Getting Organized

This is my dining room sewing room.  I don't think that we have eaten in here in all the years we have lived here so why not turn it into something useful.  No one seems to mind at all and I am glad that space is now put to use.

Organization is not my strong suit.  On any given day you can walk into my sewing room and it will pretty much look like a tornado went ripping through.  There were a couple of things that were nagging at me and had to be done.  First off I needed a spot right next to my sewing machine to keep my at hand items.  Seam rippers, snippers, pin magnets are the items I use when I am sitting right at my machine.  I took a little shelving unit that had in another corner and put it by the machine.  Don't laugh at me but I have had this little white plastic shelf since I was in college almost 15 years ago.  A shelf is a shelf.  

The green bin is something I'll explain later but on the 1st shelf there is a caddy with my seam ripper, snippers, a little ruler and anything else I may grab.  The second shelf is my thread and an empty drawer that I haven't decided what to put in yet.  The bottom has my sewing machine needles.

I dug this organizational unit below out of my basement.  It was full of my kids puzzles, craft supplies, coloring books from when they were small.  Before I buy anything I try to take a good look at what I already have and repurpose it if I can.  The colors leave something to be desired but hopefully I can make some pretty covers to take care of that.  Tutorials or suggestions are gladly accepted here.  

I was happy to to add this unit because it houses buttons, twill tape, zippers, elastic, pattern tracing supplies, muslin and projects actively in progress.  As you can see it isn't full and some things may still be reorganized but it is a nice addition.  I really like the larger bins at the bottom which will be for my current projects.  I can just grab one and have everything I need is waiting  for me.  When I am done for the day I can throw it all back in there and if Lani J needs to work she won't have to worry about moving any of my things out of the way.  Hopefully this will prevent having pieces of different fabrics and patterns scattered everywhere.

My scraps are in that box on the lower right.  I just dig through to find the size or material that I need and practice or test whatever.  The little basket to the left that is cut off is my basket of patterns.  All 52 of them!

Fabric, where is my fabric you ask.  Ta da.  What better use for china cabinet?  As you can see the top shelf still has some things that need to be cleaned out but for now this is where I store fabric, interfacing, some items that need alterations, books.  Hanging to the left are some projects that my daughters were working and have decided to come back to somewhere down the road.  The knobs are nifty for hanging measuring tapes too. 

There you have it.  That is my sewing room.  It will probably be organized and reorganized again and again but for just starting out I am pretty happy. I have a few things to keep me organized so I can do more sewing and less looking for things and cleaning up.

Eventually I want to get another table for just my sewing machine and put some risers under the table to get it to a nice height for cutting.  I was wondeing if the furniture could be painted to give it a fresher look.  That is for somewhere down the road though.

So now I ask you, what is your favorite thing about your sewing space and what is the one thing you would change.  I am just curious to hear.