Sewing Room Organization

My sewing room is also a laundry/exercise/kids' craft/spare freezer and occasional guitar building workshop as well! Finding a way to organize and store supplies is an ongoing challenge. The blue, 4 drawer file cabinet keeps my sewing books and idea notebooks mostly dust free. My husband made the terracotta colored drawers where I keep most of my fabric stash. It is mostly divided by color. I also have a knits drawer and a misc. one with novelty and hard to color-classify prints. I fold and store the fabric so I can see it all at a glance.

This method works really well for my t-shirt drawer too! The dark dresser has one drawer full of notions, needles, machine feet etc. Patterns and misc. items are in the rest. It is near my sewing area, so I can reach everything without ever getting up from my machine.

This white cabinet has zippers, elastic, serger thread, etc. For actual projects- I use baskets labeled cut, machine sew, hand sew, iron. This helps if I have several things going on at the same time. Also, I can grab the hand sew basket and take it with me because it has everything I need in it.

I use plastic zipper bags that sheets come in, to store everything needed for one project. Sometimes it makes sense to organize a project in bowls. My biggest obstacle is my nice big cutting table keeps getting buried under unrelated stuff. I try to clear it off each evening, so I can be inspired to sew. Do you have tips or methods of organizing to share? I'd love to hear from you!

Ode to a Quilt

The quilt that nudged me into my current style of quilting. It is not fancy or even carefully sewn, but it is an honest, hard working quilt that has withstood 10 years of daily use and frequent machine washing. I didn't sew it. My husband won it as a door prize at a conference. I have no idea who made it, but I would love to be able to tell that person thank you for their time and effort. My first baby and I would lounge on it. Then my second baby joined us. It is the perfect size for picnics, inside and out. My kids use it for snack time everyday. I spread it outside to fold clean laundry on. We cuddle under it on cold nights and build forts with it. I have patched it many times. The colors are faded and the binding needs replacing again, but it holds so many memories! I know it doesn't look special now, but it got me thinking. This person wasn't an expert, yet they made a truly wonderful quilt. Inspired, I played with the design and came up with a style that I have sewn at least 15 times. I made an instruction booklet-#309 Flip Quilt that is available at http://catsongstitchery.etsy.com/ I hope my quilts will be as treasured and loved as this one. So here's to imperfection and trying something new! I hope you will. And thank you to the quilter who inspired me.

This is one of mine.

Book Review: It's A Wrap

I have made many of these bowls. It is so easy and addicting! Susan Breier's book, "It's A Wrap" includes loads of photos and information.

I start by organizing my 1/2"-1" fabric strips in bowls. Quilting cottons seem to work the best, cut on the straight of grain. Experiment! You can come up with really neat effects. Try using fabric that you might otherwise think is unattractive.

Just wrap and zigzag until you are done. It is perfect for when you want to make something, now, but don't want to spent time planning, cutting etc.

Trend Setter-A great way to help animals

I love animals and taking care of them, but I can only have so many pets. I realized a while back that I really enjoy watching the wildlife in my yard from my big sewing room windows. I decided to have my backyard certified as a wildlife habitat. It was fun and really easy. Visit www.nwf.org/backyard for more info. After we got our backyard certified, then my Mom and her husband got theirs certified and my niece earned her certification (she is 9). Just think if people all over did this. Our neighborhoods would be so much more animal and plant friendly!

Recently Visited Sites

Last night, I was surfing around and found these interesting sites:
www.greenkitchen.com Has fun craft info.
www.quiltersmuse.com Crazy quilt inspiration. Nice closeups.
www.fiberfantasies.wordpress.com Quilt history and some great crazy quilt closeups.
www.diynetwork.com Crafts and organizing info etc.
www.hgtv.com Crafts, home dec etc.
www.chihuly.com/glass.html This glass artist is inspiring with brilliant colors.
www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com Good info.