I’m busy making my main studio space more usable… check out my progress AND enter my giveaway!
I give you a BEFORE tour
My main studio space is where I work all the time. It has my projects in progress, machines, computer, and most of my fabric.
About 3pm I started pulling all the projects out of my studio space to resort them and put them into better size container and more effective & productive spots for my use. I did a video for you
For the post part I’m not doing fabric, just projects.
That includes all the different products I review or test. PLUS I had some UFOs in my main space that were not being worked on and taking up valuable work space. They needed to be moved.
Taking it out is EASY.
Deciding how to regroup and where in my studio should it now be, is more difficult. I started when I got up.
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For our family business we work at home, so our whole small home has become our office.
We have no basement and no usable attic. So my business takes up 4 rooms in our home.
- My studio is my main work room and what you see all the time. It is the family room of our home, it’s what in the videos with my beautiful Koala Furniture and my Baby lock machines
- The shipping department has one room as his office.
- We have 1 other rooms for quilts, batting, notions, projects not being working on, other fabric, books, etc.
- AND the ‘over flow’ room right now is our dining room as it can’t all fit in the one room upstairs. The photo above is one wall in my dining room. On the wall is my village quilt (BUY the pattern here), and the blocks are from my Triangle book (HERE)
In my studio I keep JUST what I’m working on and my main fabric. On that video I talk about it being messy. It is ‘messy’ in that projects were not in optimum work places, split across areas, and things got put in spots that took up valuable space in my small room
Now for a few photos of my ‘after’
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Keeping it organized keeps my sanity 
Hope you enjoy watching as I make progress!
If you are new here, welcome! I run a lot of fun projects
These are my 2 latest FREE sew alongs, join me!
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1,818 Responses
I am in need of a new machine!!!! Mine is in the shop as we speak!!!! So to speak!!! I love pins and usable things that make quilting fun!!! Love the Moda panel!!
My biggest problem is not having a vision for what I want my space to look like. And time, but isn’t that what we always say?!
My biggest problem is storage. I cut on my dining room table, iron in my bedroom, sew and store in a small bedroom that has to a full size bed in it for guests. We live in a condo and storage is a minimum. We’ve pared down all our possessions, but my sewing room seems to be the biggest problem. But, I keep trying and although at the moment it looks like an awful mess, between projects I manage to get it straightened up. It seems that organization is just a chronic problem.
I have trouble when I am sewing a big project and my sewing room looks like it exploded with fabric. The then I lose everything. That’s when I start making mistakes and out comes my favorite helper THE SEWN RIPPER.
My next project is to rearrange in order to put in a pressing station. You e given me inspiration for my day! Thx Pat.
I’ve pulled everything out of my room. I’ve bagged up fabric to give away. My biggest problems are figuring out how to store my fabrics, projects and WIP’s so they are in view but not a mess. In my world out of sight, out of mind is a very real thing. I have a nice walk in closet in my room where everything needs to go back into. My other giagantic problem is energy. Health issues are real. It’s taking me forever. But I AM working on it. I could also use a really good paper organizer to keep my projects from getting lost.
My biggest problem is that each time I reorganize, I lose things in the process,taking me much longer to relocate than if I had just let it be!!
After reorganizing my sewing room and donating 3 bins of craft items to a nearby school, I am inable to find two plastic boxes of two quilt projects that need to be finished!
There is never enough space…it’s in the hall closet, linen closet, back porch, end tables and chests. Thinking about garage next..perhaps. moving Christmas storage to garage and taking over the bedroom walk-in closet…
Have you tried using small plastic bags to contain those leftover pieces?
Not certain that I actually need to add anything as I need to finish putting my sewing room together. I am an absolute fabricaholic and love, love, love quilting tools and books.
My biggest problem is trying to keep sorted the fabric I have. So much stuff.
My newest storage problem (I have several) is how to store precuts so that I know what I have. My studio is in our lowest level and a true spider hangout so I keep things in clear storage boxes. This isn’t working real well for the precuts.
I can never find anything! I lay something down and minutes later i can’t find it when I need it again.
My biggest problem is not having enough space to organize my sewing room.
Lack of space to store items to their best advantage for future use without searching. Lack of time to spend the hours needed to sort and purge,if necessary.
I have the most trouble grouping my fabrics so they end up going just anywhere.
need help with organizing my scraps!
I have too many projects going on at once and not enough time spent working on them. I say yes to too many things!
My problem is that my sewing room is the guest bedroom and computer room. I have no shelves to put my material. It is in plastic containers and on the bed. My projects are in plastic zip lock bags on the bed. WHen I have company I have to move my sewing room to the garage.
I am now organizing with boards instead of throwing in tubs my scraps and yardage of material. Love following you
My seeing room is small and I have a 10ft lomg arm quilting frame set up in there. I don’t have the best work spot for projects in progress and I tend to start to pile things up as I work. I try to stay organized but it never seems to happen!
