A brick-lined loft, exquisitely lit by large windows. One wall of shelving holding fabric. Another serving as a design wall. A giant cutting table in the middle, with a brightly colored stool tucked underneath. A chaise lounge in front of the window, flanked by plants. My sewing machine perched on a desk, with samples and sketches pinned up behind it. While I can describe this studio with incredible detail, it doesn’t actually exist, except in my imagination.
Having lived in apartments my entire adult life, I’ve never had a dedicated sewing room, but I always manage to set up a “studio” - either a corner in the living room or bedroom. In my New York apartment, space is at a premium, but it was still important to me to have some sort of dedicated sewing space, so I had to get a little creative.
Some sort of home office was a must, as I work from home a lot. Before moving, I researched MANY desks and peg board systems and ultimately settled on a desk from Ikea that featured a long top, with the base consisting on two versions of the Alex drawers - one a 5-drawer cabinet and one just a plain cabinet with a shelf inside.
I calculated that my sewing machine would fit perfectly in the cabinet, and I planned to store all my fabric, tools, and notions in the drawers. I opted to keep the drawers on the right side so I could easily grab supplies with my right hand. My work monitors and computer live on top of the desk and there’s enough room so I don’t have to move them when I do want to sew. I keep a piece of fabric over them so I’m not reminded of work on my off-time!
I simply pull out my sewing machine (stored in a travel bag in the cabinet) and plug it in. I feel a bit like a pit crew doing my setup, but I think I got it down to like 2 minutes, so it’s really not that bad!
The top drawer is actually used for work-related things, so I only use four of the drawers for sewing/crafting. The second drawer contains the majority of my tools - scissors, rotary cutter, sewing machine feet, etc. The third drawer consists of some larger tools, my paper pattern collection, and WIPs. The fourth and fifth drawers are only fabric. The fourth is all scraps and smaller pieces, while the fifth and last drawer holds my larger pieces of yardage.
Overall, this system works amazingly well, but my fabric storage space is quite limited, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I only acquire more fabric if I need something for a specific project and frequently assess scraps and give away as needed. I also don’t have a lot of free space to hold larger WIPs, so I feel like I complete projects more quickly. And I have vowed not to make a king size quilt again until I have a larger, dedicated sewing space (we’ll see how long that vow holds up), so I haven’t had to deal with larger WIPs taking up space. I’m in my small project era!
My ironing board lives in the space between the fridge and the kitchen wall, my travel-sized iron lives in my third drawer, and I set up the ironing station in the living room on an as-needed basis. I place my cutting mat - currently way too small - on the breakfast bar that divides the kitchen and living room. I gave away my big cutting mat before moving and currently work with a 12 by 16 inch mat. Honestly, it is really annoying to use and I am ready to upgrade the size soon. 18 x 24 inches would probably be best as that could still fit on my cutting surface and fit in my sewing machine cabinet. I’m also thinking of adding a small wool pressing mat for smaller ironing tasks so I don’t have to set up the big board in a separate room.
I’m currently not doing much knitting/spinning, so all that stuff is stored away in under the bed storage containers and my spinning wheel is packed away in its travel bag and lives in my closet until I get the knitting itch back!
My newest baby quilt is underway! I’m reusing the bullseye motif from my India quilt, but keeping it smaller. The quilt will be made up of twelve blocks, which I’m in the process of piecing. Cutting fabric was slow going with the aforementioned tiny cutting mat, but like Tim Gunn says, I made it work!
What is your crafting studio like? Let us know in the comments or reply to this email!
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