Oh What A Mess!
A story of planning, frustration and good friends.
When you sew, you collect fabric and can always see the usefulness of that bit of fabric that’s left over from a project. When you sew, people who know this give your their leftover fabric as well. When you sew, you buy fabric because it looks sooo good, and then you need a place to store that fabric.
Add to that scenario that you are a longarm quilter and stock fabric for backing and sewing and wadding and then you have even more extras that can build up.
Before…
Oh my goodness, my room had become a mess as I was so busy quilting that nothing else was dealt with. I would start a project and not get it finished, I had wadding scraps piling up, magazines from years ago that I never looked at anymore. I was too busy quilting to make the project in them that i bought it for in the first place. I was not happy with the flow of my room and where my supplies were located.
This picture above was my ‘storage room’ where I kept some backing fabric but mostly the quilts waiting to be quilted and STUFF that we had held onto for a really long time. I could barely walk through there and it was getting worse!
It was time to sort all this stuff and make things look and work better.
In between all this I was working on quilts and running a business. Not a good way to end the year. It was time to make some changes. I had been mulling over a tidy up and sort through, chuck out and was mentally in a good place to tackle this project.
During…
These cupboards were emptied and all the contents sorted through, some things I kept and will use eventually, the fabric has been aging nicely and I kept what I really thought I would use, and put a lot, a whole lot out to be given away. Those cupboards are no longer in me studio. Wahoo, down 4 items of furniture right there!
The shelves were emptied and the doors taken off the secret room, the whole wall was going to be removed. Oh this was going to change things up quite a bit. No more hiding all that junk. 
Cue the strong males. I told Jonathan he could bash stuff and he was keen to help. This wall was well built with a pre-made frame and bolted to the concrete floor, but we prevailed, or rather the men did.
Down came the plywood and then out came the sledgehammer.
And then it was gone… I have a plan for that door as well. I know the walls are unpainted and that will be a future project.
Having some awesome friends who help you sort through your accumulated stuff is very helpful, they are the honesty and reality check that kept me going when it can to throwing stuff away. It was hard to throw good useful stuff, but it has become useful to someone else and not clogging up my space.
Despite removing the other brown cupboards I couldn’t part with the dark brown cupboard in the background here. It has been in the family for a long time so I prefer to keep it. I now holds all my threads. 
Then the process of putting the room back together began, this was a little daunting but again I had some fantastic help. 
As you can see there are still piles of stuff on the table and under it and on the floor and at this stage piled on the quilting frame.
So the revamp of my studio was under way. Then in a Facebook group for Bloggers I came across a post by a lovely lady who I’d like to meet one day. Jen of Faith and Fabric Design has organized this blog hop of bloggers showing their sewing spaces. All the links to the others are at the end of this post. Check them out and you might find some inspiration for your own space.
And now for the part you’ve been waiting for.
After…
The pictures are from my studio with the revamp mostly done. Finer points and a few areas still to be dealt with but overall much better.
From the door to the studio looking in over to my quilting frame, notice the clear floor and nothing extra on my sewing machine table. That is a feat in itself. And our cat Boo made herself at home on my chair. Better than on a quilt!
My desk area still need s fair bit of paper sorting but it’s a work in progress. The floor is clear, the computer playing some music from Youtube, the cat made herself at home on my chair.
My quilting frame without lots of stuff stacked on it or around the base. The blue material covers the rolls of wadding to keep extra dust off them. The camping floor mats are for a bit of comfort for me when I’m standing quilting for long periods.
… then if your gaze sweeps to the left you’ll see my lovely large cutting table, shelves of fabric and other goodies for sale. My lovely chest of drawers from when I was a girl, I have my shelves from in the secret room, one of which hold the quilts to be done and the other hold my bits and pieces and sewing supplies. I’ve finally managed to hang some small quilts that were part of swaps. No longer do I have rolls of wadding hanging over my head blocking the natural light.
Then keep turning to the left and the room is almost done, you can see the door where we started on the left of the picture. Remember the door I mentioned earlier? it’s had some wadding stapled to it and is now my design wall. I still have a cupboard to hoard my fabric stash but it has been much reduced to what I might actually use, along with those green and red tubs under the table. The old brown cupboard holds my threads for quilting and sewing. The small shelf unit above holds a few books and some ongoing WIP’s.
My studio is an ongoing project, there’s always more to be done and I’ll be honest there were a few things removed from the area so the pictures were a bit cleaner.
Thank you to my hubby and son for their muscle. Thank you to my lovely friends for helping me make sense of the conglomeration of my things and sensibly sort them. I’m keen to work this year in a newly revamped studio and continue the process.
Happy Sewing everyone.
Check out the other bloggers sharing about their sewing spaces via these links;
Jen Frost of Faith and Fabric
Tisha Nagel of Quilty Therapy
Emily Carroll of Toothpaste and Orange Cat
Sherry Smedley of Adventures in Life
Emma Wengier of Emkie Designs
Anne Beier of Hudson Valley Quilts
Cindy Pieters of Stitchin At Home
Amanda Hildore of Fabric Engineer
Be sure to leave us all a comment telling us you favourite part of our rooms! We’d love to hear if anyone is inspired to make a change to their sewing space.
