Show Off Your Studio Series - Becky

Welcome to our first installment of the "Show Off Your Studio Series".  Our first generous volunteer is Becky showing off her tidy and functional sewing space in her own words.

Becky’s Studio

So, here is my sewing area – part-time desk, part-time sewing station.  Nothing very fancy at all.  Just like all you guys, I have a sewing machine (What kind you ask?  It’s a Pfaff Smarter C1100 Pro I received for Christmas purchased from Fabrics Etcetera), ironing board, radio, and a room of left-over furniture that doesn’t belong anywhere let alone go together.  But hey, my kid brother’s very old toy box works great for stashing linens for the guest futon and old license plates and who could get rid of a rocking chair?  And that bureau?  Yeah, you guessed it - stuffed with fabric.  Just as it was when my mom had it in her basement crafting area. 

So Becky, what’s that I see on the desk?   Shh.  Let’s keep it a secret until the June wedding it’s being made for.  No, you’ll see it done at the next show and tell in May (or maybe June) – that’s my deadline (May, yes, May – I gotta ship it guys).

And what the heck girl, your room is neat!  Well, honestly, I cleaned it for the photo.  And I painted it last week (show-and-tell spurs all kinds of long-contemplated action) so everything had to be out of the way else risk paint splatter.

But do tell, what is your organization scheme?  Ok, so the bureau houses batting scraps and unwashed fabrics.  The closet houses washed fabric, fabric scraps, supplies, and a multitude of other things.  So there are a set of bins on both sides of the closet.  The left side is the sewing side and I have frequently-used things like scissors, pins, feet and needles in the small upper drawers, boxes of thread in the upper large drawer and piles of fabric, sorted by color in the bottom drawers.

I recently cleaned out the closet as well and cleared several shelves to store in-progress things – bobbins and thread currently being used, fabric for current and next-in-line projects, etc.  I received the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Nyberg and Arkison as a door prize at the 2012 HMQG Quilt Festival Meet-Up and it suggested sorting your scraps as well.  I already had these bins and took their advice.  I decided to sort larger scraps by color, and I have 1 bin for strips and 1 bin for selvages.  Fellow HMQG’er Becca made a quilt with cool selvage binding last fall and so I decided to start saving the selvages I once threw out, just in case.

So there we have it, a modest quilter’s corner.  Easily reproducible in fine small spaces everywhere.

- Becky