19 January 2014

A little tour.....


Come in, come in........... welcome!!

My little happy place became my space a couple of years ago.  Up until then I had a corner of our spare bedroom and regularly overflowed in to the kitchen, conservatory, living room etc.  The busier I got, it  become apparent that we needed to find me a more permanent space for me to work in, so we had a reshuffle.  We decided that for how often we had overnight guests, it made much more sense for our larger guest bedroom to become Poppy's room and for me to take our smallest bedroom, which up until that point, we had used for both Jamie and Poppy when they were babies.  It holds lots of happy memories of little ones and of course the odd sleepless night!

It's not a huge room, we could just squeeze a single bed down the wall where I now I store my fabric stash and on the opposite wall there was enough space for a single wardrobe and chest of drawers, it was therfore extremely important to plan and make use of every cm of space.   I sat for many hours with a pad of graph paper and an Ikea catalgue.  Would you like to see some more? .........


The first thing you see as you walk in to the room in the large Expedit Unit that house my precious fabric. Starting from the top left and moving across I have my Lecien and Japanese imports, then Tilda, then Cath Kidston, followed by more 1930's and children's novelty prints.  At the end of the row, are fabrics that I'm currently using for several wips.

Below this are all my other quilting weight cottons, stored by colour, my felt stash, heavier curtain weight fabrics and lots of boxes full of smaller misc bits and pieces. Out of shot, but on top of the unit is more felt and kits, ready to be posted out.

I sort my scraps of fabric mainly by type/maker in separate bags and keep these in the plastic vegetable baskets, to the left of my sewing table.  I have donated tons of these to both the childrens school and rainbows group and what's left, I'm determined to use as much as possible this years patchwork projects.

To the right of my fabric, I have my sewing and cutting tables.  It's from here that I lose myself watching the world go by!  Both tables are a combination of Ikea tops and adjustable legs.  Top priority when planning the room was to have a cutting table and I squeezed the largest possible into the limited space.

Below my sewing desk, in the drawers to the left I keep stationery, art supplies and other small bits.  In the little wooden chests (snapped up in the local charity shop) are some of my ribbons and felt balls.


Underneath my cutting table and to the right of the door, I have a couple of Alex Chest of drawers.  In my Little Kitten Homemade days, these stored all my buntings, plus all my uncut triangles.  The busier things got, fabric used to be cut in to triangles as soon as it arrived.  As you can see I still have a fair view of these left, again, I have plans for a triangular based quilt design.

They also store my embroidery threads........

....Fat Quarters and my beloved Liberty of London stash.


Above the cutting table, I have two shelves.  These are where I keep my supplies of washi and decorative tape, my rotary cutters (out of harms way), rubber stamps and much loved keepsakes.  Bob (the robin) bought originally as Christmas decoration from Kirsty Elson Designs, he makes me smile everytime I look at him (the bunting was my little addition)  The two little mice were made by me 30 plus years ago....

Introducing Mr Mouse ( a tad dusty!) complete with briefcase, handkerchief, belt and tie


and little Miss Mouse..... I quite fancy making some more when I have a moment!


Moving round again, behind the door, I squeezed in more Expedit units filled to brimming and on top of these there are boxes containing more ribbons, beads, sequins, zips, velcro etc


Now that I sew more for pleasure, I definitely want to pretty up the space.  My chair and the two pine chests are crying out for a lick of paint and some pretty upholstery.  The wooden boxes could also do with a makeover. I would like to make a sewing machine cover and mat for my machine to sit on.  Hopefully this will dampen the sound in the kitchen below, when I'm sewing at full speed.  An ironing board cover would also be good, although I'm a huge fab of ironing on a bath towel, particularly embroidered pieces and I have plans for a patchwork design wall.  

Oh and just so you know, these were the after photo's.....this is what it looked liked on Wednesday before I spent several hours tidying it up!


I hope that you enjoyed looking around!



