After literally months of living in total sewing-room-squalor, hardly being able to push open the door due to the piles upon piles of fabric, random craft supplies and unhung artwork, I have a sewing room of sorts back again.
When we moved to Brindabella the sewing room was pretty far down on the list of things to sort out, and so it sat unloved and messy. Oh so messy. We think that the sewing room, the back porch area and the dining room (which also has the same lean-to roof) used to be one big wide back verandah, one day I'd love to reinstate that, currently though I need the space as my sewing room and the dining room can't be reincarnated somehow else in the house. But I digress...
One weekend not too long ago I got stuck into the messy sewing room whilst Mr M was away camping, it took me literally days to wade through the fabric and rearrange the furniture to perfectly fit the space, but I think I'm happy. It needs loads more finishing touches (like curtains, a lick of paint, hanging some pictures) but this is it in it's raw state - functional as well as being a little bit on the pretty side.
This is the view from the door, out the window I look out to our garden gate and I get a lot of afternoon sun (you will see a lot of my still life styling photos set up with that Ikea table birch background!) I used my Ikea desk from my old workspace in the cottage as my main sewing table, with my sewing machine, Maude the mannequin and my overlocker on it. The shelving underneath the desk was built by Mr M to fit especially for my old workspace in the cottage. My trusty Ikea gateleg table acts as great storage with it's drawers and folds out to be ample cutting space. If I want more floor space I can wheel out those white drawers and fold the side of the table down also. My clothes rack just fits in nicely, so when I finish a piece I can hang it straight up. You can also see I keep my wrapping paper in a $3 Ikea rubbish bin, in the bottom is packaging tape and gift tags so if I'm wrapping a gift or order I can grab it all in the one place.
Facing back towards the door I have put two cupboards on either side of the door which we got fairly cheaply at Bunnings as part of their pantry range. When we lived in the cottage the big cupboard stood in our bathroom and acted as a linen press (as we had zero storage), now it holds lots of smaller pieces of fabric, my bolts of minky and any blank art canvas which is quite bulky. I also put three Ikea baskets on top which hold pieces of felt, MDF letters and shapes and my craft projects in progress. Of an evening I grab down my work-in-progress basket and just take it in to the lounge room to sew/craft, and try and keep everything contained to the basket so I don't have random cotton reels and needles all over the coffee table!
The smaller cupboard holds a lot of packaging supplies like bubble wrap, mailing bags and boxes, as well as blank onesies and t-shirts I am yet to adorn. My big fabric scraps bag also lives in there. On top sits my Ikea shelves I got for a steal in the bargain corner for half price (love me a good bargain corner find). These shelves hold all of my larger pieces of fabric which can be folded neatly and any current projects live on the bottom shelf. These days most current projects are wedding related, if you spy closely you can get some sneak peek's at some velvet millinery roses, burlap and glass votive candles.
This room was pretty much perfect to be my sewing room as it was just the right size: not big enough for me to just fill with 'stuff' but enough space to be a separate room and not crammed into a spare bedroom like I used to be. It also has these cool in-built shelves which are perfect to have above my sewing table. On the open shelves I have my Martha Stewart ribbon organiser, as well as jars and storage containers full of more ribbons, bias binding, zips, lace trims, buttons and hair clip supplies. My fabric letters still are a feature of my sewing space, made by My Name By Design, and are the inspiration for the colour palette and patterns I eventually want to throw around in here: lots of duck egg blue, pink and touches of red (like the wrapping paper bin) with hints of Cath Kidston-esque florals. Also on the open shelves are all of my paint tubes sitting in colour order. In front of the window is my cutting mat and rulers. I have one cutting mat in inches and one in centimeters.
Here's a closer look at the shelves:
Underneath my sewing table is the shelving unit on castors which Mr M made for my old workspace in the cottage. It now holds all of my crafting and sewing books as well as all of my patterns which I have filed in a pink binder. All of my knitting and embroidery supplies live in the white basket (from Officeworks) and my scrapbooking and paper supplies live in the white gloss paper box (from Kikki K). There is another white gloss box above my books which holds a lot of random children's craft items, when my nieces or any friends children are at our house I just pull out the box and let them go nuts with colouring books, pipe cleaners and stickers.
I am not ashamed to say that the inside of my fabric storage cupboards are looking pretty darn organised, if I do say so myself! In my big cupboard I have little plastic tubs, each with a different colour group, there's one for blues and green, one for pinks and reds, one for neutrals, one for reds and yellows and one for random prints. I also have tubs for cord or denim, minky or jersey knits and toweling, satins, furs or speciality fabrics like that, as well as a few bolts of minky dot for blankets I make for Little Miss Emma (currently on holiday due to sewing room crisis!) On the shelf above my clothes rack and cutting table sits an op shop vase which cost me 50c to hold all of my paint brushes and some fairy wands I am yet to get around to making for my nieces.
All fabric over a yard or of a fairly square shape (and therefore easy to fold) I neatly folded up and stacked in my el-cheapo Ikea shelves. I was going to try and colour co-ordinate the fabrics to create a rainbow effect, but who am I kidding, these probably won't look this organised ever again! To store my growing collection of cotton reels I use a glass apothecary jar I got from Target (not before dropping and smashing one juggling Easter eggs and said glass apothecary jar! Sorry Target teenage boy who had to clean up my smashed glass mess). The floral tin I got from the op shop for 20c and it holds all my elastic.
And there you have it! My sewing room, finally coming into shape. It's fairly 'bare bones' at the moment but I'm hoping to add some artwork to the wall, make a new cover for my chair, sew up some pretty floral curtains and generally inject some more personality into it. No doubt I will come up with more functional ways to use the space as I get sewing - which is exactly what I'm off to do now! These bathroom curtains won't make themselves...
Happy sewing everybody! I hope you enjoyed my space, I'd love to see yours. I am doing a happy dance with all of this neatly folded fabric :)
Photos by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella
