sew is your face!

i’ve had plenty of time since we moved three months ago to settle into my new sewing studio and figure out the flow of the space. i decided that peg board would work wonders as far as keeping all of my tools and other crap up off my cutting table and work space. it’s easy to attract clutter when you sew for 8 hours a day! so, in the name of organization, i started my search for a cheap but sturdy peg board system to use. you know, the kind that’s most commonly used in garages to hold tools. i landed on amazon and found plenty of options. i ended up choosing a galvanized metal set because it’s shiny and looks cool. it cost somewhere around $30 bucks for the set of two. not bad! the holes are pretty standard as far as how they are placed so, the nice thing is that you can pick and choose your accessories separately and from just about any company. i picked a set that came with just about every kind of hook/hanger-type thing you could ask for. the instant my handyman hung it up on the wall i realized just how awesome it would be to have more!! i immediately bought another set =) they now live above my cutting table, my ironing station, and above one of my sewing machines. i’m still organizing and filling them in, but doing so as i work rather than in one fell swoop. it’s the only way for me to figure out where to put all that stuff. already, i’ve been amazed at how great it is to see all of my tools and have a place up off my surfaces to store them. my sewing room has never felt so functional before!

another thing i’ve been needing is a place to keep multiple projects where they remain accessible, in sight, and out of the way. that’s a pretty tall order, i know. i decided to have my handyman hang some bars on a wall that was otherwise useless because of the location (two doors open up onto it…there are seven doors in my studio!). he took the wood from the old rack that he built before we moved and used it for the new bars on the wall. he didn’t have to cut the old wood or anything, luckily they were just about the right length already. talk about easy! all we had to buy were some cheap angle brackets and screws. now, at all times, i can see all of my projects that are waiting to be sewn! before the racks, i would just stack all my stuff on top of each other, losing track of what was for what project and why i had all that material out in the first place. it was a terrible system and took up most of my table space in the room. already, they have made my flow so much better that i’m thinking of hanging a few more bars!

the last thing (for now…) that we did in my studio was to set up a proper area for me to photograph my finished pieces. i had been using the teeny tiny wall space that also happened to be the back of a door, to take mediocre (at best) pictures of my finished work. it was really difficult to get a good shot that had proper lighting and no doorknobs, hinges, or light switches in the background. it actually made taking the photos more of a chore than part of the creative process. not good. i had the bright idea of thumb tacking a piece of material over the door to create a solid background and that was definitely better, but not ideal. and my handyman didn’t like the fact that it made it hard to get to the man-cave (garage). so, after a good brainstorming session, i picked a different wall to use. it has two doors next to each other that lead to the same utility closet that houses our central heat system and water heater. TWO DOORS. go figure. we never really get in there so i thought it would be a great wall space to use for photography. my handyman hung a double drapery bar (super cheap at home depot) and i made that thumb-tacked piece of material into a curtain. the second bar will be used to hang a dark curtain (thrift stores, here i come!) so i can have a choice of background when needed. viola! no more ugly door knobs and a nice background that i can just pull aside for entry into the closet. perfect! to solve my lighting problem, i used our club speaker stands and attached my trunk show clamp lights (also super cheap at home depot) to them. i use 60 watt (although i may move up to 75 watts) natural sunlight flood bulbs for the best color. the best thing about the clamp lights is that they are so portable, i can clip them anywhere on those stands for whatever lighting effect i need. so easy!

i owe a HUGE thank you to my personal handyman, donovan! without him, i would still be pulling ties out of bags and boxes and swimming around in chaos in my studio =)

next up to do: add some inspirational art and photos to the room!