Bneighbor

I was at both lowes and Home Depot yesterday and both of our stores have discontinued selling ott light bulbs. I purchased my light from big lots. Well I am not that happy with it anyways, so I purchased 2 floor lamps from Walmart. One shoots the light up towards the ceiling. The other has a goose neck, so I can shoot the light to the ceiling or direct it towards my project. They are very nice. Home Depot sales clerk showed me a few different bulbs. The one I got is just not bright enough, but will work in another lamp. I am going back on Monday and listen better when I ask, AGAIN, what is the best and brightest bulb. Apparently I am not the brightest bulb in the room today.

JanieH

I also have flourescent lights in my sewing room and love the light. I supplement with a desktop Ott light by my sewing machine and floor lamps in other areas.

NJ Quilter

My personal favorite for any kind of task lighting is halogen lights. Give a very true color and very bright light. Biggest problem is they are hot. I have 2 desk style halogens. One by my chair in the living room for hand sewing with a hi/low switch (and I normally only use the low) and one upstairs in the sewing room that I move around as necessary. I'd love to do hanging halogens over my cutting table but really don't want to deal with plaster/lath! And I'm not sure that I could really handle the heat of both the lights and the iron together. But I love the light from them. Have them under my upper kitchen cabinets for task lighting there and it's amazing.

cricket_iscute

I have a basement sewing room with almost no natural light. I have halogen lights, fluorescents, and incandescents, as well as OTT. My very best light comes from inexpensive shop light fixtures with either OTT bulbs or daylight bulbs. There is no cover on the fixture. In fact, I could not quilt without it; it makes that much difference. I have one over each sewing station. Halogen (on tracks, so it can be focused) does not help much and I will not have it in the next sewing room, incandescents at each end of the room add some light but not really that much, and desk Ott lights over certain machines are good.

nancia

we use the twiely looking light bulbs that save energy in all the fixtures. when we first put them in i thought they were too bright, but not any more! i, too, need as much light as i can get!

petthefabric

Since I can't see your room, I'll say I think you have too little lighting. However, it's your room, so if it works for you, then it's great.

My room has 2 overhead lights, 3 full spectrum light strips, a large north facing window (do my color picking during the day), ceiling, design wall and one wall are white for good light reflections and an OTT light at each sewing station. As I get older, I've added lights to the room

carslo

This is what I did also - best idea I had in about 10 years - I bought the daylight bulbs cheap and totally effective!

probstrs

Great ideas from everyone......I know what I'm going to do above my machine! Now, if we could only find one that was just as stylish as they are useful....hmmmm

krjkrj

Thanks everybody for the suggestions.

Marjoeal

I'm old, half blind and retired, so finding good lighting was imperritive for sewing. Couldn't afford much. Realized I was standing in my own light from the ceiling fan fixture when cutting and ironing. DH said ceiling wouldn't support much weight, so florescent fixtures were out. I bought four of the aluminum clamp-on shop lights from Lowe's. $8 each. Removed the clamp sections and hung them by their cords from the ceiling with toggle hooks. Stretched the cords over to the wall where I plugged into an extension cord that runs down to a plug. Plug end of the cord was stuck to the wall with double sticky tape. Each lamp has it's own on/off switch. Screwed in new twirlly bulbs and was wowed with light. Cheap, easy, lightweight and wonderful!
But then you should see the one of a kind light that I use in the harp of my sewing machine!!!