the sewing room

We live in a two bedroom apartment, so the second bedroom serves double duty as the sewing room and the office. Storage space is at a premium in there! Most of the furniture in the room came from Ikea. Here's a basic floorplan of the room:

The sewing machines are on a rolling desk, which let me move it forward into the computer area when I need more room, and backwards into the sewing area when I haven't had time to sew for a while or my husband needs more room on the other side. This desk was definitely the best option for our small space.

Here's a view of the sewing half of the room, seen from the closet area. The corner of the computer table is just visible at the right side of the photo. I keep my serger and my regular machine side by side on the desk, making it easy to switch back and forth. I can slide either out of the way if I need more room for the other (and I can move the desk away from the cutting table if needed), but it's rare that such adjustments are needed. You can't see it, but my dress form is just to the left of the ironing board. Hanging on the wall is a quilt made by my Aunt Candy, a gift for my college graduation. I love to look at this quilt while I'm working.

On the cutting table, I keep my Gingher rotary mat, the accessory box for my sewing machine, and my embroidery machine (it's under a vinyl cover in the picture). There are two lights over this table, which are adjustable and provide a huge amount of light. I have a pegboard to the right and a tool rack in front of this table. Between the two, I hold all of my rulers, scissors, tools, and marking utensils. Under the table, visible in the next picture, are two Ikea drawer units and an old rolling cart. I keep pattern paper, interfacing, hair canvas, and stabilizer on top of the drawer units, which house thread, ironing supplies, buttons, zippers, works-in-progress, and decent sized fabric remnants. The cart holds mostly fiberfill and batting.

Next up is the shelving unit between the closet and the door to the room. There are four shelves attached to the wall, hanging over a sewing cabinet that I made in college. I keep completed projects that don't have other homes (such as portfolio pieces) inside the cabinet. On top of it, there are two crates that house my stash of patterns, slopers, and Threads magazines. The shelves face a window, so I keep them covered with a piece of draped fabric to prevent fading. On top of the shelves but not visible in the picture, I store my embroidery thread set and a bin of trim.

Here's an image of the shelves with the drape pulled up. I fold the fabric into uniform piles by wrapping each piece around my 6" ruler. These shelves aren't really organized by type, but it's not a hindrance for me when I'm choosing fabrics for a project. I swatch all of the fabrics before storing them, and I constantly refer back to that notebook when I'm planning something new.

The closet is awkwardly designed, in that there's a lot of width mostly inaccessable given the size of the door. To make the most of the space, I have shelves and a hanging storage unit in there. The shelves hold "other" craft supplies including a light desk, my husband's Speedball kit, cross stitch supplies, tissue paper, and small remnants of fabric. There's also a "need to mend" bin. The hanging storage includes clothing items that are waiting to be altered into something new, and some towels that will be embroidered at some point in time.

Finally, the bookcase holds all of my craft books, as well as my husband's computer books and boxes of office supplies. My books are organized by subject. I used cut-up manilla folders and neon green labels as dividers; these are just visible in the picture.