you guys hold me to this plan please?
LOL
I have been carrying the bolts of fabric I have upstairs first.
This is the first stack to go to the new room!
(yes there are more)
I plan to get several tall book cases to put my fabric into so I can see it.
I am hoping that will be a huge inspiration to my sewing too.
How have you organized your sewing space?
Any tips on things to do or probably more importantly not to do?
I would be eternally greatful!
I have put the following (in yardage) up for sale in my ETSY shop if anyone is interested.
Oh rest assured I am keeping some too!
I just thought I would share the wealth!!
Last but not least I want to let you know that I have joined Pinterest.
If you are there too, stop by, follow me and let me know what you think of my "pins".
It is taking me a long time to learn new things but I am getting there.
I learned how to use Google Drive the other day and was pretty proud of myself!
Now I know how to host a PDF using it.
All this moving makes me want to take a nap.
No rest for the wicked!!!
tee hee
OK, send me those suggestions and I will have a giveaway to the person's suggestion I like the best!
Now, aren't you glad you read all the way to the end?
Please make sure I can contact you in case you are the lucky winner.
If there are more than one suggestions I love there may be a second winner.
That one will be a surprise!
~XOP~
I'll let you know next Friday (December 7th)
36 comments:
At this point I store things in one room and work in another room. NOt sure this is a suggestion because that just means that I have two rooms that are a mess instead of one. I just really need to do a major clean out like you are.
I think that our husbands are twins separated at birth!
I don't think that your sewing area is messy at all- I would call it the Loved In Look!
It's all about purging, what you love and what you are less interested in. I love books so it's hard to let those go but donating to a guild or school can be a great way to say goodbye without remorse.
What mess? I don't see a mess! Oh that is a living room! I thought it looks better than my sewing room on a good day! The best advice I can give is to put your furniture and heavy sewing equipment where you want it first. Then you move in your fabrics and such. Get some shelves for your closet to set the bins on or the shoeboxes of precuts. Did I say BOXES??? Yep, I am so unoraganized. Good luck Do I live close by KY. I'd love to come help you!
hulseybg at gmail dot com
Main suggestion that I would have is:DON'T keep the material in bins unless they are see through, have them where you can see them (personal experience) I'm sorting mine by type of material and then color but be sure to sort in a way that makes sense to you. My materials are kept in wall units DH made that are 8'tall, 4' wide & 2' deep, there are 3 of these along one wall. I fold material so that it is WOF by about 8" and then stack so that I can see the end of each piece of material. Smaller pieces are folded to 8"X 12" and stored on a hanging wall unit that consists of 3 shelves 8' long (the kind you can get to organize your closet) that take up another wall.
Sorry this is so lengthy, but there are so many options out there for you. Wish I had your stash. You have great material for sale in your Etsy shop.
thelady(at)hotmail(dot)com
The best thing I have for organizing my sewing room is the closet that shelves from floor to ceiling (well, almost). My husband installed them and put extra support brackets under them to hold a lot of weight! The only downside is that eventually the shelves fill up and I start piling fabric all over the room. I used to call the room a "guest room" and had a bed in there -- taking it out was a really good idea. It wouldn't be safe for any guests to go in there anyway, they might get injured in a fabric avalanche!
Be able to see your fabric! If you cannot see it, it will not get used.
I am in awe of all the fabric you have Pam! I think the bookshelves are a great idea,but stop buying fabric!!!! Yes easier said than done I know. I control my fabric buying by not working! Ha!! SAHM all the way for me baby!!!hehehehe.....No really I think you are on the right track by working through it slowly and putting your son to work-lol.
P.S.
I am eye balling that mermaid print;)
lots of bookcases so you can see what you have
I am so excited for you and yes it's about time! Every sewer/crafter needs her own space. My hubby has been great about that. Tell your hubby thank you from Judy! I have a bedroom for my fabric and a sewing room for sewing! It' our time!!
I fold my WoF in half to about 11 inches then wrap round Comic book card (found this idea on Pintrest)4 & 1/2 wraps round the card = 1 yard, so it is easy to see from the thickness of wrap how much fabric you have. I then organise mine into solid & pattern then by colour. This is for anyhting over half a yard. If I have brought fabrics from one design that I plan to use together then I keep them together. This is all stored on an open book case.
Fat quarters are folded and stored in an tall slim Ikea CD unit by colour order.
Anything smaller than fat quarters are stored by colour in see through boxes.
Gosh I sound so organised, so why does my sewing room look such a mess at the moment? And I probably only have 1/100th of the amount of fabric you have!!
