Organizing Your Sewing Room for the New Year

Image via WikipediaIf you're like me, the first thing you want to do when the calendar rolls over to January 1st is to get organized. December usually plays havoc with my house. At first it's collecting presents and wrapping supplies for others, which usually temporarily take up residence in my sewing room; and then after Christmas when all of the presents given to my family fills up the room again.

When January hits, it's time for me to reclaim my most precious space and get it re-organized after a year of sewing projects, not to mention prepped for a new year's worth of crafty hobbies.

These tips will work whether you have a whole room dedicated to your sewing pursuits, half a room that shares time and space with the computer or home office, or a portable sewing machine that you hoist up on to the kitchen table whenever it's not being used by hungry husbands or children.

First, you want to map out your space and create stations for the different stages of your projects. Obviously you don't cut out your patterns in the same space that you put your sewing machine (unless you do everything on the kitchen table, that is). So determine the best space for cutting and pinning, sewing and serging, ironing and/or steaming, and a place for either your dress form or full length mirror (if you're your own sewing form, that is).

Image via Wikipedia

Then, determine what equipment and supplies you use most often for each station. This varies depending on the type of sewing you normally do; whether it's quilting, dress making, or home decorating. Whichever you decide are used most often, these are the things you want within arm's reach at any given moment. Nothing is more frustrating than getting all settled and in a comfortable position to cut, pin or measure and having to walk across the room to get what you need. If you're like me and sit on the carpet to cut and pin, you want your scissors and pins handy for that area.

Once you have your work areas mapped out, you need to focus on your storage area. I'm sure most of you have lots of "spare" fabric that you've bought on whims and need a place where you can see it. I've learned that fabric that's out of site is out of mind. That's why I like clear storage bins so I can see what I have at the proper moment when inspiration strikes.

You'll also want all of your sewing magazines organized so you can find them easily to refer back to an article that may bail you out of the hair-pulling predicaments that inevitably pop up in the middle of every project. Only keep the issues that you know you'll refer back to, though, or you run the risk of over-stuffing your space and possibly being featured on "Hoarders" (a girl can only dream, am I right?).

And let's not forget about your patterns. These I don't need a clear storage system for, I just need another room to house them all! These need to be organized in a file system that works for you. I like to group similar style dresses together so I can quickly look through them based on what project I know I'm about to dive head first into. If you're using a dedicated room, the closet is usually a good place to store patterns, although if you're like me you'll quickly fill that up and beg your husband to put a POD on the front lawn.

I think you'll find that having an organized space will increase your enjoyment of your hobby. It only takes a few hours once a year to get it going. Oh, who are we kidding? I have to do this once a month. I can be a messy seamstress! But start the New Year off right and get into the habit of straightening and organizing your area regularly to reduce stress and have more time for buying fabric.

The "Unappreciated" Art of Needlework

You read that title right, needlework is an art just as much as painting or sculpture. Far too many people think of it as a practical skill; mending shirts, hemming pants, etc. Where as they see fashion as an art, they think crafts like quilting, smocking, embroidery, and tatting can be done by machines and don't need a creative hand. We're far too polite to use the word we want to describe how wrong that it, but trust us, it is.

Just last week we had a customer in the store who created beautiful baby doll dresses that used all sorts of techniques such as hand embroidery, lace insertion and ribbon embroidery. She truly makes beautiful creations. But she bemoaned that no one seemed to value her work. Although she spends hours creating it, people don't want to pay anymore than they would for a mass-manufactured clothing item from Wal-Mart, thinking it's the same thing.

Trust me, kids, it's not.

If clothing, fashion, and home decoration is an expression of who you are, what do you express by purchasing the same outfit or quilt that a hundred of your neighbors have? That's why the personal creation of garments and quilts will always be a better expression of who you are as a person, and expressing oneself is the very soul of art.

The art of needlework begins with the selection of materials. Sure, you can buy a smocked dress from a store, but it simply won't have the same quality materials as will a hand crafted item. To withstand the industrial size machines that churn out dress after dress, they must use coarse fabrics and harsh threads. This practically flies in the face of what smocking really is. Smocking is a delicate art that uses fine materials to make dresses for babies, young girls, and dolls. How can you make a delicate thing with tough materials?

Just like a painter carefully mixes colors to evoke an emotion, hand crafters carefully choose threads, fabrics and patterns to evoke feelings in their work. It's not always as easy as just choosing the right color from the store. Often true artisans will dye their fabrics to match the perfect color for their creation.

There are machines that can replicate heirloom sewing, but the whole point of an heirloom is that it's passed down your family, from your ancestor who made it. Machines aren't ancestors.

And when it comes to art, nothing quite expresses a person's creativity like a quilt. This is where the selection and assemblage of fabrics truly allows a person to pour their souls into a cohesive work. Quilters can do some really amazing things with fabric and needles, and that's why it's so common to hang a wonderful piece on the wall.

We'll be highlighting many of what we consider to be the lost arts of sewing that need to be cherished in upcoming posts. The Sewing Studio does all it can to promote and preserve the heritage of American artistry in needlework.