Cleaning the Sewing Room...

Quote for the Day:

"Don't cook.  Don't clean.  No man will ever make love to a woman 

because she waxed the linoleum.   

'My God, the floor's immaculate.  Lie down, you hot bitch.' "  

~Joan Rivers

Our kids and grandkids are coming in next week for a visit, so I figured it was time to clean the sewing room...which doubles as a guest bedroom for the grandkids when they are here!   I've been working on a lot of projects in 2010, so the place was quite a mess.  

In "theory" I clean the room well between projects, putting away everything from the last one to get ready for the next one.  Nice theory, huh?  LOL

Well...let's just say that maybe I've been in too much of a hurry to start the next project to bother straightening the sewing room and put things away.

I don't have a picture of the "before" room, but here's a hint...
When I'm in the process of making a quilt, I keep my cut pieces, blocks, leftover fabric, etc., in baskets to "corral" them...usually one basket for the pieces and blocks, and one basket for the scraps, etc.

Well...I emptied these baskets today and put the stuff in them away...

That's a lot of quilts/projects that didn't get cleaned up after as they were finished.  *hangs head in shame*  LOL

While cleaning, I found some more things to "release into the wild"...
 
A friend said she'd like the quilt blocks and fabric that I showed in yesterday's post that I was going to offer on the yard sale, so today when cleaning I found some more to add to it.  :)

I hope she can put them to good use!  :)

I also found some more vintage linens to be "released" to my niece, Kristin...

Now for a tour of the cleaned sewing room!  :)

As you enter the room, immediately to your left is the east wall which has my TV and stereo sitting on top of a shelving unit.   To the left of the bookcase/shelving unit is my "design wall" that extends completely behind the door.  

As you can see there is nothing on the design wall, because like I said, I'm getting ready for company and I'm not starting any projects before then.  I also store the "big board" for my ironing board behind the door when I'm not working on a quilt, and the ironing board beside it when not in use.  The picnic baskets hold my Christmas and other seasonal fabrics.

As you continue to your right around the room, you will see the south wall that contains my cutting table, a storage shelf, and the door to my stash closet! 

Here's a look inside my stash closet...

As you continue around the room, to the right is the west wall.  Along this wall is another bookshelf and 2 storage units with doors.  On top of the white storage units you can see my stash of batting.  The door with the stained glass window goes out to a storage room.  (I don't keep any sewing stuff in the storage room...it's full with non-sewing stuff.)

Continuing to the right is the north wall.  This is my sewing area.  

I have 2 sewing machines sitting on the table...one is an embroidery/sewing machine and the other is just a sewing machine.  Behind the embroidery machine (on the left) is my serger pushed back against the wall (covered with a blue cloth as a dust protector).  When I want to use it, I slide the embroidery machine out of the way and pull the serger forward for use.


To the right of the sewing table is the door leading out of the room back into the hallway.

Since I like to look at other people's sewing rooms to get ideas about storage, etc., I thought I'd share some of my storage ideas...

Thread storage cabinet...found at a yard sale for 25 cents! 

I store the bobbin with the spool of thread it matches by setting the bobbin on top and inserting a screw down the middle of both the bobbin and the spool to keep them together.


Ruler storage...actually a metal Christmas card holder...found at Goodwill for $2!

WIP (works in progress) storage...pizza boxes I buy from the local pizza restaurant for 50 cents each...

Scraps are cut and stored by size using Bonnie Hunter's hints.

Quilting templates are on the side of the tall storage shelf...

Finished tops are hung on hangers and stored on the back of the entry door....

Hope you enjoyed the tour!  Thanks for stopping by!  Please leave me a comment to let me know you were here and to let me know what you "released into the wild" recently!

Loretta