A well-organized sewing room helps make sewing a pleasure.
If you sew, having a sewing room all to yourself where you can work -- even a small room -- is a dream come true. Being able to store all of your tools and supplies and spread out to complete your work makes sewing far easier and more enjoyable than cramming everything into a closet and spreading out over the dining room table. Keeping your sewing room well organized makes completing your projects easier and prevents you from buying the same tool multiple times because the other one was "lost." Does this Spark an idea?
Use Vertical Space
One trick that many decorators use when designing small spaces is to make use of vertical space. Use your walls to help organize your sewing room. Install shelves to store fabric, supplies and patterns. A cork bulletin board hung over your sewing table is an ideal place to post the instructions for the project you're working on, and a length of pegboard and some hooks will keep your scissors and tools organized and in sight.
Fabric Organization
Keeping fabric organized can be challenging even when you have a spacious sewing room, and a small room only makes organization all the more important. You don't want to have to pull out all of your fabric stash searching for that one perfect fat quarter of pink floral fabric. Purchase stackable plastic bins to store your fabric, and sort your collection by color, type, fiber or size. For example, store all of your fat quarters in one bin, felts in another bin or cotton prints in another bin. Cut a small swatch of each fabric that you're storing, and attach it to the outside of the container so you know exactly what is inside to prevent unnecessary searching. If there is a closet in your sewing room, hang your fabric yardage; use skirt or pants hangers to hang multiple pieces and save space.
Unusual Organizational Items
Look outside of the sewing department for organizational tools for your sewing room. Fishing tackle boxes, with their multiple, adjustable compartments, are ideal for craft storage. Use tackle organizers to manage your spools of thread, needles, pins, buttons, snaps and other tools. The kitchen section also offers organizational items for your sewing room. A paper towel holder serves as a ribbon organizer, for example, and pretty canisters are decorative while offering functional storage for ribbons and other supplies. Drawer organizers and mug racks are also useful for keeping your stash neat and tidy.
Maintenance
Once your sewing room is organized, maintaining the organizational system is important. When you finish working, take the time to clean up and put away your tools and supplies so you can easily find them the next time you need them. Purchase a special basket or bin to hold works in progress so you don't lose pieces. Keep your patterns under control by sorting them in file folders, organized by type of pattern; use paperclips to keep all of the cut pieces together. If you have usable scraps of fabric, store them in a basket. Set a time limit for using the fabrics, such as six months. If you don't use the scraps within that amount of time, either toss or donate them to prevent sewing room clutter.
Tags: sewing room, your sewing, your sewing room, sewing room, store your, your fabric