Have fun organising :)
You didn't say the size of the room, but have a design wall if you can. I fold all my yardage the same way. You can get more on the shelves this way.
that is a whole pile of crazy work my dear - but oh so worth it :) post your fabrics! we'll buy
It will be worth it! First off, I just (yesterday) backed a quilt in the Peter Pan version of that Snow White fabric! Second, wish I was on etsy (I am slow, LOL) love those mermaids. Advice, suggestions...The best thing I did when I got my own room (why does that sound like I am 12? LOL) was to buy adjustable shelving. I ended up with adjustable shelving from IKEA (I am sure other places make/sell it) but, wow, having those shelves adjustable, priceless! FYI, I gutted the closet and lined the walls with these shelves. My second suggestion is give yourself a pass. When I moved into my new room I had a "pass", if I didn't love it, I was allowed to get rid of it, NO matter what I had invested in it. This included partially done projects that I had totally lost interest in, fabric I was never going to actually use, former hobby supplies, whatever, I was free to get rid of it. Made the upkeep on the new room SO much easier!Third, labels. I don't have a label maker and besides everything is always in motion in my room so index cards, sharpies and plain old tape. Easy, quick and mobile. OK, I will stop for now, but I do love a little craft room organizing.
I think that scooter fabric needs to belong to someone who actually rides a scooter...and that would be me! One of the things I have in my sewing room that I love is a design wall which is actually a roll up blind. hung under a shelf and hung above my closet door. You can actually roll blocks up into the blind! I did not make it so have no clue the building of it...but maybe your DH needs a project! lol
I have a very small and cluttered sewing room. I wish I had tall bookcases to store my fabric rather than the tubs I use. Make sure that you have a place for every thing. I like to keep my pins in small snap boxes in a drawer by my sewing table. My cutters are in decorated cans by my cutting area.
What kind of storage areas do you have for your fabric? Can you make it all so that you can see it and know what you have? I folded all of my fat quarters the same way and stored them by color in clear plastic shoe boxes. If I had nice open shelves I would have liked to store them by color there where I could see them all stacked by their color so that I could oogle my fabrics in their beauty on a regular basis. We buy it because of it's beauty, why lock it away where we can't see it. Then we don't know what we have, and we buy more and more and more. Well,I could use more, but that seems to be a regular problem that I have seen on many blogs. I just think it should all be out where we can see it. I would like to put nice shelves into my quilt room somewhere, I just don't have enough wall space left.. :(
I have bought smaller bins from Walmart that I store project fabric and patterns together in. I have about 7 or 8, when I empty one I pull together another project for the future with everything I need. I am going to make the cute bags that I have pinned to hang on the wall for my scraps also. Picking out some of my favorite 30's fabrics and color coding them that way. Jars, painted cans cute second had shelves for the wall. Old dressers painted in your favorite colors. Those are great to put those BOM kits in and all the iron in interfacing ect. Have fun it is more fun getting it together than keeping it together.
Wow, what a huge undertaking! But incredibly worthwhile, I truly believe that we're at our most creative when we don't have to fight through clutter to get to our projects. I love that you are making use of your son's strength in carrying tubs of fabric upstairs - brilliant idea! I think one of the best tips is to make fabric stash easily to access - if you can't see it or find it then you forget you have it. There is one thing that I obsess over in my sewing room but that's mainly because I live in Australia & we have incredibly bright harsh sunlight - I make sure my fabric is not exposed to the baking hot sun that floods into the room - I'm pretty sure that's not an issue for you though!
I have two ways to store fabric so I can see what I have. The first is folded and stored on shelves by color. Any fabric that must go in a clear bin is folded around thin foam core or comic book boards and put in the bin like a file cabinet. That way I can see the fabric from the sides as well as the top.
i like the folidng technique at happy zombie...wrapping fabric around a 6 inch ruler...that worked well for me. And i recently turned a short-ish bookshelf into my shelf/ironing board. its working out really well! so i gained all that lost area underneath my ironing board! also, i gave a ton of scraps away on flickr, just asked the recepient to pay the shipping. and as odd as it sounds, i finally grouped all my quilting books together vs. all over various book shelves in the house...and....i got a three ring binder and organized all the tutorials and pdf patterns i had! yay! slowly but surely Pam, it will happen...ok, gonna go check out your etsy shop, and look forward to what comes available on the blog!
I don't think your current sewing location is messy at all... looks as if it's used frequently but things are under control.
Not sure I have any organizational tips for you. I try to keep my quilting fabrics in one place where I can see and access them... out of sight is out of mind.
Good for you to destash! I do think one can have too much fabric and become overwhelmed by it.
Fold your fabric so it is the full width (front to back) of the shelf so you don't have any wasted space. I sort mine by color, because that is how I make my quilts, If I am doing a blue and yellow, I know just which stacks to pull down, go through, pick out, and then put the rest back on the shelf. Also store it where you can see it. Because out of sight is out of mind. You can't use it if you don't know you have it.
