A few months ago, when I mentioned on Instagram that our bedroom doubled as my sewing room, a few people said they'd love to read a blog post about how that works. I've kept meaning to gather together some photos for such a post, and have finally been pushed into action by not wanting to leave it too late, as I enter my last month or two of using our bedroom in this way. For nearly seven years, we've sacrificed clothing space; I've vacuumed and cleared up from the fabric explosion before going to bed at night; and my husband has accepted he may sleep at risk of being jabbed by a forgotten pin. Finally though, due to a re-jig to move our educational apps business away from our dining room table (another multi-purpose room - in October it will be three years ago since I wrote this post!) and into a more self-contained home office, I'm also going to be getting my very own sewing room up in the loft once it's been converted.
However, while I'm completely excited by the idea (to the point of not being able to sleep entirely well some nights!), I have occasionally come across people saying that they'd love to sew more, but they don't have anywhere to do it, so I feel enthusiastic to share how entirely possible it is to sew without the luxury of a dedicated sewing room. (Although I'm aware that if you live with someone, then you may need a ridiculously indulgent partner to sanction all that you're about to read…).
I should preface this by saying that my husband really dislikes mess and clutter and that I'm a surface neat freak (surface, because I'm far less fussy when it comes to the inside of cupboards!). Although small piles of clutter occasionally form on my desk, it would be illegal in both of our minds for us to go to bed in a room strewn with fabric, so I've tried to store things in a way that's relatively easy to pack up from - I think this is the only way a multi-purpose room could have worked for us long-term.
First, the fabric. My storage for this has changed frequently, but it currently lives in two plastic boxes on wheels beneath our bed. I have one box for quilting fabrics and another for dressmaking fabrics.
Quilting needs a large amount of floor space, so the bed is placed against a wall, beneath a window to maximise floor space. I quite like sleeping next to a wall (it's cosy and perhaps because at some level, I feel further away from any potential burglars!) and the window sill is fine for a glass of water and a book.
This is my version of a design wall. It causes problems when my husband needs to walk across it to get to his sports clothes (that seems to be the main thing he'd come in here for, other than actually going to bed!), but otherwise it's fairly effective. If I need to pack it away to get back out again another day, I just gather the pieces back up and label the different rows with pieces of paper.
My cutting mats and perspex grid rulers all live standing inside the wardrobe next to my husband's shirts and my Hasbeens.
I tend to put the ironing board up in the corner of the room when I'm about to start work, as I usually leave it out for the whole of the time I'm sewing. I used to have a miniature ironing board, but it's not ideal when you start to work on anything bigger than a 6" block.
When it's not in use it lives in the very messy airing cupboard. This has possibly been the most frustrating part of the bedroom-sewing arrangement. Nearly every day it falls out at us when we open the door to turn the heating on or off, hitting pipes, causing my husband to rant, and me to pointlessly defend the obstreperous ironing board. But if you look to the left of the ironing board, you can also see one of the saviours of the bedroom-sewing arrangement standing next to it.
Until I bought a floor sweeper, I used to have to bring the vacuum cleaner upstairs from the other end of the house every time I'd been on a fabric-cutting spree. This floor sweeper isn't quite the dust guzzling monster that a Miele is, but it's wonderful for making the floor look superficially clean at midnight when you're desperate to just get into bed.
I've had a few different sewing desks, but never any bigger than this and it's absolutely tiny. However, it's fine for using both the sewing machine and the overlocker at the same time, which is what really matters.
The only frustration is if I'm using my laptop up here - there's not really a space on the desk where the mouse can sit. The cotton reel storage is kindly overlooked as some sort of sewing-related art-form by my husband, which is very lucky as it's the most convenient way to store thread. Very occasionally, he actually tells me that I've ordered them incorrectly and takes it upon himself to better the colour arrangement.
Some of these drawers really do have normal clothing occupancy, but the whole of the top drawer is dedicated to sewing paraphernalia…and the my clothing drawers may have tailor's hams nestled amongst the jumpers.
Because my only real work space is the floor in this room, when I take my rotary cutters out, they come out with the plastic box, so that they're never left unprotected on the floor where they could cut my husband or children's feet.
In my desk drawers, I keep tiny boxes filled with sewing machine needles and feet. These are both old Liberty gift coin boxes.
Very occasionally, mid-project, I'll need to store something assembled in groups. In this case, under my desk seems like a good place…or in the throat of my sewing machine.
My English paper piecing is usually stored in these series of open boxes which get carted around the house with me most days. If there's ever a point in our work when we're discussing something, the EPP will invariably come out, and at the weekend, it appears the moment anyone starts watching a film.
I'd say that the biggest problem of working in this way has been not having a cutting space. I find cutting out - whether it's dressmaking or quilting - takes hours and is often more time consuming than the actual sewing. For years I felt entirely happy spending hours sitting cross-legged on the floor, but since December, the moment I sit down in this way, my back is in pain and starts to complain. Due to the extent of my obsession, this doesn't actually stop me from doing it, it just isn't quite as enjoyable and involves the use of painkillers to facilitate it. My parents were actually going to have a bespoke cutting table made for my birthday which would flip down from the wall and fold back up again when not in use, which seems like a really good option for a multi-purpose room (they didn't do this in the end, as we decided to convert our loft shortly after they'd suggested it). I'd also considered one of those fold out wall-papering tables that people use at craft fairs, but you'd need somewhere more cavernous than our airing cupboard to store it.
I'm always really fascinated to see how other sewers set up their work spaces, so I hope you've enjoyed this post, despite the fact that it includes the inside of my wardrobe and airing cupboard! Our builders and carpenters arrive on Monday, so for the next few months, my sewing storage may be more about dust protection, but hopefully it will be worth it.
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