project sewing room: a new addition

I started the project: sewing room a couple of years to document the changes/additions I make to my sewing room. Along the years, I have wanted to make updates and improvements to my sewing room, but I am a true minimalist at heart. Okay, if you want to know the truth, I don't know the first thing about interior design. Along with being conditioned not to collect things since I moved around a lot, I tried to keep the minimum around without having to throw it away the next time I moved. I have two new milestone improvements to my sewing room! Yeah!

The most important addition is my thread rack. For years now, I have been asking my sewing friends what they use for storing their threads. Katrin of Cattinka uses this really cool idea of storing her threads on baking sheets. Her husband made a really cool storage rack for it too. I was definitely jealous when I saw hers. I even went out and bought a bunch of supplies to make my own thread rack, and my husband kindly asked me to return the items so he could "think of something" and make it himself. You see, I had specifics...I wanted a thread rack that enclosed my thread, and you could see it all at a glance.

As months stretched on to a year, he came up with a plan, not to make the shelf, but rather "have it made." I was okay with that. Of course, it always (sentimentally) means a little bit more when your sweetheart makes something for you, but if we could find it a little cheaper and didn't have to worry about building it, that would be okay too. He did his research (my husband LOVES TO DO RESEARCH) and found an awesome place to have the rack made - vitrine24.

"Sammelvitrine" for Thread

The rack or "display case" is custom-made with the measurements 19 1/2 inches x 29 inches or 50cm x 75cm. It is separated into two parts. The top part and bottom part are equal in size, but you can have it adjusted and made however you wish. Both parts have two, clear Plexiglas doors that slide open from the sides. There are NO SPOOL INSERTS. I just wanted a place to "display" my thread and keep it free of dust.

The second addition to my sewing room is a pin board. I bought a cork panel ~ 50 x 90 cm from the local home building and supply store (BayWa) and inserted three, metal picture hangers into each side and in the middle on the back to hang it up.

Picture Hanger Screw

I use it for notes and smaller blocks. The mini quilt or block pictured here in green is a free form creation from my daughter (8 years old). She made it all by herself! Seriously, I totally let my kids sew on my machine and I DON'T watch over them. : )

Do-it-Yourself Pin Board

If you think my room is nice and tidy, it is when everything is cleaned up and put away. Since I am right in the middle of a couple of projects, the "in-progress material" was temporarily relocated. : )

If you are wondering why I didn't install the thread shelf above my sewing table, there are two reasons, actually three.

1. The pin board was already installed before the thread rack. That means, there were already holes in the wall. We can't go making more holes now can we?
2. I like to see my colorful threads. At the table, I wouldn't be able to see anything if I am sitting there. 
3. I might change my room layout around in the near future. My sewing table would go where the cutting table now is. Then the threads would be at my back.

What is next on the list for sewing room improvements? Hmm. I have been wanting a new chair. I don't think I want a computer chair, but something more stylish could do. I like my wedge cushion and don't think I could throw that away. : )

Thanks for stopping by. Next time, give me a call and I'll brew a special coffee just for us!

project sewing room: storage bins and totes

Were you curious to know if this was still an topic with me or that I ditched the subject? Although I haven't posted in a looong time, it is still a part of my ongoing series called project sewing room - "rund ums Nähzimmer." My other posts are about sorting your fabric and making a cutting/project table from an Ikea bookshelf. Today I want to talk about organization in storage boxes and totes.

Free tutorial from Forth Worth Fabric Studio

I recently re-organized my fabric cabinet and bought some plastic totes to store my fabrics. I wasn't totally happen with my fabrics flying around in my cabinet. I get pretty lazy sometimes when it comes to putting fabric back to the right spot. I thought a plastic basket or tote would be a good solution for storing my fabrics away in the cabinet, not getting dusty but could be pulled out easily when I wanted to rummage through a set of colors. I bought a few different sizes and am giving them a try. I should buy about three more, but we'll see how this goes for now.
  
As you can see, It looks like I have almost no fabric!! Do you believe that? I do, because my stash is slowly getting smaller and smaller. I am finding projects to help me de-stash. Of course, I did get rid of a lot of more "country" or traditional fabrics last fall by donating to another patchwork friend. She really appreciated them too. Now I am generally working in fabric collections and rarely pull from my own stash.

Colder colors are on the top shelf and warmer colors on the second shelf. My larger pieces of fabric are located on the bottom shelf. I keep most of my pre-cuts in other totes where I can grab at them easier for quick projects.

One option to get more organized is simply to buy cheap plastic totes. My new ones are stackable without lids. Since they are hidden in the cabinet, I thought that would be an overkill. I just wanted more of a quick in/out solution.

Another creative way to organize is to make your own totes or boxes. I have always loved the Ikea boxes and wanted to make them for the top shelf of my bookshelf/cabinet. I had this really great modern fabric in my stash which is a heavy woven made in England. I thought my shelf could use a bit of color and pulled it out. I managed to make my box with the dimensions 9 x 9 x 15 inches. It should have been 9 x 15 x 15, but the designer screwed up!!

It didn't seem as stable as it should have been, so I looked around the house and found my milk container box that holds 12 cartons of milk. It fit perfectly for more stability! I completely winged this pattern "freie Schnauze." But there are loads of great patterns out there!

If you are looking for some storage for holding your different types of fleece, wadding or batting, you can make this upright basket! We made it in our patchowrk group meeting this past month. You can find free directions with pattern here. The directions are in GERMAN! Die Anleitung ist in deutsch geschrieben, juhu!

