[daisygirl78]

A couple of people mentioned that they have windows beside their sewing machine. That got me thinking — where do people carve out spaces in their homes for sewing? I have to use our dining room table since I don’t have a dedicated sewing space. It works well, because I’m usually sewing after the kids (and usually hubby!) are already in bed. What about you? Do you have a dedicated sewing room/space, or do you have to squeeze your workspace into another area? Let’s snoop into each other’s homes, shall we? 🙂

-Susanne

[KellyNYC]

I live in a city apartment so a dedicated sewing room is a luxury I can only dream about for now! My sewing area consists of a small 4 ft table in our main living space that needs to be cleared of the day’s clutter before each sewing session. However, I don’t mind it because it let’s me at least be in the same room as hubby, to whom I can then pretend to pay attention while furiously squeezing in a few hours of sewing after my daughter goes to bed abd in between making dinner and sitting on the couch for a show or two. He calls himself a sewing widow! But I’m going to attempt to make him a shirt with a sew along next week to show him some love. And my “craft corner” where I stash my ever growing supplies is next to his side of the bed so the poor guy has to wade through the “NYC JoAnn’s Outpost,” ad he calls it, just to get to bed each night.

The main thing I yearn for in addition to space is more light.

[millie]

I have plenty of spaces to make into a sewing area, but I always end up back at the kitchen table (between meal-times!)(usually!). Sewing there means that I can watch my children playing or watching TV in the adjoining living room. If they are upstairs in bed and wake up I can hear them too. It is always warm in the kitchen in winter and in summer I can open up doors to the garden and watch them while they play outside. Quite often the little ones come up and colour on the other side of thee table.

I do have a room near the kitchen where I store most of my supplies, mind you it needs a bit of organising! One day this room will be my sewing room, when children are older. Maybe!!

[beachmom]

When our youngest moved into a big girl bed, I took over what used to be the nursery. It’s a small room (7’x11′) that’s off of our bedroom but has a window and a closet(comes in handy for fabric storage). I used to use our dining room table to sew on. I still use it for tracing patterns and cutting fabric out.

[cherry]

At the moment, i have a desk tucked behind my bedroom door with all our officy stuff on it as well as my sewing machine and overlocker and piles of fabric. Not ideal, but not too bad.

I’m a bit excited as later this year I’m moving into my parent’s old house (and they are moving into mine) and there is the most perfect sewing room that I can have there. It is upstairs with massive windows overlooking the gorgeous garden, and is very bright and sunny. It also has a bay window with room for a couch, a corner for bookcases, and THREE big attic spaces for keeping all my stuff. One of the attic spaces will be a cubby for the kids so I can keep an eye on them while I work (it was my cubby when I was little and is pretty big!). Another will be for long term storage, and one will be for fabric. YAY!

[Anonymous]

I used to sew in the basement. I had TONS of space but very poor lighting and it was too dreary down there. I was only days away from taking over the spare bedroom as a sewing room when we found out we were expecting little Oliver! Sewing room instantly became the new nursery. Oh well, I think it’s a fair trade. He is a sweet little guy (except for when he’s not).

So, we decided we would renovate the kitchen, tear off the old back porch/room that had been poorly tacked onto the back of the house, and have a decent kitchen. You should have seen the old one – blech! Of course, this meant that we would loose the beautiful combo half bath/laundry closet (affectionately known as the pee & fold room) – the one that would allow the water to drain right out of the side of the house when the washer leaked one time. Nicely constructed. Anyway, we were able to add a 2nd bathroom and a separate laundry room with the renovation/addition. I laid it out so that I would have just enough room for a sewing cabinet in the laundry room – right in front of a window. You should have heard all the men griping about how huge the laundry room was going to be. I wish it were 4 times the size as I have to slide the ironing board out of the way to get up from my sewing chair and slide the chair out of the way to use the iron!

My sewing/laundry room is right off the kitchen and overlooks the back yard so I can watch the kids play out there when I’m sewing. I have a very large dining room table where I trace & cut.

[Nicole]

Cherry , that sounds like heaven!

I share a long ”sunroom” with the children. They have their office,craft and menagerie at one end and I have my sewing set up the other.

I found out there is no point shutting your self away in a room when you have children,if they can see you they are much happier.

It is a lovely bright room and last summer I put a reverse cycle unit in so it is very comfortable.

It has a great view http://www.flickr.com/photos/motherof5/5400127922/

I cut out at the kitchen table, it is huge, so my cutting box lives on one end permanently.

