Organizing Your Sewing Space: Large Rooms

Not all of us are fortunate enough to have an entire room dedicated to sewing and crafts.  In fact, judging by the responses to the survey, the vast majority of us–me included!–utilize space that is multipurpose or just plain small.  But when we see someone with great taste, fabulous vision, and lots of space really go to town, the results are nothing short of breath-catching.

Kari of Spring Chick Designs was featured on Modish, Apartment Therapy and Ikea Hacker with her amazing craft room.  Not only do I admire the light and clean sense this room provides, I was so enamored of it that I made very similar tables for my own studio–and for the Whipstitch shop!  She has a fantastic sense of style, the level of natural light she has in this room is enviable, and the colors are so light and inspiring.  On top of that, the “burden” of having it near the front entrance of her home requires her to keep it tidy, and I’m convinced that leads to more productivity in the long run.  Most tasks that slow us down aren’t cleaning tasks (scrubbing the baseboards or mucking out the gutters) but rather are tasks of organization (doing the laundry or washing the dishes), and that lack of being able to get to the stuff you need when you need it always slows us down.  Kari’s great strength in this room is that she has everything at her fingertips!

Or how about the bucket of sinful yummy that is Yvonne’s sewing room over at Yvestown?  The bright white might be what attracts me most–the clean lines, the uncluttered feeling.  Walking in here must be like a combination visit to an incredible art gallery and your favorite boutique.  My fingers itch just to browse her fabric collection and untidy those perfect piles so I can go back and tidy them all up again. I think my favorite part is that this was a total transformation–check out the before picture in her Flikr stream to see what I mean!

Speaking of organization, Gigi’s sewing room over at Behind the Seams is clearly the domain of a pro.  Do you see the variety of work spaces she’s carved out for herself?  And the way each tool has a home so that it’s just at fingertip distance at any moment?  Her level of attention to detail when it comes to organizing her fabrics and patterns is mind-blowing, and enviable.  Makes me think of the blog post I read a couple years ago where a crafter had been down with flu and scanned all the covers of her pattern collection into a searchable database.  How hot is that?  And to have a space like this one, where you can grab a pattern at any level and get going?  Awesome.

And can we not even get started on Martha’s jaw-dropping attic craft room at her new place?  The green!  The vintage office furniture!  The insane level of tidiness!  I get a little drooly and envious when I see these images, because I adore the whole concept.  On the whole, I’d like a little MORE space (greedy, greedy) but the vibe of this room is so soothing and inspiring that it makes me want to create.

The key to all these rooms, if you’re analyzing along at home, is what your Gramma always told you: a place for everything, everything in its place.  If you spend all your time digging through bins and wondering where you put that fill-in-the-blank, there goes valuable crafting time.  This is even more true as we look at smaller spaces the rest of the week: if your machine doesn’t have a dedicated home, then setting up and packing up eats into your sewing time–make sure you’ve got stuff where you need it, no matter what size space you have!

Want to design your own fantasy room?  Play the game over at Craft Stylish! Their contest is over, but the game is still online, and you can view images of the winner.  And dream a bit…