New Space! part 2

My sewing space before was our family room.  That worked fine until the recent addition to my sewing arsenal.  My son and his friends have moved all the gaming equipment to the basement, so they spend most of their time down there.  My daughter moved out several years ago after graduating from college and getting a job.  So, it is just my husband and I rattling around up here most of the time.  We decided the best choice was to make the livingroom/diningroom my new sewing space.  So now I have two rooms.  One room for my new long arm and the other for my sewing machine and 'stuff.'  My son was a little concerned when the lights were added to the long arm frame and my husband commented, "Now you can sew all night!"  We all laughed but than he realized his bedroom is right above the room my longarm is in, and what if I really did sew all night!

Here are some photos of what was my dining room.  The first photo is my wall of cubicles.  The drawers and doors are labeled (we added those last year) because when I put something behind a closed door well, I'm like a toddler 'out of site, out of mind.'  It helps me remember what I have and where it should be.  You can see my folding table for cutting/ironing in front of the window.

If you swing to the right you can see my Bernina.  I still need a better table for this, but it works for now.  There is another storage shelf in the corner.  This one has a lot of recyclable materials on it.  At least I am hoping to recycle them.  Every year the Textile Center has an exhibit of art made from recycled materials.  That's one of the challenges I hope to enter next year.

Swing a little farther to the right.  Now you can see my old sewing cabinet with my almost 30 year old Kenmore tucked inside and my embellisher sitting on top.  Did I mention I have a lot of toys.  The embellisher was a Christmas gift.  I'm excited that I have room for it now.  I plan to use my Kenmore for some of my experimental sewing techniques.  I really like the work that Maggie Grey does and want to try some of her techniques.  Two of her books I have are Raising the Surface with Machine Embroidery & textile translations: mixed media.  One of my recycled items to make is a purse.  I've saved heavy brown packing paper for this.  I have the book Bags with paper and stitch Innovative Surface Techniques for Embellishing Bags by Isobel Hall.  One other book I want to experiment with is The Art of Stitching on Metal by Ann Parr.  I just got some very light weight metal to play with from Joggles.  I can't wait to try it looks like so much fun.

The shelves hold my paintsticks, paints, inks and pencils,  glues and foil, stamps and stencils, shibori tools, brushes and other tools.  The three boxes below hold ribbons, yarns, bits of wool, and anything else that I think might work for my embellisher.  The file cabinet has class print outs and other notes that I wanted to save for reference.

Swing one more turn to the right and you can see into the other room where my new long arm is still in the assembly stage.  You can also see my tv on a stand with wheels.  I can swing it to be watched in either room.  Notice my Quilt Show DVD's waiting to watched.

Last turn in the room shows you my corner with a few more cabinets and a light.

Here is one last shot of the room as a whole.  I'm sure there is still some tweaking to be done and once I start creating it will never look this neat again but I hope you enjoyed this look at my new sewing space.  Have a creative day. Janet