Creating a Sewing Nook

If you're following me on Instagram, you'll know that my latest stitchy excitement is that I've created a new dedicated space in which to sew.  Meet the Sewing Nook.  It's at the bottom end of my kitchen / dining room and is actually the space under our stairs.  A little Potteresque perhaps, but thankfully not enclosed and no Aunt Petunia.

My spring time introduction of the Ikea trolley has helped to get me sewing downstairs again, after the luxury of having a whole room to stitch in previously, but well, it still wasn't as handy as I'd like.  Sometimes, it felt like having to set everything up and pack it away was eating up the little time that I do have  available to sew.  You can tell this hobby is in my blood, right?

So, after very much deliberation, I worked out how to have a space that I could manage with my OCD tendency for tidiness all in the same room as the kitchen, the dining room, baby high chairs, car seats, bouncy chairs and a gazillion scattered shape toys and rattles (yes, that OCD tendency is challenged daily).  Thanks to Judith and Di for their planting of seeds of ideas that I finally gave in to letting grow.

When you have a limited space, where do you start?  I knew I wouldn't get absolutely everything I wanted downstairs into this space, but I'm prepared to have a good go!  I know that I want this space to be as free to work on at an instant as it's practical to make it.  For me, there's no point in creating an area that needs re-arranged every time I want to grab half an hour to sew.  All that re-arranging is going to use up my half hour and rather defeat the purpose of having this space in the first place.

So, I started with the basics.  I'd want my machine, a cutting space and some lighting (because the cubby is a bit dark).  Oh, and of course,  my 'Hope' mini-quilt for a bit of wall focus.  We added a floating shelf too, so that not everything has to be held on the table top.

So far so good!

There was then a slightly crushing afternoon when I realised I needed to fit and re-arrange all this sewing paraphernalia (and some more that was being stored upstairs) into that small space.  Truthfully, I looked at it and scratched my head for quite a lot of the time.  It was trickier than I thought to make those decisions.

But I did eventually squeeze most of it into place, using pretty tins and jars for the shelved items and my original large storage boxes for under the table.  There's much more I'd love to have here, but I seemed to grow rather well into having a whole room to sew in for a few years and I need to learn to stash less than I sew now - lol!  It will be a work in progress to reduce current supplies to allow those stored upstairs to slowly feed downwards ;-)

 I enjoyed adding pretty touches to the corner - some fab little heart lights (battery pack powered, from Iceland £2.99) and sweet little jam jars and baskets and tins.  I'm not great at arranging them so they look 'natural' and pretty rather than cluttered, but I can live with this set up.

I tidied up the Ikea Bygel trolley and slid it in alongside the wall to the right, hung up a few more mini quilts, mug rugs and name tags from friends and hey presto, one pretty Sewing Nook that I haven't had time to stitch in - ha!!  (But of course, I will!)

You'll have noticed that the blog has also had a wee spruce up!  It had it's old face since 2012, so I thought it was time to declutter, change the scenery and switch a few things around.  It has been tempting to let the blog go a bit, especially as we all head to other, more immediate social media spaces and as time has been short here.  But, really, I don't want to give up the journey just yet, so I guess even though it might be more sporadic than I'd like, I still want to commit to sharing my journey here.  I hope you'll keep popping in to see what I'm up to now and again.  I'd miss you all if you didn't.

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