My Own Personal Heaven!

I love reading the blog posts by other sewists (and craftspersons) that show their working space - I am totally inspired by these rooms, and usually end pinching a couple of ideas from them! So I thought that it was time to share my own little piece of heaven!  To explain, I am lucky enough to have my own sewing room after years of having a corner of the dining table/room, and when Mr. SDSC and I had out current house built earlier this year, I put in for the biggest room that I could have (apparently I had to allow for other rooms. Whatever!!), but I have a west facing room in the basement. The small window looks out into the garden (which is currently under about 2ft of snow right now). It is a warm room - so great for stripping off as I check the fit of garments and the light is pretty good, although I usually have a number of lamps on for specific lighting, where I need it most.

So, having had a huge tidy up yesterday and today, I took a pile of photographs that I would like to share with yourselves. The first batch are taken as I walk into my room, and then spin round, finishing off where I started:

As you can see, I am a huge Ikea fan!  The furniture is fabulous for my sewing room - pretty well priced, versatile and lots of space for storage!

I like to see my fabric when I am sewing - it gets me thinking about my next project, and these shelving units are perfect for display.  Turns out that I had more fabric than I realised, and having it color co-ordinated, it will certainly help me with future fabric selections!

As you can see, I have my sewing machine on one table, and I can then just swivel round on my chair to be able to use my serger (overlocker).

The far end has a little seating area, and the window.  And yes, indeedy.  There is a leg in the window with a sock on it.

These drawers are my latest acquisitions.  I have read a few blogs that recommended these units for holding patterns.  I can fit them in standing up, four across, and lots deep!  This is the first time in a long time that I have all my patterns in one location (rather than all over the place), so expect some different designs in the near future!  For Ikea furniture, they are a little on the flimsy side, but they do have braces on the underside of the drawers and they will work well as pattern cabinets!

The boxes on top of the drawers are empty - but I am sure that will change in pretty quick order!

Whilst I love sewing, I am also partial to a number of other crafts . . . . ., I use the bureau when I am beading, and the tall skinny unit to the right houses my cross stitch threads/canvas/patterns/kits etc.,  The 2x6 unit houses yarn for my sock knitting.  I do like to keep my hobbies housed separately . . . . !

I have a little TV on top of the plastic drawer unit (that has cardmaking stuff inside!!) and watch Netflix whilst I am down here.

So, let me show you a few close ups:

You can probably just make out stickers on the drawers and boxes - I need to come up with a better labelling system.  But until then - stickers work well!  You can also see my iron which is usually on constantly when I am sewing.  So that I don't forget to switch it off, we had a separate electrical circuit put in my room, with a switch next to the light switch.  I have the iron, my overlocker and a lamp plugged into the socket, so when I leave my room, as long as all the lamps are off, nothing is plugged in.  Perfect!!

I had hoped to have a bookcase in my room, but I kind of run out of space!  I did manage to make space for a few favourites!  The notes are a couple of GBP1.00 notes from my Mum a few years ago when she was living in Scotland.  I was to use the money to buy a couple of chews for my dogs - I'm glad I used coins and kept these, as they are now out of circulation.  And they remind me of happy times with my Mum xx

This is a 'before' pic of the pattern drawers.

And this is the after view.  I have taken the patterns out of their envelopes and put them in an ordinary brown one, numbered them all, and they are in strict numerical order.  The pattern envelopes are in clear plastic sleeves in a file folder, so I can flick through the designs and when I have selected one, I can just pull it from the drawer.  Mr. SDSC thinks that this is a recipe for disaster, and that somewhere along the line I am not going to be able to match up a pattern envelope with the actual pattern, but he seems to forget how OCD I am :)

Lovely, lovely, lovely fabric!!

More labelled drawers with my button box on top.

My button box was a cheap purchase from Home Depot - I think that it is supposed to be for carpenters or electricians to keep nuts/bolts.screws etc in, but it is perfect for my buttons!

Whilst in Home Depot I also picked up this yellow sticky tape that is marked as a measuring tape.  It is great for 'on the go' measuring!

Now, you may have been looking at the floor space in my room and thinking 'why would she have carpet and not tile/laminate in a sewing room?', or 'oh my, look at all that lovely floor space, just think what you could do with that', well, here we go.  The reason for carpet and lots of space - my 'boys' Hobbes and Rocky, the greyhounds.  They do like to be close by when I am sewing!  Jess the collie is usually in my room, but I didn't get a good picture of her.

Wow.  Lots of photos there!  Whilst I really dislike tidying up, I have found LOADS of patterns and fabric that were hidden under piles of 'stuff' or hidden in boxes that had not been unpacked since we moved in in March.  Now I am very excited to start sewing again, and I can 'shop' for patterns and fabric in my own room!

As I say, this is my piece of heaven - what is yours like?  Any 'top tips' that make your space a great sewing place?