Re-Organizing the Sewing Room A Bit

Playing the sliding-tiles game with furniture in my house again:  

Problem: 

• a giant armoire full of towels and sheets in my bedroom, which was in my way, and was also inaccessible to my roommate when I was asleep in there
• a mostly-empty hall closet
• some slapdash shelves on a corner wall in my craft room, full of boxes of fabric and supplies, and  surrounded by piles of same on the floor

Solution: 

1. I removed the shelves in the craft room and put them up in the hall closet, and moved all the linens into the hall closet where they're accessible to everyone
2. I moved the armoire to that corner of the craft room, and re-organized the boxes and supplies into it

And then...

A friend and I swapped dressers over the weekend - my small one for her large one (she wanted to use two smaller dressers in her daughter's room instead of one huge one).  And so this came home with me on Saturday: 

Ikea HEMNES

Most of my fabric stash had been stored in sixteen of those white plastic Ikea (SNALIS, discontinued) boxes (like the two on top of this dresser in the pic), stacked in/on top of that long, low, black shelving unit under the window in the pic (it'll be re-homed soon).  The contents of all but those two boxes fit neatly into the four main drawers in this dresser, and I got all of my small scraps into the smaller drawers at the top.  

So, what do I do with fourteen 5-gal plastic boxes?  I'm not sure yet.  They'll probably end up holding craft supplies in the closet in this room, or full of small tools and things in the garage.  

Cross-posted from my house/furniture blog at pushingfurniture.blogspot.com

BWAHAHA Oops.

You know, I was looking over my blog(s) the other day, and realized that I never actually posted finished pics of the new craft room (aka "Room of Requirement")!

Okay, so, you've seen the old version:

Which is now my bedroom:  

And my old bedroom, which in this picture is filled with stuff from the old sewing room, during the room swap. I haven't been a "hang out in my room" person since I was a teenager, and really, who needs all this room to just sleep?

At first, Sylvan and I thought we'd put our work tables in the center of the room, like this: 

Before she'd even moved in, I realized how very, very much that was NOT going to work.  My sewing machine vibrated both tables so much that she'd never have been able to work like that; and also, since all my sewing stuff was jammed up against the wall behind me, but my cutting table was on the opposite side of the room, I kept having to get up and walk around while I was working.  

So we drew up a new floor plan that worked better for both of us, with each of us with a work table against a wall, storage around, and my cutting table in the center, which is easier for me to get to without having to stand up if I don't need to, and also so that we can BOTH use the cutting table as a large, open work surface if needed: 

(made with Icovia Floor Planner) 

And here is the finished Room of Requirement, and folks, this is about as tidy as it gets.

CAUTION:  WOMEN AT WORK!

It works great.  We both love it, and we're both enjoying spending time in there crafting together.  When she moved in, we put her TV in the living room, and put my [smaller] one in the craft room, so we frequently have a movie on in the background while we work (usually a Disney animated flick; though my go-to when I'm working alone is Pride and Prejudice, in case you're wondering.  When it's just me and just music, I listen to a lot of Chinese flute, for some reason. It's calming).  

Also, in case anyone cares, and because I love paint, the colors in these rooms are: 

• Old sewing room:  Glidden's "Pale Red Dust"
• New bedroom:  Sherwin Williams' "Distance"
• Room of Requirement: Sherwin Williams' "Palladian Blue" 
• All the ceilings are Sherwin Williams' "White Clay" 

This post is also up on my house-stuff blog, which is here, if you're interested.  I've been going hell-bent-for-leather on SCA stuff for several months running now, though, so there isn't much going on over there lately.  But now that war is over, there'll be a LOT of house and garden stuff going on! 

. 

Unf$cking My Ribbons Box

NOT OKAY:

Every. Single. Time. I opened this box I vowed to "one day" take the time to sit down and iron out this mess and wrap it up somehow so that this wouldn't happen again.  This is just stupid.

My friend says to me, "You laid all that out in a house full of cats?!"   The steam-hiss of the iron scares them away, hehe.

Muuuuch better.  It's a slapdash system, but it gave me the opportunity to try some diferent methods of organizing ribbons - usually I wrap them around my fingers and make little bows out of them, which I did for the looooong pieces.  My scrapbooking and art-journaling friends gave me the idea of wrapping smallish bits around the handle of an old spoon (they do it with washi tape).  My favorite, though, was wrapping the velvet ribbon around empty thread spools.  I'd really like all of my ribbon and trim to be done that way.  

All of this, by the way, was because I couldn't find the ribbon I wanted for a necklace.  And no, I never found it.  Maybe it's in one of the four boxes of ribbon, tape, and trim that I haven't gone through yet.  :-/ 

"supervisor"

.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I've reached that point where I'm in the middle of several things, but with nothing yet to show off here, so today you get to see my garb closet.

This is the closet in my master bedroom, which was my ex-boyfriend's closet.  (My closet is actually inside the master bathroom).  I've always wanted two things:  a dedicated garb closet, and not to have towels in my clothing closet.  

So now I have that!  Gowns on the left, chemises and braies folded on hangers underneath behind the gowns, a little dresser and some baskets/boxes for bits and pieces, and all of my towels on the lower shelf.  (Top shelf is boring storage for random stuff) .

On the right side is this double café curtain rod set which I purchased at the dollar store for a whole whopping *dollar* (guess that's why they call it that).  Here are my veils, belts, and pairs of sleeves, clipped to the rods where I can see them at a glance, and grab them easily and quickly while I'm picking out my outfits for an event and packing them up. Ta-da!

*

Meanwhile, I will continue work on:

1. another small, painted box
2. a large painted box
3. a 12th century pendant-sleeve gown
4. a Tudor corset

Back soon!  

.

Recipe for Organiztion

Organized Sewing Patterns (serves 1)

1 file cabinet with broken wheels and lock, free from friend

1 package legal-size hanging file folders

1 package letter-size hanging file folders

1 box of sewing patterns, already organized into manila folders

1 box homemade costume patterns, on various bits of paper and fabric

leftover adhesive-backed door insulation strip

screwdriver

1.   Remove wheels and lock from cabinet.  Use insulation stripping to pad the bottom of the file cabinet edges so it won't scratch the floor. 

2.  Carefully fold and sort SCA and costume patterns into folders in top drawer. 

3.  Adjust lower drawer file rack to fit letter-sized folders sideways, and insert mundane patterns already in manila folders. 

4.  Recycle empty cardboard boxes, and enjoy your new organized pattern cabinet AND the extra space in the craft room closet! 

And because someone is always curious about this, here's what I do with my store-bought patterns: 

Slice open the pattern jacket, and glue the front to the outside of a folder, and the back to the inside. Label the folder tab, unfold the pattern pieces to fit inside the folder. Done.  Much easier to store and locate them, I feel.  

Yay! 

.