Whimsicals Threads

:: creative storage ::

I so appreciate all your ideas and comments about my room! 

I had to laugh at the number of people who suggested I move to the basement.  Believe me, that has been in the back of my mind for years.  Someday it may actually happen, but there are a lot of things that have to fall into place before I make that big move...... additional heat down there being one of them!!  Maybe after I find a cheap, easy way to make a 20 foot by 20 foot basement with tile floor and paneled walls warmer, I might think more seriously about moving.  But until then......

I'm in a big crunch for time, trying to check things off my to-do list that should have been taken care of long ago, so this will be a quick post, then you may not hear from me for a while again.  I haven't had the time to try any of the sugggestions you have given me, so I thought that today I would share some of my favorite storage solutions.

As you can tell, I have a small space, but still have a lot of things that are packed in there.  Not all of these are practical solutions, mind you.  And not all of them are great solutions either.  But they work for me.  And who knows, they may work for you too.

One of my favorite storage places is this funny little drawer unit that I picked up at a local antique shop many years ago.  I say that it is funny because the drawers are all cigar boxes, which are too long for the openings that they sit in.  It sits almost 2" from the wall in the back so that the boxes "almost" close in the front!  But thy are the perfect size to hold spools of thread, floss, needle case, small scissors, measuring tapes, pins..... you name something small and I probably have it in one of those drawers! 

The top drawer that I have half open holds many of the needle cases that I've made out of old asprin tins, wool, and even the little tin cases that Fossil gift cards come in!  I'll have to do a post on that someday......

And you can see how neat and tidy I am when I put away my tape measures.  Mixing the old with the new..... you have to love it!!!!

And I'm sure you are familiar with the saying "out of sight, out of mind"?  Well, that is so true for me!  So I have many things that I put in glass jars, like threads, lace trim and buttons......

This way, I get to look at them all the time, and the those little balls of thread are so colorful sitting there.  The smaller jar is full of little felted wool balls that I bought thinking that I would use them for.... well, I'm sure I had a good idea at the time, but it escapes me right now! 

Spools like these are all over the place in antique stores, so I have lots of them and find that they work great for wrapping ribbons and trims, and they are fun to look at too!

Now, you may have wondered (or maybe you didn't) why I have the dry sink in my room and what is in it.  Besides holding my ironing board on the top of it, I have stacks of wool inside of it....

 

And in the little opening beside my ironing board, I keep my Best Press, water, little scissors, etc.  It keeps it within easy reach while I'm ironing, yet out of the way so that the cord doesn't knock things off onto the floor.  It's not the neatest area, but it works! 

The one problem with the wool inside is that I still need to find some boxes (besides these cardboard file boxes) that are the right size to easily slide in and out.  These have worked for several years, but are starting to get all beat up on the bottom from pulling them out all the time.  But, they hold all those little scraps that don't fold nicely, so it's nice to have them contained and in a box that is easy to dig through.

And you can see that I'm not neat about putting the nicely folded wool away either, as I look at this picture! 

Okay, so I need to get back to work and try to warm up.  It's only supposed to get up to 14 degrees tomorrow, so I'm going to stay inside next to my little space heater, and hope to get a lot of work done!

'til next time......

terri

:: my room, an overview ::

Thanks so much for all the comments!! They all give me something to think about!

I realize that it would probably help to see an overview of my entire room and give you a bit more information, so I tried to tidy it up a bit and took a few more pictures.  I thought about standing in the middle of the room and clicking pictures as I turned in a circle, but the room is too small for you to see much of anything unless you are physically standing here with me.  Seriously.  It is a bedroom that measures almost 11 feet by 13 feet. But, it's my own little space, so it works!

You already saw part of the wall with my sewing table, so here is the rest, moving around the room.

Right now, this dry sink holds my wool inside and my homemade ironing board on top.  The nice thing about it is that I can stick things in the space under the ironing board.  But really, it's too tall in front of the window.  It's a picky thing, I know, but from outside, when the blinds are open, you see the icky back of this, and it covers the heat register.  Also, being only 5 feet tall, I have a really hard time reaching over it to open the window!

To give me added space, I took the doors off the closet and built in a desk, which made sense 7 years ago when I did it.  But since then, I've realized that we put the desk too low and I can't even get a file cabinet to fit underneath, so right now, I have it stuffed with bolts of fabric that I'm trying to find a place for.  I've thought about converting it back into a closet so that I can put my fabric in there, but then I'd have to find a desk, which leads to more issues.....

And in case you are wondering about the wall shelf above my computer.... I had my brother make that for me and I love it, but there again, I need to figure out how to make better use of the space.  More about that at a later date.....

