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.
Article continues below this Ad
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’
Article continues below this Ad
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!
DETAILS:
Article continues below these Amazon Goodies
1,818 Responses
My biggest challenge for staying organized is monitoring the inflow of: fabrics, patterns, and notions to my small sewing room! I’m working on a cutting “station” and pressing “station”. That should help!
my biggest challenge is storing multiple hobbies embroidery, quilting and sewing. The space I moved into; just 2 months ago, is still a work in progress. I am working on figuring out space between storage of fabric, long arm, two machines and lots of supplies.
And lighting right now is overhead canned lights that aren’t necessarily in the right spots so i have best lighting should I get desk lighting or overhead?
12 Branson Mill Drive NW
My biggest problem is starting a project, getting it half done or more, and then starting another one, and not having my area to where it is usable. I continue to keep my space shrinking until I only have small amount of room, I use the spare bedroom as my sewing room. It has no bed just my sewing stuff, and machines.
Adela
I think for me, the hardest thing to keep organized is small pieces of leftovers. I usually try to cut everything in block sizes when I finish a project. But, that doesn’t always happen. My patterns that I print off & save were something else too. Then I started to put them into the plastic pages and then into ring binders. I am now trying to sort them by designer too. But……I have to stop trying to save every pattern that I see. I want to make them all!!
I’m like you, too many projects going on and they are all over the place, not organized. I like to have a variety of things to work on depending on my mood. Do I want to piece, cut, or hand stitch the binding? I like to do what’s calling me on any given day and that changes daily. Looking forward to you organizational ideas.
Space! Space for working, cutting and storage. My sewing room is small so space is lacking. I need better storage ideas!
I have learned all my containers must be clear and labeled. I use blue tape for labels to easily change them. My biggest problem is I have so many projects I am wiorking on simultaneously. So I too have to take a break and clean up my space. My piles are so high my pressing space and cutting table are getting smaller and smaller because of the piles all around. When the piles start to fall over it is time to reorganize.
Space….. I need to practice finishing before I start new.
deciding what to work on. There is so many things that I would love to do at the same time.. it only becomes a problem when I can’t decide which to work on and then I sit down and browse my books or the internet and alas!! more projects are added to my list
I sew/quilt in a sun-room, which is great for atmosphere, but nothing but windows no shelves. Plus, it also serves as a small dining room, so if someone comes over, I have to move everything under the table I sew on and cover it all. My biggest problem is trying to find material in the bins I store everything in as the space is tiny. My projects are sorted in plastic bins or if I am going to quilt elsewhere, I sort them in carry bags that have zippers so I can pick them up and go.
My biggest problem is I can’t stop buying evertything I love. I buy faster than I make.
Picking up and putting things away after a project. The clutter and confusion hampers me from moving on to a new project.
Like many, scrapes and having time to reorganize. I know, just make the time before starting another project! Being in a quilt guild that meets weekly, and having a new study group project every month, creates many UFOs! And also loving all my fabric which I have way much! Guess I have many challenges to deal with solving!
My biggest problem is lighting and no shelving. I had a sewing room in the basement of our old house with two closets for storage. In the new house our basement is unfinished so I just have a corner section off with my tubs of fabric. Every time I want some thing it is usually in the bottom tub, so I’m constantly lifting the tubs down, getting what I want and lifting them back. Since the lighting is poor I can only sew in the afternoon when light is coming in the northwest windows.
I struggle with having energy to do all the projects I want to do. I have MS so when I do get a bit of energy, I need to be quick about whatever I want to work on, before the fatigue sets in. I enjoy many crafts (sewing, quilting, crochet, cross stitch, embroidery, etc.), so there are options for when I’m bed bound. But the joy of creating things, and the feeling of a finished project, makes every minute worth it.
I don’t know how you do all you do. You have hundreds of projects each year. Thank you for all that you contribute to the community.
Finding what I want after I have re-organized.
I believe the trick is to LABEL-LABEL-LABEL
My biggest problem seems to be the same as everyone else’s. Too many projects and not enough space! Your post has come at a very good time. It has inspired me to start organizing my sewing room much better. And, I think taking everything out, then putting it back organized is brilliant!! Thanks so much for the inspiration.
