Sewing Rooms

I just love to see how other quilters set up their sewing rooms! It is the place where our vision begins and ends. We plan, prepare, cut, piece, press, embellish, mark, quilt and hopefully bind the fruit of our vision. If not, then our sewing room is where we store another UFO. I was looking at Quilt Mama's blog and saw a picture of her sewing room. I have been to her house so I have seen it in person. It is to be envied. Seeing it got me thinking about my own sewing rooms. Yes, plural. I have had more sewing rooms than I have quilts! When I started quilting, my supplies lived on a shelf in the linen closet. I was a hand piecer, hand quilter, so this was ok. My sewing "room" was where ever I sat to sew. I then bought a $99 White sewing machine and felt I was officially in need of a sewing ROOM. I took an old kitchen table and set myself up in the corner of my bedroom. From there I ended up at one end of the family room. Somehow, my boys ended up sharing one of the 3 bedrooms we had in that house and I got my first room. It was Beautiful. I put wainscoat up and painted the walls hunter green. I had that same kitchen table but also a love seat for hand quilting and a little tv. The room was small, but to this day I remember it fondly.

When we moved in 2000 to this house, we had one child at home and 4 bedrooms. One of the main attractions for me was a corner room facing the east with 2 large windows. My dream sewing room. It was perfect and everything I could ever want. It lasted 5 months. We got a phone call that lead to my sewing room being turned into a bedroom for our soon to be daughter. Ok, so I still have another room in this house. It was a beautiful guest room. My niece who spent the night in it called it "the Little House on the Prairie room". It was sweet and cozy with an old fashioned lamp and bowl and pitcher...you get the idea. It doesn't matter because now it was a sewing room with a bed in it. It was a bigger room, but with one window facing west. I had that sewing room for under a year. The phone rang again and now my sewing room with a bed became a nursery. Now brace yourself. My sewing room then became that same kitchen table in a corner of my bedroom! That did not last long and I was relegated to an area in our unfinished basement. My wonderful husband tried to make it nice. He even hung old quilts to create walls, but there are spiders down there!!! I found myself bringing my machine (the same $99 one from 15 years before) up to the dining area and marathon sewing. If you are gonna bring all that stuff upstairs, you may as well SEW! FINALLY, last year we finished part of the basement and our mostly grown son moved down there. I had a ROOM again. I painted it a soft green and painted all my shelves white. I got rid of the kitchen table and got a desk from my mom. Hung some quilts on the wall and got a new sewing machine. Still a White, and still inexpensive, but it has needle down and that is all I need. The one window in the room faces west but it is the biggest bedroom next to my own. I tried to talk Charlotte out of her room and into this bigger one, but I have raised her to be sentimental and she opted to keep her original room with two windows facing east. I do have the treadmill dilemma. It is in my sewing room and I would like it out, but I am afraid I won't use it if I put it downstairs in the spider area.

The machine on the left is my $99 White. The White on the right is the upgrade.

Since I am new to blogging, I have not seen many sewing rooms. Melzie showed hers not long ago, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe you could share your sewing area. The picture at the top of the page is the desk I use as a sewing table and cutting table. If I get the treadmill out of here (you can see the white handle sticking out) I can have my handy husband build me a cutting table.

This is my grandma's hutch where I store fabric for soon to be quilts. Each stack of fabric has the book or pattern with it. My daughter keeps her current hand piecing project in here also. I store patterns, templates, small rulers, etc. in the bottom drawers.

The corner across from my desk is where I store my books. My library is not large but I love the books I have. The green clown on the shelf was given to me by my grandmother the day I was born. It was much loved.

The wonderful closet. A must for all sewing areas so you can close a door on the mess. I store bins of stash fabric in here. I plan to cut it all up into strips and squares under the guise of being organized! A friend on my list told me about the Scrap Users System I'll let you know how that goes.

Last, but not least, no sewing area is complete without a special quilt on the wall. This is a quilt done in a bee I use to belong too. I gave the fabrics, and 5 friends made 2 blocks each. I added 2 blocks and viola! These were my first Thimbleberry Fabrics and I bought yardage of the entire collection. I still have some in my stash and can find snippets of it in lots of other projects.

Think about sharing your sewing spaces. They can be very inspiring.