This is a little wider look where you can see the start of my own custom made design wall (complete with a cutout for the outlet!!)

And the rest of my design wall.  Notice that I had to take the door off of the room in order to use this wall, which works out okay until the basement (which is right down the hallway you see there) is filled with teenage boys and their music/video games.  Ahh..... what I wouldn't give for a door on those days!!  But, I only have 8 more months until he's off to college, and I know that I'll be missing it then, so don't even let me get started.....

And now, we're back to where we started, messy table and all.  See my sewing table there on the left? 

Now, before your jaw drops, thinking that this is all the fabric I have, understand that this is where I do most of my work, but not all.  In previous posts, I've given glimpses of the "oozing" effect that comes with having a business in the home, and you can tell that my dining room is used more for Whimsicals than it is for dining.  That is also where I lay out large quilts because it's the only room with a floor that's large enough.  The up side to that is the exercise I get running between the rooms and up and down the half flight of stairs when I'm working on something!

So, there you have it.  I can't believe that I actually am putting pictures of my sewing room here for everyone to see, and I'm hoping they don't end up on some weird website showcasing "what NOT to do", but I guess I took that risk when I first decided to ask for your suggestions!  I'll take some closer pictures of each area for the next few posts, so that you can get a better idea of what I'm trying to work out and accomplish. 

But in the meantime, I need to get to work.  Can't wait to see what kind of suggestions I get this time!

:: a new year ::

Well, I don't know about you, but I feel like 2010 just flew by.  For some reason, I thought that as my kids got older and I got more gray, that things would slow down for me, but that hasn't happened yet....

Ah well.  It's a new year.  A new beginning.  So, I'm headed back into my sewing room.  Time for some serious work now that the holidays are over. 

But as I sit here, I'm wondering how my room suddenly became so full and disorderly.  I work in a relatively small space, and although I think it has personality I am constantly considering how I can make better use of the space I have.  My husband can count on it, at least twice a year..... he'll make his way home from work, hoping that a delicious meal awaits him.  But when he walks in the door, he is greeted not with a yummy smell wafting from the kitchen, but a mess of what used to be in my room now sitting out in the hallway, as I desprately try to find more space where there isn't any. 

And then this morning, it hit me......  maybe I just need a different perspective.   

So, I took some photos of my room as it is right now and will share them over the next several posts, in hopes that you (can you sense my finger pointing at you from your computer screen?) will give me some ideas.  Or inspiration.  Or maybe suggestions.  Let me know what you might do.  What works for you.  What you have done to make your space your own.  How can I make better use of what I have..... so here goes...

The first area is my sewing table.    

I know, it's hard to believe, but I've never had a cabinet for my machine.  It's usually the cost that stops me from buying one.   But I'm thinking that it would be nice if I could find one that fit.  I have only 40 inches between my fabric storage cabinet and that annoying jog in the wall.  Do you see it?  I had a friend make this table for me, and he cut the hole in the top so that my machine would sit down in it, as well as a little jog in the table to fit the jog in the wall.  It works, but I would love to find a way to have some sort of storage underneath.  I guess that's where a cabinet would be a benefit.

You can see the plastic box of thread standing on end under the table, as well as the light box (it's kinda hidden).  Then, I have a thread rack nailed to the cabinet for the threads I use frequently.  And more threads in a couple of the drawers in that old wooden box sitting on the bookshelf.

And many of my tools are on the shelf above the table. I don't mind the shelf, since it gets things off of the table, and although I love the cabinet that is hanging above it, it's not very practical.   The shelves are not adjustable inside and I've never really found a good way to store things in it. Which is obvious in the pictures below.....

Those shoe boxes are the only things I've found so far that will fit inside, but they aren't very easy to get out.  Hmmmm..... maybe I just need to put something different in here, or maybe even move it to a different room. 
 
   

And then there is my table top, which holds a lot of the tools I use on a regular basis.  My favorite thing is this little egg separator that my mom gave me, which now holds my seam ripper, scissors, etc.  That, I won't give up because it just makes me smile! 

And just in case you are wondering, the fabric box is my "beginners and enders", or little works in progress.  You know.... when you begin or end a long string of piecing (what I call "string piecing"), and you just need a scrap of fabric to segway from one seam to the next?  Instead of using a scrap piece of fabric, I've been sewing these little pieces for a civil war quilt together. It's taking a while, sewing them together this way, but it's my quilt-free way of working on something for myself without taking the time to do it.  Hehehe!

So, that's it for that area.  Now, bring it on.  Give me some ideas.  Please?!