A change of scenery

Do you remember a while back when I posted about my lovely sewing space? 

Well sadly I have had to vacate it.  Our landlord decided to sell our flat, and it was bought by someone who wanted to keep it as a rental property.  This was great for us as it meant we didn't need to find another place to live.  The downside being the new owner wanted the spare room back to use for storage.  As it has it's own door on the communal hallway, and is separate to the main flat this was something we couldn't really argue with, but we did manage to negotiate keeping half of it.  I made the ultimate sacrifice and gave up my sewing space, because at the end of the day there was no way 3 bikes, 2 surfboards, 2 snowboards, 3 wetsuits and a copious amount of camping gear could have been stored in the flat.

We managed to squeeze in my sewing desk into the bay of our bedroom window

And have moved the big Ikea shelf behind the sofa, so all my sewing patterns and fabric and stored out of sight. 

Yes I have to move the sofa to reach it but it isn't that much of an inconvenience

This turn of events initially seemed like quite a bummer for me, but as it has turned out it was a blessing in disguise.  Having my sewing room away from the flat meant it took more motivation for me to go down there, yes it's only one flight of stairs, but psychologically it did feel like I had to make a concerted effort to go and sew.  I also felt a bit cut off in there because John wouldn't be popping in and out at all.  In fact he used to ring me on my phone if he wanted to talk to me rather than come down and speak to me face to face!!  That may be more of a reflection on him than my sewing space though.  

Also having my sewing stuff far away meant there was nothing around me to remind/inspire me to sew.  Now everyday I see my sewing machine sitting opposite me when I wake up , and I kinda like that.  I have sewed (sewn??) at least every other evening over the past couple of weeks, and I hardly ever used to sew in the evenings, I'd save it all up for weekends.

This new set up clearly works for me, but I am curious about other peoples spaces.  Do you like to have a room whose sole purpose is to be your sewing room, or do you prefer to have your sewing machine in a communal room?  Do you like having your own space away from everything else, or do you feel cut off and lonely??

Sewing space complete!!!

Well here it is people, the big reveal.  I finally moved all my stuff into the spare room and set up my sewing space.

But first of all let's remind ourselves with what I was working with.  Here's come before pics:

And now check out my man's space!!!

Nice huh?  But lets face it you're not here to see a bunch of bikes and plastic crates, you're here to see a sewing space!  So lets check out my side of the room:

I bought the screen / room divider from a lady at work for £20.  I think it works well.

I attached a cheapy flowery fabric to the back of the bookcase using my new favourite toy, my staple gun.  It was a bit of a rush job (I didn't even iron the fabric) but I think it looks quite nice.

Those are my white shelves which are now holding all my patterns, fabric scrap stash, sewing books etc.

That big box contains my fabric stash.  Now the box is full to bursting I can't buy any more fabric. I have decided that I must at least half empty it before I can buy any more.

Now it's not fully functional yet, because the only power socket is by the white shelves and I need to buy an extension lead to reach my sewing machine.  I also need a desk lamp, and want a noticeboard so I can pin up inspirational pictures and the like.

Looks pretty good now though right?

Starting to bring order to chaos

Right ok, having realised my sewing productivity is pretty poor, I have decided to organise myself a bit by sorting out my sewing space.  As mentioned in a previous post, I have half a small room to use, but I have not yet done anything with it, because frankly I didn't know where to start.

What I need to do is:

• Clear up, tidy and clean my part of the room
• Create a partition of some kind
• Make decorative bunting and hang and a cork board to pin inspirational bits and bobs
• Get our big bookcase sorted [not in pic].  Empty the two drawers of my man's man-things (wires, cables, screws, hammers you know the kind of thing) into plastic boxes and move to his side, and instead fill the bookcase with my sewing books, my fabric stash and my patterns!
• Move in my sewing machine and my storage drawers, then the space is complete

I already got some storage drawers (from Ikea, inspired by Karen's) for all my sewing sundries:

And I've shamelessly copied Ashley and bought myself some plastic drawers to store my mid-progress projects:

I'm on my way!