Dreaming of a Sewing Room

I adore where I live. My apartment is small, but beautiful. I get lots of sunshine from my many windows, have a great clawfoot tub and pedestal sink, an efficient heater, and a great kitchen. I have a big storage locker and space for my bike and surfboard in the basement, quiet, kind neighbors, and of course my great backyard and garden. I love it here, and I want to live here for at least two years (I moved in at the beginning of June, so I’ve already been here almost nine months- that sure flew by!). But, I would love a sewing room. I have almost everything else I want, shy of having a whole house to call my own (or share with a partner). But I would really enjoy having a small, sunny room or nook just for sewing and projects, where supplies, sewing machine, and storage did not overflow into my living and sleeping spaces. It will never happen in this apartment, but I look forward to someday having the space for something like this. I am really inspired by my good friend Laurel’s sewing-room-that-used-to-be-the-laundry-room, with a sewing table with a big flat surface where her sewing machine lives, and shelves all around the walls for fabric, yard, patterns and notions.

Right now, my sewing things are scattered throughout the apartment. I like having my yarn, thread and needles out in the open so that they are accessible when I need to do some mending, otherwise I would never get around to it.

So my mending pile, yarn basket, and sewing box currently live in my main room, next to my gas fireplace. It looks fine there, but sometimes the pile gets out of hand if I don’t keep up with my mending!
I also don’t have the space for a spool stand for my thread collection. The inside of my sewing box used to be a hopeless tangle, and the best I could do for now was to put all my spools of thread into a tin to keep them from tangling with my other sewing supplies. My sewing machine usually lives in its case in the main room closet, along with my iron, rotary boards, and rag bag:


Another little box of notions that I don’t use often lives in a random cupboard in the kitchen. I would love to have an area where all of these things could live together and be constantly out and ready to use without disrupting the space where the rest of my life takes place.

I haven’t done a whole lot of sewing lately, I really need to get on track with the gift project that has a timeline (to be revealed after the gift is given!). I did get in some mending last night- I have three great new sweaters from the most recent “Naked Lady Party” (the clothing swaps that my girlfriends and I hold every several months- it’s a great way to get new free clothes when you’re bored of your wardrobe), but all three had little holes or tears, so I sat down and put them to rights. I also recently “remodeled” my favorite sweater after the zipper stopped working.


I didn’t want to give up on the sweater, but my sewing skills are nowhere near good enough to attempt taking removing one zipper and putting on a new one. So instead, I left the zipper on and picked out some wooden toggles and a length of cute ribbon.

Vóila- funky, slightly Bavarian-looking new version of my favorite brown sweater!

I’m very pleased with the result. It always feels good to give new life to things that are worn out in other ways.