My studio

 

My quilting guild, the Forsyth Piecers and Quilters Guild, once had a program about organizing your sewing room. I sighed and dreamed of one of my own. However, as my kids are all still young and there is no danger of them vacating their rooms in my favor for at least another 10 years, I have had to carve out a space for myself in the kitchen-dining room. Here is my corner:

 

 

I have my sewing machine up against the window so I can watch my son when he plays outside. My rotary cutting mat tucks nicely between the bookcase and armoire when not in use. I have a wooden 'trash' can that holds all my tiny scraps. Any fabric that is too small to make into something useful gets chopped up into confetti to use as stuffing for dog beds for the local animal shelter. And of course, my comfy blue and white sewing chair, that I bought for a bargain price and reupholstered myself. My neighbor says it looks like a throne, but oh well. Who wants to sit in an uncomfortable kitchen chair all day? Not me.

I bought this tv armoire back in the days of big huge fat televisions. When our old 100lb tv smoked its way into a smelly death and we upgraded to a flat screen, my poor armoire was too narrow to accommodate it. But I love the tin work on the front, so I picked up some shelving at Home Depot and stained it to match and now I have a fabric cabinet extraordinaire. Now that I have moved it into the kitchen, there is enough to light to actually see my fabric. We didn't have an overhead light in the living room. Makes it very difficult to find the fabric you want without dragging a whole pile out. You can see extra strips for landscape quilts hanging on the rod on the left door.

 

My iron stays on top of this cabinet, out of reaching of prying young hands, and close enough to the microwave socket to plug in easily. The ironing board should fold up nicely next to the bookcase, but it ends up staying up most the time since I use it so often.

And last, but not least, the new baby, my lovely Babylock Jane. I even managed to find a beautiful antique Victorian cabinet to sit it on, complete with handy drawer. All my bobbins, and scissors and odds and ends go in the drawers to the right. The dog likes to hide under there for some peace and quiet. All I have to do when I want to work on a large quilt is just put the whole cabinet against the table and I have a larger space to work with. All tucked in nice and neat:)