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25 comments

  1. lovely little craft room, wish i had that much fabric though :)

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  2. Lovely tour Sarah, what and absolute treasure trove of lovely things. You keep it so well organised but I would imagine that you need to do that !
    Happy sewing,
    Kate x

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    1. Thank you Kate, if only it looked as neat and tidy all the time, although I do try to be organised. xo

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  3. Your craft room is lovely.

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  4. Your craft room is lovely.

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  5. Как у вас отлично все устроено! Браво!

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  6. Wow you are one organised lady! And the view from your window is beautiful!

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    1. Thank you Jen, I love my view and I'm making the most of it, there have been plans submitted to build houses on the field, but hopefully it will take a long time for this to come to fruition!! xo

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  7. love your cosy crafty place!!!!!
    xxxxxx Ale

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  8. Amazing craft room! From the sign on the door to all the organised detail - what a special place with so much inspiration! Very lucky - I hope you enjoy spending time in there... x

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  9. Hello Sarah I love how you have organised your Craft Room. I used to use our small spare room but our son and family come to stay quite often and it seemed silly that one of the children had to have a camp bed in with their parents, so I moved everything downstairs to our dining room as it is only used when we need to get more than six people sat down to eat. (Have a large table in the kitchen.) Organised dining room so my stuff can be put away quite easily( not that it happens very often :-) -I am glad you showed your 'before' pictures!!) I have fabric envy after seeing all of your lovely fabric. You have also given me a few ideas as I want to have a small sewing area in the bedroom I mentioned - still doable even though we have a bed and an Ikea chair bed in their now.
    Thanks for the tour. Anne x

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    1. Thank you Anne! I hope for your plans for your sewing space go well. Sarah xo

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  10. The fact that you actually have a sewing/craft room is enviable! I've had my own sewing room until we had our second child, then I had to give it up. My space has been shuffled around the house continuously until its current awkward corner in the basement family room. I love the shelving for your fabrics (such gorgeous fabrics!!), and it's always such a nice inspiration to see it rather than have it behind closed doors. You have certainly put every inch to good space ... isn't Ikea great for sewing storage? Although I don't actually look forward to my children leaving home, I can't say I won't be sorry to have one of their bedrooms for my exclusive sewing use ;) Thanks for the tour ... one day I'd love to give a tour of my space. Wendy x

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    1. Thank you so much Wendy, the thought of my children leaving home seems impossible, although I realised that Jamie is 10 this year, which has flown by in a flash, and in 10 years time, me may have left..eeekk!! I would love to see a tour in the future. Sarah xo

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  11. Ooh Sarah, I love your space...so many lovely fabrics and threads to play with...it's just gorgeous!!
    Hope you're having a great week,
    Susan x
    P.S ..and I love your beautiful door sign!

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    1. Thank you Susan, I hope that you are having a crafty week too. Sarah xo

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  12. Gosh, what a wonderful space! I'm sorry I missed this post when you originally posted it - I blame my shoulder strain injury on Monday - so I'm glad you mentioned it in your recent post! I have a similar-sized room that I'm trying to claim as my own (right now it's a little girl's bedroom!), and these pics are inspiration! Little one needs the bigger room, daddy needs to move his office to the garage, and mummy needs proper craft space! :-) Chrissie x

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    1. Oh Chrissie, I hope that you're feeling much better! Your plans sounds fab, mummy definitely needs proper craft space!! Sarah xo

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  13. Oh, wow. You lucky thing. It's amazing! I love how you made the most of every inch of space. And that wall of fabrics...! x

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  14. Your creative room is a wonder. May I question what the plastic boxes used to store the threads are? I am currently trying to corral all my threads. Thans

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Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment, it really does make my day! If you have a question, please do ask away and I will do my very best to answer. Sarah xo

Update July 2020: Unfortunately, due to a large increase in spam and inappropriate comments, I have turned on 'Comment Moderation', so your comment will not appear immediately. My apologies for this!

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