Organizing my sewing space seems to be a never-ending cycle.  It’s like the game of Dominoes.  Once one piece is moved they all follow suit.  With two areas dedicated to sewing, of one form or another, that’s a whole lot of commotion.

This round of reorganization was sparked by the onset of Fall.  Now that the quantity of daylight is noticeably shorter and the number of lamps in my creative areas is limited having a suitable amount of light becomes challenging.  Also hindering my ability to see is my age.  The older I get the more light I need.

Being frustrated with the inability to see, I began pondering furniture arrangements that would accommodate my needs.  In my first floor sewing room I have three important areas.  There’s the sewing machine station, the zip-zip station (aka cutting table area) and the pressing station or ironing board.  My goal was to get all three as close as possible to utilize the available light as efficiently as possible.

Hindering the placemen, of key furniture items, are windows, electric outlets, heat vents and doorways.  Through trial and error, emphasis on error, each piece of furniture eventually found a new resting place.  Or so I thought.  After a bit of testing a few minor adjustments were made.  The tweaking resulted in a well-lit, efficient work space.

Of course, new furniture placement also means items decorating my walls also need readjusting.  Most often I defer that process to my hubby.  He’s my resident expert.  Finding time in his schedule can be challenging.  The timeline, from start to finish, to complete the “Fall” rearranging, of my first floor sewing room, took one whole week.  In the scheme of things that’s not too bad.

Now on to my LA room (aka long arm quilting room).  There’s not too much furniture arranging that can be done there.  My Tin Lizzie (all fifteen feet of it, including walk around space) can not be moved.  Of that fact I am certain.  I’m also positive that my hubby considers that to be a bonus.  Finding another place in our home large enough to accommodate the quilt machine is darn near impossible.

Mostly what needed to be done, in my lower level LA room, was organization.  I’ve been taking in quilts to be quilted for some time now.  Having a safe and efficient place to store them has been a dilemma.  Also in need of a suitable storage area were miscellaneous pieces of batting, along with the quilting samples I have made.  Until now all the quilts have been neatly pressed and carefully draped over a section of my Tin Lizzie’s table.  The odds and ends of batting had been rolled up on an empty cardboard tube and the quilting samples had been stacked, one on top of the other, on a spare chair.  Although the quilts stayed wrinkle free they greatly reduced the space available for cruising my Tin Lizzie long arm machine.

Recently my hubby suggested utilizing a closet pole.  The more I thought about his suggestions the more sensible it sounded.  Yesterday we made a trip to one of our big box home improvement stores.  While there we purchased a closet pole, brackets to attach the pole to the wall along with a couple of packages of fasteners.  Today we hauled out the tool box, drill and ladder and installed the rod.  I am so pleased with the finished project.  I had no idea I had so many items to hang up.  Of course the more I unpiled the quilts the more I found and the more quilt related items I also found to add to the rod.  I’m so thankful for this wonderful resource.  Having everything safely hung up frees up much-needed cruising space on my Tin Lizzie frame.

Once my Tin Lizzie long arm quilting table was empty I moved on to making a few minor adjustments in my desk and storage cabinet.  I also discovered there were hints of dust on my flat surfaces so I got out my trusty dusting tool and took care of that as well.  All that’s left now is a few passes with my vacuum cleaner and the entire project will be complete.  So what do you think?

How wonderful it feels to finally reach a comfortable level of organization.  I think it’s time to get back to sewing and to get my Tin Lizzie long arm machine warmed up and ready to go.

Thanks for stopping by.