After a bit of hard labour with some power tools and brute force, I was able to clear three of the little hotel rooms on our boat two weekends ago. One became a walk-in wardrobe, one will very shortly become James’s office, and the third blossomed into my (temporary) sewing room (all the little hotel room walls will be ripped out to make way for our living room, two bedrooms, and two en-suites. The fate of a sewing room in the new plans is still unclear!).
I finally got it the way I wanted it last night and even had a few minutes spare to sew the initial darts and seams on this tunic top from the March 2007 issue of Burda WOF magazine. I’m making the majority of mine out of a Pucci-style knit, with a plain pink knit for the borders. But let’s move on to a tour of my sewing room, since this is probably the tidiest it’ll ever be…
Here’s the overview shot of the whole room. It’s about the size of two single beds side-by-side, with light coming from two halogen lamps and the porthole (which puts out a surprising amount of light during the day).
It wasn’t worth painting walls or laying down nice flooring for a temporary room, so I opted to use storage solutions that could be easily moved later on. I needed a place to keep all the bits of a project at hand, but with a lack of surfaces, I opted for the clothesline approach, which I love. It keeps the pieces handy and within reach, but out of my way, and provides a nice bit of changing wall art at the same time!
A small amount of shelving was leftover from the hotel room, so I made good use of these, organising my magazines and patterns on the middle shelf (and using cardboard separators to group like patterns together), and managing to store all my fabric stash in two clear plastic storage boxes underneath. One contains full measures of cloth, and the other has partial pieces leftover from other projects. I’m actively trying to reduce my stash, so it’ll be my own personal challenge to keep it contained in those two boxes!
Finally, I got to unpack the pattern hooks and hanging rack I got for Christmas and used it to keep frequently-sewn pattern pieces at easy reach. Currently on the rack are things like the button-down shirt pattern sized for James, an every day tank top pattern sized for me, a pocket template I use for inserting into side seams, and the pieces from my current project as I don’t need them any further.
So what do you think? Do you see anywhere I can improve my use of a small space? What organisation tips do use use in your sewing room?