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!