Question: Pat, do you keep each project together, i.e. pattern, fabric, etc., until you get to them? That seems to be a very workable approach. My problem is I purchase a pattern, then fabric from several sources, then they get seperated somehow!!
My biggest problem is space!! My sewing area is along one wall in my bedroom. I have two machines( both Brother) on a desk, and I have about five large plastic tubs of fabric on the floor. I have totes above my desk that hold current projects, and a tower with three drawers on wheels ,under the desk, that holds more projects.
I have my Kenmore machine on my dining room table, which is where I do most of my sewing. I have converted my hallway coats closet to hold my wide backing fabrics, and all my battings. It is likely to remain this way until one of my adult children move out, or I win the lottery and buy a huge house!
my biggest problem is space also. I have a room upstairs in my home but never make it up there. Little by little it is coming down to the dining room where it is more convienent to work on things. I like your cart idea….I may have to purchase one of those.
I’m soooo much like many others who’ve commented here, space is my biggest organizational issue, having no dedicated room to store fabric and projects or work on them. That, and I love fabric (of course), which leads me to buy more!
My house is way too small. I love to go through and look at what I’ve got pending. I try to do this at least every 6 month. However, my biggest problem is deciding exactly how to keep them organized by priority.
Biggest challenge is determining the best way to organize my fabric. I have the storage part figured out, but I like to keep some fabrics together by collection/designer, others by type (batiks, novelty) and/or pre-cuts. Aaaack!!
My biggest problem is that I’m living in a small apartment and my space is very limited. I don’t have the luxury of being able to sort everything into separate containers, as I would love to do.
Biggest problem? I don’t think I have one, but I am sure hubby would find many. 😉
Too much fabric and too many books that though they are nice are outdated in the way quilts are now being made.
My husband built wonderful shelves in my sewing room to help me organize. I thought/hoped I could just nicely fold the fabric and kits, projects, etc., but I still need to sort and organize these into smaller container, bins, totes. They don’t stay sorted and folded otherwise! Stuff gets buried/forgotten and turns into a UFO!
My biggest problem is having all my fabric in tote boxes so I can’t see what I have. I’ve tried to group them by type of fabric, holiday, patriotic, but when you can’t see what’s in the box…. well it’s just so much easier to go to the store when I need something. Lol, that’s only hard on the months money is short. I would love to have a cabinet or shelves to put fabric but there just isn’t any room. I’ve already taken over my hubbys man cave…..😬😬😬😬. I keep hoping he will build me a sewing studio somewhere on the property but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Oh well, now it’s the sewing cave.
Thanks Pat for all the patterns and advice. You have helped me improve my skills so much in the short time I’ve been a member of this group.
I make art quilts so I have lots of fabrics of different kinds, laces, ribbons, buttons, beads, sequins, paints, inks…anything (and I mean ANYTHING!) that can be used to embellish an art quilt. I have things somewhat organized, but there is not enough room to keep it all in my studio (ok, my 10 x 10 bedroom) so it migrates to other rooms. When I want to find that perfect embellishment that I just know I have, it takes forever to hunt it down (if I can even locate it). All that said, I guess my biggest problem is not having a large enough space to have ALL my stuff in the same room I create in. Of course, if I did have a bigger space, I’d get more stuff and end up with the same issue on a larger scale…oh well!!!!
Too many projects and so little time! Short attention span? =) Thanks for the giveaways. I hope I win one.
Oh.. and we also have a home office for our business so there are not too many rooms that I can expand into n our home. My craft room is actually one room off the diningroom which can be seen when you walk up our steps to go upstairs to bed so I try to keep it tidy. lol. Sometimes I overtake the diningroom table for a while but I try not to do that much cause I dont want that to become a habit. I never thought quilting would be so much fun…..
My biggest issues are with not enough space in my room. Hard to keep it organized with several projects always going on. Especially this time of year.
