Sewing Room

I have been using an extra bedroom off and on as a sewing room since we moved into this house in 1992. It is ~12' x 14' (but that includes the closet space and door swing next to it). It is a good sized room and I am lucky to have it. Soon, however, it needs to be turned back into a bedroom. And we are converting our old garage into my new studio. So far, it is all just a paper dream, but we do have a contractor and I hope to be totally in it by June. The new room will be 19' x 21.5', except we need to remove part of that for the room where the furnace and water heater are located (~8.5' x 7'). So a lot bigger, but it will be an empty room, no closet. I currently have quite a bit stuffed into the closet. So I will be prioritizing what I will keep before it goes into the new room. What I still need to figure out is what to use for storage along the longest wall. I'd like something about 15" deep, with doors. I plan on having a sliding design wall in front of the storage cabinets, but want doors anyway. Anyone have some wonderful cabinets that can go floor to ceiling and handle the weight of fabric they can recommend?
For comparison, here is my current space: I sew on a Bernina housed in a Koala Outback Plus, unfortunately no room to have the extension raised on the back.

We installed kitchen wall cabinets so I have storage over the machine. Right over my head is some of my thread (machine embroidery and hand applique)

My design wall is attached to the closet doors, works pretty well unless I have a very large quilt! Right now my finished Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks are on the wall. Hanging on the wall next to it are my embroidery hoops (in the white hanging thing).

In the center of the room is my cutting table. It is also holding my printer right now, and some of the rulers. I can walk around it on three sides. Off to the right you can see my computer and a small bookcase, which does not hold all of my quilting books. It will be nice to have them all together in the new room.

I have an embaressment of riches when it comes to fabric.

In back of the door is a pegboard which holds my hand quilting templates, lots of my rotary cutting rulers, and the occasional bit of mending (or pants that need hemming).

The armoire has several large pieces in it, along with some specific things (a few PIGs, bilaterally symmetrical fabric for kaleidoscopes, and background fabric).

The closet used to be sorted by color, along with some plastic totes with PIGs and UFOs. Now it is less organized.



Not exactly a showplace of a sewing room, but I do manage to get things done in it.

Civil War Diary blocks

I am trying to get more done on this small quilt group project. We met, and I realized I didn't have anything new to show. So these will be my focus for a while (although I will still do the BOW for the Farmer's Wife Sampler).
Anxieties - paper pieced

Rachel's Frustrations - pieced with Marti Michell templates A4, A5, and A6

Farmer's Wife Sampler - catching up the blog

While I have been doing a bit on Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks, I have mostly been knitting, and watching the Olympics. Here are the blocks I have finished since I last posted:
35 Flower Basket

36 Flower Garden Path

42 Fruit Basket


48 Homeward Bound 21st BOW - completed 2/28/2010

56 Maple Leaf 19th BOW - completed 2/15/2010

63 Ozark Maple Leaf 20th BOW - completed 2/28/2010

96 - Tulip 18th BOW - completed 2/14/2010

FWS blocks-Honeycomb, Farmer's Puzzle and Wild Rose and Square

Honeycomb was this weeks Block of the Week (BOW). I opted to print templates using EQ6 for this block, after I took out the center seams so two skinny triangles became one isosceles triangle. I made holes at the corner intersections with my 1/16” hole punch in each template. I cut strips first, to slightly wider than my templates. I cut out each fabric piece by placing double sided tape on the back of the paper template, then after sticking it to the fabric, used my rotary cutting ruler (4” square) to cut ¼” from the seam lines. I marked the corners with a pencil (through that hole I punched earlier). I used positioning pins on those points to align the odd shapes and pieced a row at a time, then sewed the rows together. Make sure your seams go in opposite directions from the row above or below and they will nest together nicely when stitching rows together.

I paper pieced Farmer's Puzzle from EQ6 printed patterns.

Not so happy with this block, don't like the fabrics in it, well I do, but they don't have the right values for their positions. I paper pieced it, in rows, and reversed the direction of piecing on each row so the rows nested nicely when stitching them together. That part went well. Sigh...