[meleliza]

Motherof5 – that sounds heavenly! We have a very large house in the city, but it’s Victorian, so storage space is at a premium and there aren’t any out of the way nooks. I got back into sewing after baby #2 moved out of our bedroom. My bedroom floor is the only surface area in the house big enough to lay out and cut. So as my stash grew I took over the space between my bed and bathrooms that will one day be a walk-in closet. But for a while I had baby#3 in my bedroom and since she was sleeping all the time, I couldn’t sew in there. So when I got a new sewing machine this Christmas, I set up at a table in the dining room – which is actually working out well. The rooms that will one day be the formal living and dining rooms have become train rooms when it’s not Thanksgiving or something. So taking up my space there means I can be near the kids while they play and near the kitchen too. So maybe I’ll stay put there and just clean up when I need to. There’s not as much light as I’d like, though. The guest room has beautiful sun, but is all the way on the third floor way at the back of the house. Maybe when the littlest one is older, I’ll move up there. I could still hear them playing in their rooms and be accessible. If we do have to move for schools, a sewing space is top of my wishlist in a new house.

[Sarvi]

What a fun thread. I’m another dining table seamstress, and learned my lesson about how much room I really need for sewing after stitching a placemat to a dress. You should’ve seen the look on my face. Our table is long enough that I can leave my sewing machine out for a few days at a time while I work on something, but if I have to leave a project for any length of time, I need to pack everything away. We are living with my mother-in-law, which is great in a lot of ways, but also tough in some ways, one of which is that I always feel I’m encroaching a bit when I sew. One does really tend to spread out.

My number one wish is not actually for more space, but for more light. We have recessed, energy-efficient bulbs, so it’s like sitting under a dim, greenish-yellow spotlight. Very directional, not bright, and a horrible color.

[sadies closet]

This is a fun thread. I had a cute little sewing room when we moved into our house 6 years ago. It had one window and enough room for a small sewing table and a shelf. We had three boys and they shared a huge bedroom. Then we found out we were having another baby and it was a girl! That was the end of my sewing room. She is well worth it. I spent a few years with my sewing machine shifting around the dining room so that we could use the table until finally hubby suggested that we make room in the corner of our bedroom. It has worked out well. I have enough room for a table, a small cupboard and some plastic bins hidden underneath. I have a nice, bright desk lamp with a gooseneck stationed behind my machine that gives me wonderful, directional light. I can shine it exactly where I need to see. Everything works great except when the ironing board is set up I am always shifting it to get around. No matter, I have a space where I can leave unfinished projects set waiting for a few spare moments to work on them. I get so much more done now that I am able to work spontaneously. I can spend 15 or 20 minutes getting a few seams finished or putting in those button holes without having to tear out and clean up. I still cut out patterns on the kitchen table. My dream is to have a house someday where I can have an entire room devoted to my sewing and crafts. Probably will happen when the kids grow up and move out. 🙂 I am in no hurry for that to happen!

[janimal]

One of our bedrooms is my sewing room. We kept a twin bed in there for extra guest space but I just told DH I want it outta there so perhaps I can have a nice cutting table instead – and room for storage! I definitely need some storage to get my room nice and organized. Right now I do my tracing and cutting on the dining room table. It is so soothing and stress-releasing to close the door to my little room. Even if I’m not sewing, to just look through my fabric and patterns to decide what I’m going to do just relaxes me.

[E1izabeth]

I am lucky to have lots of space in my house. Our 3rd floor has a huge playroom and we are currently (slowly) renovating a room next to the play room to be my dedicated sewing room. Right now I sew at the dining room table and I have a very small linen closet in the back stair case that houses my sewing supplies and fabric stash. I actually like sewing in the dining room because my kids are always running through it playing, and lots of times they are sitting at the table with me coloring or doing some other activity.

[scgoble]

Our dining room doubles as my sewing area (or is it the other way around?) We are on the ground floor of a 1924 apartment building and our walls are the foundation – they are very thick and create window seats that are probably 2 feet deep. The dining room window seat houses my fabric, packed into IKEA baskets, and my machines sit on the table. I can put the sewing machines in the nook when we have special company or host a party, and can draw the curtains to hide the mess.

For a while, my sewing machine sat on top of a yoga mat to cut down on noise and vibration. It sat undisturbed for quite some time until I picked it all up one day and discovered the rubber mat (you know how they are “nubby”?) had literally sunk down into the finish of our dining table and ruined it. Whoops.

[JohannaO]

I have a dedicated sewing room for now, but in a few months it will be my youngest son’s “big boy room.” We have a nursery close to our room, so we may just room swap. I have a folding table that slides under the bed for a cutting table, and I have my sewing machine and serger on another table. I have to put all my sewing things up for the week, as we’ll have guests in that room. I think I’ll need a 12 step program to get through the withdrawal, since I won’t be able to sew for a week. 🙂

[Toyota888]

scgoble what an excellent idea about the yoga mat!!! I have a plastic table top perhaps it won’t hurt that… I am always annoying my DH with the vibrating table when he is trying to watch the Wire 🙂