I think your current sewing space still pretty neat compare to me. I think you need more storage to store the fabrics :D
So happy for you to have your own sewing room.
I live in an apartment, and I have a corner of
our bedroom for my space. My 2 treadles and a
table, and my trusty little Brother machine. I
have a large walk in closet with lots of shelves, where I keep my fabric stash. It may
be small compared to some, but it works for me.
It must be universal for husbands to think that
we have too much fabric. I am following you on
pinterest, too. Love your boards. Check out
my quilting boards, too.
wigglypup2(at)yahoo(dot)com
I would suggest you to keep all you fabrics at the area where it always can be seen. It can be an open shelf,see through cupboard or transparent bin. You will always be reminded of how much fabrics you have in your collection each time you see the shelves and bins.
I wish I had a big sewing room so I could store all my fabric on shelves - mine is stored all over the place and I can never find what I'm looking for and I often forget exactly what I've got!!
At least this move will be a two in one since you were going to pack it all away for Christmas anyways! I can't wait to hear about your sewing room escapades. I can't tell DH though since he will want to banaish me from my dining room and send me packing upstairs too haha! (I also love the fabrics you got for your daughter, though I'm sure I've told you that before since I think I've seen them)
I am certainly not one to offer advice at the moment... we discovered termites in the walls of my workroom ( they came up through the slab)....SO everything had to go somewhere ELSE! Paneling came down ...walls repaired and now I wait for new plasterboard!! I don't know weher half my things are and the dining table and room and basement and ... have STUFF!!
Advice: Do not stack things together or put into big bunches. Every time you want something, everything will be pulled out and there is a mess. I wish I had more areas organized by size -- e.g. not having batting fall down on my head when pull out the bag I want ... not stacking fabric bins on top of each other as the one I want is always on the bottom ... of course, our quilting stuff is all over the house as don't have a sewing room per se. I like shallow drawers for tracing paper, rulers, scissors, etc. as is easier to spot what I want.
I used wilton cake cardboards (weird I know)and I sliced each one into about 9" wide pieces and I used them as mini bolts to wrap smaller pieces of fabric on. Usually 2 yards or less. They fit perfectly in my Sauder tall double door cabinet and I can write on the top edge of the cardboard how much fabric is on it. This works great for me. The cabinet holds a lot of fabric in a small footprint of space which was a must in my small sewing room. I can see all of my fabrics and I keep them sorted by color on each of the shelves. I'm a fabric hoarder too so 1 cabinet was not enough to hold my whole stash so I use the same "bolt" method in the other cupboards in my room. My logic in the wilton cake cardboards was if it's safe for food, must be for fabric too. Not sure it it's true, but it's sounded good for me.
I've also recently made a kids bedroom into a sewing room. Somehow the room has morphed into the place to keep things I don't know where else to put. I'm slowly purging. You need a system where you can see what you have. Keeping a lot in bins (unless they are clear plastic) won't let you do that. I would put shelving in the closet to best allow you to see what you have. If your stash is too big to store in the closet, clear stackable bins, sorted by fabric color, work too. I myself like to have very little clutter in the sewing area and surrounding surfaces - clutter makes me a little crazy and I can't think. (Probably some sort of disorder! haha) Bookshelves are another idea - and if you don't like having everything open to dust, view, etc., you can pin up a simple curtain on the front of the bookshelf to keep the dust out and tidy things visually. Another idea is an armoire - they can be great for storing lots of fabric, and look great. Hope this helps!
Try not to hide your bins in a closet, ask me how I know you should not do that lol!
What I have been trying to do is keep works in process or ufo's ( yes I have many) in bins out in the open I am trying to work on those before starting anything new. Of course I can't always stick to that rule I was just blessed with a new grandson in October and I had to make him a new quilt. Please don't judge me, my name is Judy and I have a fabric addiction. Good luck with your new move.
You may find more usable space in a glass front bookcase rather than a dress and it will be easier to access. I found one on craigslist from a bookstore that was closing.
I have refolded all my fabric around my 6X24 ruler and sorted by color. I store it in an amoire and it makes it easy to see what I have and to keep it tidy. Can't wait to see your new sewing room.
It's good to see someone has more fabric than me. LOL But, aren't we all in the same boat one way or another? Something I did recently that has helped me organize and stay that way is--bought a cart like scrapbookers use and put my projects in it with all their parts, fabric, pattern, thread, cutout pieces, etc. Then folded and organized the rest by color. Now when I go in my room and only have 15 minutes to sew I can find something in one of the drawers to perform my magic on. :-) and if I need to grab another piece of fabric I know which pile it is in. Hang in there I'm rooting for you!! How wonderful it is to have your own space.
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