Monday, October 5, 2009

Organizing my creative space

After 11 years of not having a sewing room or even a dedicated closet, I have a beautiful and sunny sewing room. I have enjoyed getting organized so that I know what materials I have to work with and what I may need to purchase. It's been fun finding ways to keep things in order while being able to enjoy looking at them, as well. Here are a few of my solutions:

For my buttons still on their cards, some of which predate the 1940's, I decided to group them by color on a bulletin board. They are decorative and useful this way.


I had a shelf my father had made for me that I wanted to use in the room and after installing it, I had an inspiration to use lightweight chain and small dowels to create a thread holding system. It's simple, inexpensive, flexible and attractive. I even use it to hold my serger spools. Here it is:

I have the dresser my sisters and I shared as children and it has drawers that are perfectly suited to organizing sewing supplies, such as mending, bobbin trays, trims and bindings:

And milk crate sized wire racks work just right for most of my fabric stash, sorted by color and fabric type, folded into like dimensions, with a drape to prevent fading yet easy to get to when inspiration strikes:

And I don't want any comments about personality attributes or disorders.

I'm happy in my space.

5 comments:

Macatawa said...

Just had to see this after reading your post to the Threads discussion. The chain and dowel idea for the sewing thread is brilliant. I was looking for an alternative as I do not want to hang the wooden thread boards. Will try this to see haw it functions for me. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful idea for storing thread. It's easy, expandable and adds graphic, colorful interest to the room!

Valerie said...

Brilliant organizing solutions! Can't wait to see what you do with your knitting, weaving, and spinning fibers! (no pressure...)

Patti's Blog said...

Neat ideas. The chain/dowel thing for thread is inspired. HOW DO YOU store the cone thread on it? I couldn't tell from picture.

Kristine said...

Ah, you're right, the bottom of the chain doesn't show in the picture. I put a short piece of dowel crosswise through the last chain link and it keeps the cones from sliding off. Another note is that I found where the two thread sections meet, I really needed to have two separate chains hanging from that hook. Otherwise, there is enough motion when you are removing a dowel that it upsets the threads to the other side and things begin to come off.