I found this great little tutorial from the Forth Worth Fabric Studio for portable fabric tote.. I have honestly never made a basket tote, so this was very exciting for me! I did a pretty good job too, if I am allowed to say that.

I think if I make another one, I will either put the handles on the ends, or sew them down in the top stitching seam. I don't really like how they flap around. Check out my perfect side seam! ;-) Don't look at the quilting lines, just the green part. ;-)

I thought this could come in handy when a new baby is around...maybe for diapers, wipes, talcum powder/creme, etc. It matches the quilt in the background that I have been working on. The top is finished, I just have to quilt it. I am looking forward to that next week.

Have you made any good storage totes or boxes that you would like to share with us? If you have please drop us a note so we all can profit! Thanks for stopping by.

What did I learn this week? Making boxes and totes can be a lot of fun!

sorting your fabric

In preparation for Project: Sewing Room, I cleaned up my own sewing room and sorted out my fabric. I usually sort it out once a quarter or every six months. In the beginning, it is so nicely folded and organized. Do you know what I mean? When I start to dive into my sewing projects, sometimes (just sometimes), I get lazy and just start to throw things back in without folding and color coordinating. My fabric cabinet has doors for a reason! Out of sight, out of mind.

How to sort fabric? I have sorted by color, by size, by project, by collections. What is the best way? Honestly, I haven't found it out yet. I have read books about it and didn't really understand why one would sort out by color. I usually sew in collections.

Every time I sort, I seem to do it different to see what works better for me. The last time I sorted, I folded everything nice and neatly into about 3" x 8" fabric-fold stacks. This optimized my cabinet space to fit a lot more in and stayed relatively flat instead of towers of fabrics. This time, I folded my fabric into quarter bundles. I put all of my colorful fabric on the top shelf, where I will see it and use it more often. I also put the contrasting colors in front, because I like a lot of contrast. The neutral blacks, white, brown, grays got put on the middle shelf. I hardly use these anymore.

I keep the larger pieces separated - pieces 1/2 meter and more go into their own groups. You can see these at the bottom. I will usually use these for backing fabrics.

Honestly, it doesn't look like I have that much fabric looking at this picture! But I also sorted out fabrics for special projects I am working on. My Hasenbach, North Pole, Kitschy, and Mod/Mod Block Lotto all got new project totes. I bought these at our local home improvement store - Bau V-Markt; they fit great into my cutting table shelves. I also have a few smaller collections of fabric stored in plastic bags in the other cabinet. I store my scraps, other projects, batting and notions inside that one.

Now, I really don't think I have a lot of fabric, but who ever really has enough? How do you organize your fabric and why? I would love to hear from you!

project: sewing room

Hello my very dear and loyal readers! Today I would like to share with you my sewing room and a few ideas I have about it. If you are coming to my site via IkeaHackers to take a look at the customized sewing room cutting table, you will be very excited about this new project.

I first uploaded "how to make the cutting table" almost one year ago and had big ideas for the rest of my sewing room. But as things usually go, the day-to-day gets in the way. Now that I am working in the room, I see room for improvement and desperately need to make some changes.

My project is to improve and vitalize my sewing room with (new) ideas that are very functional for the 20-ten patchworker! I will bring out a post (once a month) giving tips, ideas, or little projects that will "WOW" your sewing room. Now, I know we all have our own style. Some like dark wood, some black, some cherry, some beech (Buche) wood. I like it "modern rustic." For me, that means the look of old wood combined with white. I love color, believe me I do! But in my sewing room, I want the room to be my canvas. My sewing room will stay within this theme, but you can tailor the projects to your style and your space. I will even talk a little bit about ergonomics in the sewing room.

I am very fortunate and thankful to have a medium sized room with lots of light. It is used not only by me for sewing, but additionally as the "ironing room" where I get the laundry back into order as well as the place where the kids do their homework. So, this being said, it has to accommodate these things as well.

The essentials are already set up - cutting table, sewing table, storage. I have a wonderful cutting table (100x140cm) made by my Schatzi. I am using an older Ikea table (80x120cm) with adjustable legs which gives me the perfect height I need to sew. The table is turned perpendicular to the wall, because I want to look around my room. Otherwise, I would feel like I were in a jail cell looking at a cement wall. It also allows me to quilt larger quilts and let them hang off the table. Last year, I also bought double cabinets for fabric storage and a tall book shelf with drawers for unfinished projects and additional storage.

My room looks a little messy right now, but I wanted to be candid about it. No one is perfect and nothing is ever 100% clean and organized all of the time. My room is in a working condition, not a museum.

First up on the To-Do-List is to get my sewing room back on track and do some spring cleaning...sorting out projects, fabrics, and some general cleaning. I found a good article about it here.

I hope you will join me once a month for a post on project: sewing room! Please feel free to leave a comment about ideas that have helped you in your sewing room/space.

Back in the Sattle Again

Oh my goodness, how time has flown. I took a short break (almost three months) to get my life and household back in order again. To make the short of it, we bought a house, and it has taken a bit longer than I anticipated to get things organized and get our lives back on track - to get adjusted to the schools and the way things operate here in Bavaria. We used to live in Baden-Württemberg where it seemed things were just a bit simpler.

I have been working on the layout of my new sewing room. Yes, I have a sewing room now. Before I used to work at the kitchen table just like everyone else I suppose. I enjoyed my big working space there, but found it a bit tedius to pack everything away when I wanted to cook. What I always enjoyed was that the kids were right there with me either coloring, sewing, crafting or playing games while I sewed.

So, in the next couple of weeks, I will be showing you the evolution of my new sewing room and maybe even some plans that you can use yourself!!

I look forward to spending more time sewing again!

Yours truly
Karen