I can’t decide how to organize my fabric…..I am currently packing up Christmas and other holiday fabric and taking it out of the room…..them I think I will organize by taking all the batiks out and the rest will be grouped by color and collection…..I hate to separate out the collections and they take up so much room in the grand scheme of things
My biggest problem is scraps of batting.
Keeping the patterns and books with the fabric that has been purchased for all my unfinished projects….😊
My biggest problem is too many UFO’s storing them and not finishing them……they take up my creativity and my space….I loose interest in them…..I have been going thru them to donate to my guild auction
I try to stay organized but with my small space it’s tough sometimes. I have most things in plastic totes and drawers. Would love to win one of your give aways. You’re so talented and love watching your videos.
I would like a pressing station! Thanks, Pat!
My biggest problem is I have too many projects going at once!🙄
I have a bedroom that I have been putting my sewing things in as well as a bunch of other things. I have cleaned out the room and now need to organize all my fabric and sewing things. I’m not sure where to start. I want the room functional and pretty.
I need to invest in some containers to organize my projects and then label them. I like the baskets you are using as they are organized but also pretty. I currently have projects in large zip lock bags all laying on the shelf.
My biggest problem is space. My little sewing room is full so i have spilled out to my kitchen, dining room and spare bedroom. If i moved my sewing room to the guest bedroom it would likely all fit but the natural lighting is poor in that room.
Hi Pat, I have taken over a spare bedroom for my sewing room but I am not good at organizing. Hence, the room has gotten so disorganized I do not want to go in there. Like you I need to take everything out of the room and organize projects and fabric into some sort of containers. I feel it will be a days long project.
I haven’t found any fabric marking tools that I like. Some will not fit into the 1/4 square ruler. I have asst marking pencils but they drag on the fabric and I don’t see any marks
My organization problem? I don’t have a studio. But I have a large dinning room with a baby grand piano. The dinning table holds my sewing machine, lamps, tools, hard flat ironing surface for an ironing station and short tower of appliqué tools. The piano holds another ironing interchangeable as a cutting mat and lots of fabric. Let’s not talk about what’s on the floor and in the chairs nor what on the shelves if the big unit I bought to sit beside the hutch. If it weren’t for the chandelier and the hutch you wouldn’t know it was a “dinning” room. I sew everyday.
Part of my stuff is upstairs and part is downstairs. One LARGE devoted space to work and have storage in would be awesome!
Having a designated area to sew~
What to do with multi-colored fabrics that don’t seem to have a dominant color.
I have a small room and lots of sewing stuff. Oh and I use a walk in closet to store all the stuff which really becomes unorganized after I have gone thru all the boxes and bins looking for just the right fabric.
My biggest problem is that I need more space. Only have a spare bedroom.
Storing scraps.
My biggest challenge is sorting my fabric and seeing what I have.
My biggest problem is all my notions. I can’t seem to get organization where I can readily get my hands on the notion without searching for it. I don’t know how I want to display them. I sometimes forget what I have. I have notions in several drawers
Since downsizing 6 years ago I now have a sewing space in the basement. At first I took up about 1/3 of the space but I am up to at least half! Since I do other crafts it’s hard to keep my main work table uncluttered. My fabric is sorted by colors but after I pull some out for a project it just gets stacked up waiting to be returned to the boxes it belongs in…usually ends up being messy on my cutting table!
Too much stuff and sew little room. Looks like I can live with much more mess than you. Hmmm, I need to sort some stuff (starting my list).
My biggest problem is those scraps as well. I have pizza type boxes, labeled, for 1 1/2 -5 inch squares, and 2 1/2 in strips, batting and steam a seam scraps. But I have bags full of scraps and finding the time to get them cut to size drives me crazy. And I am definitely an unorganized mess when I’m in the middle of a project.
Happy sewing ladies.
Thanks for the storage video. There are many great ideas that I for sure could use. Now to find exactly what I need to create my very small work space.
My problem is that I have way too much stuff. We have a 4 bedroom house & I have 2 bedrooms packed to the ceiling. I’m working in the kitchen & dining room! I need help…
My biggest problem is organizing all the fabric I have purchased. I need shelves so I can see what I have before ordering more fabric. I have purchased fabric for a project and the fabric I need is scattered around in the bedroom where I sew. I need a bigger table to put in the bedroom for cutting my fabric also. I’m looking for any organization tips that I can get. Right now my fabric is stored in totes, so if I need a certain piece I have to go through the totes. It’s really hard on me due to having hip problems and cannot stand or bend for very long periods.
Fabric organization is my worst nightmare. I really need a method. I would love to have the space to sort by color, but some of my stash is made up of bundles. Decisions, decisions!
Thank you Pat for the videos, you really encouraged me to do some organizing. My biggest problem is I don’t have enough time. The time I have I want to spend sewing.