Today I want to show you some of the changes I have made in my sewing room. For a while now I’ve been wanting to switch things up and make the space I have more user-friendly and organized. I also want it to be a space I can use as another bedroom when my nieces and nephew come to visit. I have a small home and even though they don’t come often, I need a third room that can be used as a makeshift bedroom when they are here.

I decided I needed furniture that could be moved around easily and serve multiple functions. So I started with a cutting table. Remember this pic of the corner of the room that I shared last week? When I look at this picture I see a repurposed china cabinet, an ironing board too big for the room, a folding table that became a clutter collector and piles of unfinished projects. Not to mention curtains that don’t look good in a sewing room.

That corner was cleaned up, everything moved out and replaced with this cutting table and two wall cabinets:

See how much neater this corner is now? I love it! The table has two extensions that fold up. In this pic one side is up and the other is down (against the wall). When both of them are folded down the table measures approximately 20″ x 40″. What I really love about this piece is all the storage available. You can see the drawers on the front. That bottom one is actually a door and there are two shelves inside. The other side has six (!) project bins that I have filled with my works in progress. I forgot to get a picture, so I will do that and share it later this week.

The wall cabinets hold my fabric stash. Now don’t freak out when you see the inside of these cabinets. It doesn’t look like I have much of a stash, but looks are deceiving. I have a ton of fabric in the closet and I’ll talk to you about that another day. 🙂 I sorted through all the fabrics I had in the china cabinet and donated everything I wasn’t absolutely in love with or that I knew I would never use. Those fabrics are going to a great home and I know they’ll be used to make beautiful quilts. Meanwhile, I don’t feel weighed down by all that fabric. All I have left are fabrics I am excited to work with.

The opposite corner of the room houses my sewing/embroidery machine. I had it sitting on a desk I’ve had for years and really like, but it was too high for me to sew on. I found myself hunching my shoulders to sew and ended up with neck and shoulder pain after a long sewing session.

So I found a folding sewing table that fit my needs perfectly.

The pic above shows the table folded up and out of the way. Now let’s be real – it won’t be in this position very often. But the reason I bought this table is so I can fold it out of the way when I need to. Below is what it’s going to look like most of the time:

You can see the table is mostly extended and ready for use. What you don’t see is the piece behind the table that folds up to extend the sewing space behind my machine – perfect for holding large quilts when sewing on borders or binding, or whenever I need more room.

Just like the cutting table, this piece comes with all kinds of storage.

See all that empty space? I don’t even have those containers and shelves filled up yet! That’s how much room there is. There’s storage for all my sewing paraphernalia on the right as well as two project bins and a big shelf on the left. My sewing machine fits on a lift that lowers just by giving it a push, so it’s easy to fold up the table when I need to. I love how much more organized this corner looks and feels.

The next space houses my HQ Sweet Sixteen machine. It sits between the door to the room and the closet. I am getting ready to sell this sweet thing which is why I have all the manuals, tools, and stencils laying with her. I have loved using her and she has served me well, but I am finally confident in my longarm abilities and am ready to let her go to a new home where she will be loved and used once more. Everything in the pic goes with her, so once I find a buyer this little wall will be free and I’ll have even more floor space.

I still have work to do. You might notice the desk below is the one that used to hold my sewing machine. The plan is to mount the TV on the wall, and put my Featherweight on a small table where my Sweet Sixteen is now (once it’s gone). Then I can use the desk for it’s intended purpose, with my computer there to write these posts and pattern writing. It will be easier to pattern test and write in the same room.

I will also be tackling the closet to make room for the project boxes that are sitting in the open. Once I start on it I’ll share my progress on it with you.

I am also going to hang peg board under the wall cabinets so I can hang my rulers, rotary cutters, and any other tools I want to keep close to the cutting table. That way they can be up and out of the way and not taking up table space. I have the pegboard, hubby will cut it and hang it for me when he has a day off from work.

I still have to make an ironing pad that will fit on one end of the cutting table and I need to do it pretty quickly because I donated my ironing board. I thought that might give me the motivation to get on this project and not procrastinate with it. LOL

Oh, and you may have noticed those awful curtains are gone and there are pretty blue flower ones hanging now. The fabric is a wide back called Harmony by Sweetwater for Moda. Making the curtains was fairly quick and easy, and I love how much better they look in here than the others. It is such a happy print!

Thank you for coming along on a mini tour of my sewing room. I’ve loved sharing it with you and I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll keep you updated on any progress I make in here.

And, because this is a quilting blog, I thought I’d share a couple of quilting pics. I finished this lovely table runner last week. It was fun to quilt and my customer loved it. I got a big hug for this one and that just makes my day! I especially love how the quilting shows on the back. Sometimes the back is just as pretty as the front!

All of the quilting was done by rulers except for the very center of the Dresden flower. That center circle was done with the ProStitcher. I love that I can combine rulers and robotics to create a beautiful piece.

So that’s it for me today. Now it’s your turn! I would love to see the projects you are working on. You can link any blog post, Instagram or Flickr pic – here’s how: