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Old 12-01-2016, 10:58 AM
  #43  
Sewnoma
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Sonoma County, CA
Posts: 4,299
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My sewing room is in the living room, but DH & I are somewhat reclusive so we rarely have guests, and we enter the house through the garage, so it's almost a "back" room for us, the way we live in our house. When we're having guests I have to "hide" my messes, and often hide work in progress that's destined to be a gift for one of the guests!

Otherwise the room is usually in a state of cheerful disarray, which is how I work best.

The room itself is reconfigured periodically - I am "into" vintage machines and sometimes one comes in or one goes out that's in a cabinet and that means the room shifts around to accommodate. Right now I keep three machines set up full-time in my sewing room, and my embroidery machine is set up in my "office" upstairs.

My "main" machine is a modern Janome that sits down in an industrial table made specifically for that model. I have a long IKEA table behind that one for extra space, and another IKEA table to my left to make a nice "L" shape. I also often have a fourth machine set up on that extra "L" side of the table, but I take it down when I'm quilting a medium or larger quilt. Directly behind me as I'm sitting at the Janome, is my design wall. I'm lucky to have a large space for that, about 9 feet square. It's made from headliner fabric with a layer of batting and a layer of flannel over it, all thumbtacked to the wall.

On the other side of the long table I have two of my favorite vintage machines set up - my grandmother's industrial Pfaff, and a Singer Rocketeer in a cabinet. They back up to that long table too so the long table is "extra" quilt space for all three machines.

Perpendicular to all of my machines is a long & low storage unit from Target that's on wheels; I've mounted a board to the top that's been wrapped and covered and that's my ironing surface. I can't remember exact dimensions but it's something like 2 feet deep by about 5-1/2 or 6 feet long - it's a WONDERFUL pressing/ironing surface and I love it. I leave it in place for ironing anything a yard or smaller, if I have to iron giant pieces of fabric I can roll it out a bit and have lots of room for fabric to drape down behind it.

Across the aisle from and parallel to the pressing table is my cutting table - that's another Ikea table that's up on risers. My cutting mat is 2ft x 4 ft and that sits on the right-hand side of the cutting table. That leaves a couple feet to the left and that's where I have a little storage drawer set, a pile of my most recent magazines, and some clutter-collecting space. Underneath my cutting table I have a set of wire cubbies that I stuff all of my packaged batting into. (I have space in my upstairs office for a roll of batting in the closet as well) Along the wall above the cutting table, I have a set of rails from IKEA with hooks - top rail is for all my scissors and rotary cutters, bottom rail is for smaller rulers. To the right of my cutting table is a window that by sheer luck is exactly wide enough to fit one of those slotted ruler holders and that's where all my long/large rulers go. My extra-large strip cutting ruler gets stored upright on the floor, slid between the wall and the cutting table.

The best part of my sewing room, though, is a 14 foot stretch of wall that I have covered in cabinetry (also from IKEA). This holds my entire fabric stash (wrapped on comic book boards except for a few large bolts) and my "other" supplies (like fusible web, Accuquilt dies, glue, my hexi hand sewing box, etc.) The cabinets are deep Billy bookshelves with doors added, so everything stays out of the sun and stays cat & dog hair-free. LOVE those cabinets!

A fun aspect of that room is that I have most of it on voice control, via an Amazon Echo and some "smart plugs". I can turn on and off three different zones of lights & outlets (or all on or all off at once) and my sewing machine is also on a switch it can control. So when I leave the room, I can just say, "Alexa - turn off everything" and all of the lights, the iron and the sewing machine will all be powered down. I also stream Pandora through it, which is convenient when my hands are full, I can just say, "Alexa, next track!" when I don't like a song. Or, "Alexa, crank it up!!" when I do!

I love my sewing room. It's definitely my "happy place"!
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