Rearranging

Yesterday was the day I set aside to rearrange my sewing room. I'm not finished, but I got done more than I thought I would. My first attempt at placing the Juki cabinet didn't work out, but this way is acceptable.

Here is my Bernina, in it's cabinet, right as you walk in the room. I don't have a lot of room, but I can sit down, and once I'm sitting, I have enough room to function.

Here is my Juki in it's cabinet. I had been hoping I could put it in a corner and have the back leaf up, but this will work. If I clean off the Bernina cabinet before I start quilting a quilt, I can have the Bernina cabinet hold the overhang. When I'm not quilting, I plan on flipping up the smaller leaf closest to you in the photo. With it down it doesn't leave a lot of room to move around. For the same reason, when I am not quilting I will probably leave the right hand door closed like it is in the photo.

Behind the left hand door of the Juki cabinet, underneath the left leaf, is this microwave stand. I had to take the wheels off to get it to fit under here, then it was a little too short to hold up the leaf. I couldn't put the leaf support out and put the microwave stand here. I found a big book the right thickness, and voila, leaf is supported and I have storage.

This is the view behind my Juki cabinet. It's not perfect, but for now it's functional.

The other wall looks essentially the same as it did. The only place I have to set up an ironing board will be right in front of my fabric shelves. You can see the Juki leaf flipped up in this pic as well. While I am quilting, I'll take the ironing board down. This arrangement means I have to stay up on things a bit better, but since getting to my Juki has been so hard, this is easier than it was. You can barely see the edge of my workbench in the lefthand corner of this photo. I didn't even want to take a photo of that, because that is where I piled everything to rearrange, and you can't even begin to see the surface. I told you I wasn't finished yet ;-)

Rearranging the sewing room was very enlightening, much more so than I thought it would be. I had completely redone the sewing room last year, and I moved things around a bit more in the fall when the kids moved back home. I thought I was aware of what I had and what was where. I was wrong.

The photo of the microwave stand... what is on that thing anyway? Well, the bottom shelf is almost all heavy fabric to make reusable shopping bags. DH has wanted me to make them for some time. If I made them, that shelf would basically be empty. The only other thing on that shelf is some fleece scraps I was going to piece together and back a quilt top that is finished. Again, if I just go ahead and finish the quilt, that fabric is out of here.

What about the top shelf? Some fabric for scooter seat covers is on there. If I made those up, they'd be gone. There are also a bunch of hand towels I bought for making bibs. I could probably finish those in a couple of days. What about the other fabric? It is for the twins geisha/samurai quilts, which I am overdo on making. It would take a while to make up all those projects, but if those were all I worked on, I could probably empty those shelves in a couple months. If those shelves were empty, I could store other things on those out-of-the-way shelves, and have a bit more room to move around.

The pile of fabrics piled up in the corner of the room, next to my mini-bolt shelves, what are those there for? They are for backing quilt tops that are finished. I'm sure I will have scraps left after finishing those quilts, but most of that pile would be gone.

I found some other things like that as I moved things around. Four pieces of fabric I bought to make summer blankets for the twins. It is that light crinkly cotton, and all I have to do is hem it. I found things that need to be mended. I could get all of that finished in a day. I found some fat eighths I had bought for the transportation I Spy, that I couldn't find when I cut up all that fabric. I'm going to cut it now, and switch out some of the squares I had put aside for it. I found some fabric I bought to make DH scrubs. I always make him scrubs for Christmas, so there is no hurry on that, but really, did the fabrics all have to be in different places?

I was really amazed to realize, that if I worked some of those planned projects into the queue, I would gain so much space so quickly. Quilts take a long time to make, so the fabric doesn't go down very fast, but these projects, most of them are not huge time commitments, yet I put them off. I think maybe I should have to rearrange my sewing room every six months or so to give me a new perspective.

I'm not upset about the unfinished projects. I haven't had a lot of time to sew lately, and when you are just sewing for a few minutes here and there, it is easy to lose sight of things. I do hope I can get some of these projects finished up this year, emptying that microwave cart so I can use it for other things sounds mighty tempting. I still have five quilts with due dates, as well as the geisha/samurai quilts for the twins, and I need to get those finished. Maybe, just maybe, I can squeeze a few other projects in too.