Sewing Room Maker Over

It's time to show the results of my sewing room make over organization for the Organization Challenge over at Laura's. I have been working on this for the past few weeks and figure I have about 10 hours into it. Whether I win anything or not I have won as my sewing room is now awesome! I am so much more productive there now when working on a project as everything is in it's place and I am not hunting all the time for something.

I first took out everything that did not pertain to sewing which amounted to more then I really want to admit to! Having shelves shouldn't be a place to just carelessly put stuff. Next I gave away or threw away any fabric or other sewing items that I knew I would never use or want. Some fabrics I had there for years and I think it's like clothes if you haven't used them in a couple of years you most likely never will so out they went!

Next I found that there are containers for all sorts of things that I didn't know about until I started researching this project. The best ones were the plastic see-through containers made especially for different sized spools of thread. These are wonderful!!! Your threads are in one place, you can see them, and dust doesn't get on them that can clog up your machine.

Also found special see through containers for my bobbins. I like to keep bobbins filled with different colors so that it's all ready when I need a certain color thread. Well these things were all over everywhere and I usually couldn't find what I wanted so had to take the thread off an existing bobbing which takes time and wastes thread. Now they are all in one container and I can see what I have at a glance, no more hunting!

My fabrics were all mixed together which makes it hard when you are looking for that one perfect color for whatever project you are working on at the time. I took out ALL of my fabrics, refolded them and put them in groups according to color or value as we call it. My DIL helped me with this as it was a huge job!

Next I bought more see through containers and put themed fabrics together in them, like cat fabric in one, dogs in another, coastal etc etc so that a glance I know where they are. This was a huge improvement as I really didn't know what I had until I put them together by theme so now if I need to make a tote for a cat lover I go right to that container and all of my cat fabrics are there. I didn't even have to put labels on the boxes as they are see through so that saved time as well.

The pizza box became my new best friend not because it had a pepperoni/onion pizza in it but because they are new and the perfect size for quilt blocks that haven't been put together yet and other works in progress. All my students in my quilt class are using these now for their finished blocks until they get their quilts put together.

I am storing some of my finished quilts in an old gun cabinet that belonged to my husband who discarded it when he bought a locked gun safe for his antique gun collection. I had some shelves put in and with the glass front it not only stores my quilts but displays them.

This has been quite a journey with a happy ending. I am so thrilled with my new totally organized sewing room! Thank you Laura for motivating me to tackle this project!