Unveiling and Grand Tour

Welcome to my new and improved sewing room! Let me give you the "Grand Tour".

The decorating theme of the room is "boro", a type of patching and simple stitching technique originating in Japan. In keeping with that theme I made a welcoming rag wreath for the door using this tutorial found on Pinterest, with some changes. For one thing I used denim from jeans so the strips needed to be longer so I could tie them. I also added strips from quilting cottons in indigo prints and finally added small white artificial flowers.

 

Standing just inside the doorway and looking across to the window you get a good view of the wall colour (Behr paint's "bootcut") and the beautiful vinyl plank flooring my husband laid. The floor colour is "driftwood". I love it!

Together he and I made the pressing station on the left. More details on a previous blog post if you follow the link. I keep all things related to pressing and measuring, along with much of my cutting tools, in the drawers and behind the cupboard doors. The baskets below are full of fabric.

Directly under the window is a narrow table that was originally for a knitting machine. I didn't initially plan to use it in here but I have found I need a convenient "landing place" for things that I want available, yet out of the way, when I'm working on a project. It allows my pressing station and sewing table to be clutter free when they are in use. The little table also works well for spinning with my charkha and yet it is narrow, only 16" deep, so it doesn't take up much room. The runner on the table right now is a Saori weaving and it's just there for the Christmas season.

General lighting is provided by the LED track lighting on the ceiling, purchased from Home Depot, while bright task lighting is provided by shop lights mounted beneath Bergshult/Granhult wall shelves from IKEA.

As practical as all those lights are I think my favourite are the little dragonfly lights. I leave them on when I'm not in the room and the main light is off. It provides a very inviting, soft, "mood" light.

Standing at the window and looking back towards the other wall you can see my Linnmon/Alex desk from IKEA, another task light mounted under a shelf, and a little shelf bought ages ago at Micheal's. I keep most of my embroidery floss clipped to it and sorted by colour number. The chair is a Langfjall purchased at IKEA. Yes, we made several trips to IKEA. 

Continuing the Boro patching/stitching theme I sewed custom covers for each of my machines, sewing, serging, and coverstitching. The covers might look lumpy and bumpy but it's because they follow the shape of the machine underneath. 

And here's the real workhorse of the room. My 25 cube KALLAX unit. It's not in the configuration I originally intended. Once I started putting my stuff away I found that I wanted more doors and less bins. A lot of what I had to store worked best on a shelf, rather than in a pull out bin but I really did not want all the visual clutter of filled shelves showing so we bought more of the doored inserts. I love the clean, clutter free look.

I reserved the centre top shelf as a living space for "Willie", my little creative mascot, a Dream High Studio House Elf.

As we leave my little sewing sanctuary I want to show you a few small details up close.

Beside the door and visible from my sewing chair, a cute little clock purchased from an Etsy seller some time ago.

Above the door more sewing mice. This time in a framed cross-stitch my daughter made for me years ago.

And shutting off the lights as we leave the room -- a light fixture decorated with alcohol inks. 

If there is anything else you'd like to see up close, or if you have any questions about items you've seen in the "tour" just let me know and they may be covered in a future blog post.