Sewing Space, Now with more drilling

Remember back when I showed you preview photos of my sewing space?  Yeah, me either!

Well, I said that it was in need of a bit more drilling and I'm pleased to say that's been done by the lovely Mr Magpie:

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Ikea?  That's one of their Bygel rails, which was a bargainacious £2, add on some hooks (which were about £1 for 10), a Bygel basket for bits and pieces and a Fintorp pot for pens.

I'm thinking of making an inspiration line from that duck egg cord to peg inspirational images and pieces of fabric from, I'll put it between the rail and the top of my machine.

Everything being put away makes me feel happy and relaxed and ready to work and create.

This might well be my favourite adage - maybe I need to make a hanging embroidery that says that?

Oh, and yay for cutting implements arranged in size order ;)

New Sewing Space Preview

It's nearly there, just a bit of drilling needed, which I clearly need to nag my gentleman into doing for me, but here's a little preview of my new sewing area:

I know it's probably really sad, but I was really excited when I found that my sewing machine fit perfectly next to my Ikea Moppe drawers.  Simple things please simple minds, eh?

But my favourite thing is how bright it is!  I have natural daylight!  If you remember my previous sewing cupboard, then I hope you'll appreciate how radical a change that is.

My space is in a corner of the open plan living area, behind one of our sofas.  This is a huge room, which was one of the main draws of this apartment, so I'm really lucky to have a generous corner of this bright, airy space.

I'm quite happy that I've managed to arrange all my sewing and writing things quite logically, with (one of my favourite sayings) a place for everything and everything in its place.  (People will be sick of me saying this very soon!)

The organisational bit is done, but the prettification is still in the pipeline.  I need to hit the DIY shop and get spray paint for some containers and I've got my eyes open for some pretty turquoise and warm pink wrapping paper to cover some storage boxes.

More pictures when there's more progress!

A New Year and a New Home

Small, but perfectly formed.

You might have noticed the presence of quite a few home-related things on my 12 for 2012 list ...  Well, yes, they're there and I've been rather quiet this week because my gent and I have been house-hunting!  There is something in the pipeline, but I don't want to talk about anything until it's all definite, so fingers crossed I'll have more to report soon!

You might wonder what relevance this has to the blog, but the gent has agreed that I'm getting a good sewing space (wewt!) that won't be a cupboard.  Much as I love (and am very lucky) having somewhere I can work and store all my stuff, there's rather too much stuff for the space - as you can see in the pictures, I have to share with tents, sleeping bags, guest bedding, DIY bits, the mop, the Christmas tree and assorted other things, which makes it all rather cramped.

Small and, well, imperfect!

The other reason I don't use the space as much as I would like is that there's absolutely no natural light, which is not great fun to sew in and definitely is not ideal for working out if thread matches fabric (luckily I learnt that one without having to unpick a whole garment!!!).  The room is either boiling hot or freezing cold (and I don't cope well with extremes of temperature at the moment with this stupid illness) and while everything I've got (or had when I put this room together back in the summer) has its own place, there isn't room/storage space to get anything else - I wouldn't have space for a serger (not that I could afford to get one of those for a long while) or any other bits and pieces.

So, thank you Mr Magpie ... Little did he know what he was letting himself in for: I've been raiding the internet for storage and layout ideas and inspirational sewing spaces.  There have been 'squees' and excited pointing out of pretty pieces of storage furniture and storage boxes.  Poor bloke, he doesn't get it.

But you do!

So over the next couple of months you'll be seeing plenty of ideas for sewing rooms.  I'm not going to have loads of space - it'll either be a corner in the living room or part of a spare room, which will be a smallish room shared with a sofa bed - but I'm going to concentrate on making it practical and pretty so I'll get the maximum use out of it.

At the moment I'm thinking about colour schemes - although I won't be able to paint the walls as we'll be renting, I want the space to look unified and neat, which having a pre-decided scheme will help with.  And I'm inspired by that image at the top (which is actually a colour combo I was thinking about trying out - turquoise and warm pink, two of my favourite colours) and Liz's carefully considered decor (coral, teal and turquoise) - both these rooms look so lovely, which I think is thanks to a combination of well-thought out use of colour (advocated by Singer!) and a place for everything and everything in its place.

If you have any sewing space/room tips, ideas or links, please do let me know!  Thank you :)

A Room of One's Own - My Sewing and Writing Space

It's done!  At last! 

It's not the prettiest sewing space, it's certainly not the largest (it might even be a contender for the smallest) and it doesn't have any natural light, but it's mine and I love it.

This room is essentially a glorified storage cupboard with a light and a plug socket (and a heater, but it gets so hot in there, I don't know why anyone would ever want to use it!), but when we first looked around the apartment I clocked that it was big enough for a desk.  That was over a year and a half ago, but hey, you can't rush these things, right?

It's funny, but I've noticed that a lot of other bloggers have been organising or rearranging their sewing spaces recently, too - it must be something about this time of year.  For me, it was the fact that I'd saved up for the necessary furniture and had the time after finishing my uni course.

To give you an idea of the size, it measures 1.5m by 1.8m (4'11" by 5'10"), plus the little alcove with the shelves.  And it's a hard-working little space - it multi-tasks between being a storage cupboard, the tool-shed, sewing space and writing room.  Just look at all the stuff I share my space with:

You know I said that Ikea owned my soul?  Well, when you've got so much to fit in so small a space, you really need great storage.  These shelves are perfect - they fit in a small space and you can put so much on them, plus their clear storage boxes fit on perfectly:

I love it when companies like this actually consider their items working together and harmonising - the middle shelves accomodate one deep box, while the bottom shelf fits a deep and a shallow box stacked on top of each other.  Genius!

Their cardboard boxes are the perfect size for patterns:

(And my knitting patterns are in that folder to the right.)

And last, but not least, little drawers!

I think loads of stitchers have these Helmer drawers - they're so useful and great value.  Plus, in a strange way, I enjoyed putting them together - yeah, sad, right? 

Even better, you can label them with exactly what's inside each drawer (yay, labels!) and they make little plastic inserts that divide the drawers into separate sections, if you want - so useful:

Another great way of maximising your space is by using the walls - I've already blogged about that wall-hanging pocket I made from One Yard Wonders, which is hanging right above my desk (it's a bit overflowing at the moment, but nevermind!).  I'm a bit scared of power tools, so I got my gentleman to put some wall-shelves up for me, giving a home to his beast of an A3 printer as well as other computer-related bits, like paper and blank discs.  And finally, there's a little pinboard for me to add inspiration pics and reminders for my sewing (like a list of the best needle sizes for different fabrics) and writing.

I've already been busy in my little cupboard, so expect some completed projects soon!  x

Ikea Owns My Soul, or setting up a sewing room

I love storage.  I love organising.  I was actually really happy that at work yesterday I got to arrange rings in a set of tiny drawers according to their size.  Sad, but true!

So, I'm taking a very short coffee break from making a desk and drawers and storage boxes and re-sorting through the store-room-come-office-slash-sewing-room to get it perfectly set up and organised.

I had an Ikea trip on Wednesday night, so I'm armed with all the organisational bits and pieces I need for there to be a place for everything and everything in its place*.  BLISS!

* I might have to make a cute little sampler of that phrase, actually ...