Sewing Room Progress? Maybe...

I've been continuing to work in the sewing room, not sewing but rearranging. The workbench has been moved out and replaced with the counter height kitchen table I bought to replace it.

 

I put a lot of my plastic drawers and project bins under the table, and there is a lot of storage available under that table! I may move some of these later, and switch what gets stored there, but for now I'm trying this. I also decided to try putting my small mini-bolt shelves on either end of the cutting table. The shelves are narrower than the table so nothing sticking out in my way, but I'm not sure I like how much taller they are. Once I get the cutting table cleaned off and cut on it, I can see if I find the shelves being taller distracting.

  

Here is the other side of the cutting table, with more plastic drawers stored here. Once I move the Juki to it's final place, the totes and batting currently in my way will have a place to live. 

This is the area under the window. My Singer 99 is set up and ready to go. Most of those bins under the cabinet flap are filled with strings or selvages, and I think for the rest of this year, the 99 will be used for sewing string blocks. The string stash is getting out of hand, and I love making string blocks, but with all my scrap cutting I am making strings faster than I can make them into blocks. I don't have quite enough room right now to sit comfortably at the Singer 99, but once DD#2's bookshelves are out of the room and I move the Juki to the wall, I can shift the cutting table over enough to make this into a comfortable sewing spot.

 

I've got the Bernina almost unburied! I'm hoping to get some sewing time in this week sometime, and it will be on the Bernina.  I still have several quilt tops to assemble, that I'd like to get quilted this summer. Since they are not even tops yet, I need to get going on the assembly.

I don't know how much more I can get done without moving the bookshelves out first. Once those are moved I can work on the rearranging until it's finished. I will likely spend one big day moving a lot of stuff, then fine tune things over time. I have figured out sewing rooms are always in flux to some extent. Fabric you have set aside for a certain project gets used, then you have that space available. Sometimes you lose interest in a certain technique or activity, and then all of those supplies can get moved on. I have already purged a lot of garment fabric, but I did keep a couple dozen pieces I would like to use. Garment making is something I don't mind doing once I get started, but trying to motivate myself to get started is getting harder and harder. Overall, I prefer quilting. It's funny, the last couple of garments I made, I was amazed at how fast they went together. I forget that making a garment can take just a couple days, unlike a quilt which can take months.

Is it helpful at all to see the process of rearranging? The mess is worse at first, but eventually it will be neat. I don't have any built ins, so if this arrangement doesn't work for me, I'll simply try something different. I already have an idea that would likely work and allow for a fourth machine to be set up, but I want to try this configuration first. I think once the Juki is moved I may be able to set up a fourth machine on the right side flap as a temporary thing when I'm not quilting a project, so I don't know that I need a fourth permanent spot right now. I'm not sure what will be my next post, sewing or more rearranging. Happy sewing in the meantime!