I am a beginner at quilting and retired in February. My biggest problem is getting rid of all the work related items in my office and turning it into my “craft room”. I am about 75% there and will enjoy watching your progress and maybe picking up some ideas for organizing my room from you. Thanks for always having such helpful hints!!!
I have everything in one room, and I am bursting at the seams. I take that back — the books and files are in the guest room. I have gotten to the point where I have to shift piles to get space on the cutting table in order to cut fabric. I also have piles on the floor. I am ashamed to admit all this. It would help if I could have the table with the computer and printer in another space. I also have an antique cabinet from a lab of some kind that I am thinking of moving to the guest room so that I could have shelves. We have had one of our daughters and her 4 children here since July 4th. I am loving it, but nothing can change until they leave after the October 27th wedding of another grandchild.
My storage area is the size of walk in closet. There are shelves, cabinets and lots of plastic boxes. But more fabric and thread to store in the space.
I hate putting my work in progress quilts away when cleaning up as I start something new and don’t get back to my other projects
My biggest problem is finding things after I organize!
My biggest problem is that I don’t have enough space in one area to store and work on my projects. Fabric yardage is stored in bins in the basement, as are precuts. Fat quarters are in a rolling drawer beside my sewing machine. WIPs (Works in Progress) are spread out over the bed in my son’s room, which doubles as my workroom since he moved away. Scrap bins and books that I refer to often are on the bookshelf in that room, while other books are in my hubby’s office because that is where there is room on the shelves. So when I need something, I run up and down the stairs to get what I need. The downside is that isn’t very productive. The upside is that I get my exercise!
My biggest problem is finding a place to store all of my fabric and notions that I have. I keep buying more fabric when I see it and it calls to me. I have an entire basement for my quilting supplies.
I sew in my guest room and do not have the right storage. I have a dresser and dressing table taking up my space and a queen size bed so I have lots of clutter around my sewing table because there is no place to put it.
My biggest problem is that since I am so new to this I dont know what kind of storage space to have. I bought a small cabinet and naturally that filled up way to fast. lol. Now I purchased an even bigger cabinet that I am hoping will last me a little while.
To get my “mind” organized then everything else will fall into place. Ha Ha wish me luck with that!
One problem is “like items” are not always stored together so I spend too much time looking for things I need. Secondly, I need to spend quality time organizing my stash. Not everything needs to stay in my studio…
I’d like to shorten the time between idea, buying supplies and creating my projects.
My biggest organizational problem is motivation and time to pull it all apart to put it back together when I just want to sew. Also gets kind of crazy because I share my space with a sewing buddy and a bunch of her stuff too, but don’t tell her I said that 😲. I’m really a neat-nick at heart so it’s frustrating when things are out of control.
Biggest problem is putting things (fabric, tools, patterns, books) back where they belong after a project is over. I tend to leave them laying around until all of my work spaces are a mess. Then I take a day and clean out everything and start again.
Love the rolling cart. Great idea. I may have to get one of those!
I have a hard time with my scraps. If I think it’s a usable size it goes in a pile…organizing that pile is another thing altogether! I also tend to have too many things going at one time, right now I’m doing the Merry & Bright, club projects, and row by rows to name a few, and fitting in work and family. I know I need to prioritize but sometimes that changes from day today…this weekend I need to see about finishing a couple of baby quilts for showers coming up…and so it goes on.
My biggest problem is organizing my quilting stuff so that my quilting supplies do not make the dining room look like one big mess. So, after quilting, I need to stage my area to fit the decorum. At least my daughter (I live with my daughter) lets me quilt as long as I keep things next and tidy.
Carolyn,
Are we supposed to CUT our pretty fat quarter bundles? 😳🤣🤔
My biggest org problem is that I have a very very small sewing room and my longarm is in a space between my dining room and living room so I need to keep that area as empty as I can. I have design walls in my hall and my grown sons previous bedroom that gets used as an extra guest room. I have stuff up in our attic ping pong room as well so knowing WHERE to put something or find it is my challenge!!
My biggest problem is space. Storing and remembering what rulers I have is a problem.