My Sewing Space

[Will be back tomorrow with a Triangle Madness update.]

Sometime this past June, I moved my sewing machine out of our guest room and into the first-floor sunroom. The guest room location just wasn’t working for a number of reasons. For one, it was crowded, and completely inaccessible if we actually had guests over (not to mention rather cluttered for those poor guests). For another, it was right there next to my kids’ rooms. For whatever reason, the transition out of cribs made them that much more interested in every little noise, so I all but lost the ability to sew while they slept. Uncool.

The sunroom is a small (6′ x 12′) space off of our dining room.  For the past five years, it has been little more than the “throw all the mess in there when company is coming over” room.  Periodically it will get organized and purged, but it almost immediately falls into the same old trap.

Enough.

I emptied as much of it as I could, moving my shelves full of seldom-used serving dishes to the basement, among other things.  Hauled down my table and my machine, set up the ironing board on the (weirdly tiled) shelf in front of the windows, and I was off to the races. I even picked up some inexpensive drapes at Target, mostly so the direct sunlight wouldn’t immediately fade all of my fabrics.

But still, it was a mish-mosh.  The tile floor was still kind of gross.  Miscellaneous junk still made its way in there.  The light fixture was still a single bare bulb on a pull-chain made from 50-year-old wrapping paper ribbon.

Enter, my mom and stepdad.  They’ve been here most of the week and have done a ridiculous amount of work (mostly of the purging and organizing variety) in my cluttered house.  And we spent much of that time on my sewing room.

It has been cleared of all extraneous crap.  The light fixture, though still on a pull-chain, is now at least finished-looking and brighter.  We laid down and custom-cut some carpet to cover the insane-looking tile, and be a much more pleasant place to put my bare feet. Not to mention hopefully provide a touch of insulation when the weather turns cold (no, the room is neither heated, cooled, nor insulated, but I’m just going to be in denial that winter is on the way).

My stepdad installed shelves for supplies and works-in-progress, and nails to hang my collection of rulers.  Everything has its place. (And you can see a little of the insane tile on the shelf – it was worse on the floor.)

My machine overlooks the yard, my thread is hung on the wall, and there’s even a bit of decoration, provided by some of the swap quilts I’ve received.

The ironing board is right next to my chair, up on that silly shelf that would have been too much work to take down, but is probably a blessing in disguise.

The best part about that crazy shelf/bench is that my yet-again-reorganized fabric stash has a home, tucked neatly underneath.

It’s not perfect. It is in dire need of a paint job.  Despite the slight deception of my wide-angle lens, it’s a very small room and it will take a lot of conscious effort on my part to keep it from turning into a total disaster area. While the newly-installed central air conditioning moderated this summer’s heat, I’m afraid I will not be able to say the same about the coming winter.

But it’s mine.  All mine.  And I love it.

So does the dog, apparently.