Organising my sewing centre...completed.

Hello.

Here is the final instalment of Organising my Sewing Centre.

You can read here for instalment 1 focusing on thread, trims and notions

and here for instalment 2 focusing on patterns and tools.

Now onto my fabric storage solution.

I have seen some most awesome ways to store fabric such as

this one from Smashed Peas and Carrots.

Wouldn't it be great to have such neat, easily accessible fabric.

If I only had quilting cotton I might be able to replicate this idea

but this is the fabric stack I have to store.

I tried my best to stack in similar fabric piles...

...and then neatly them stack in my fabric cupboard.

I picked this cupboard up off ebay for the tidy price of $113.

It was originally a tv cupboard but the previous owners added a shelf and used it as a wine cupboard.

It works perfectly as a sewing cupboard now.

I use the little draws underneath to hold my interfacing, ribbons, button and press studs.

I keep all of my scrap fabric in these baskets under my side table.

The baskets I picked up from a kerbside collection.

They are not in great condition but do a good enough job to suffice.

The draws of the side table hold craft scissors and sticky tape, tools and overlocker thread...

...and my bookcase holds all of my sewing books.

This basket was picked up from a kerbside collection too.

I use it to hold all of my half completed projects and keep it on top of my fabric cupboard.

And there you have it,

"MY SEWING CENTRE"

aka : The Dining Room...

Organised.

Organising my sewing centre...continued.

Hello.

Well to continue on with the organisation of my sewing centre I'd like to show you how I sort out all of my patterns.

I keep them in baskets in my buffet.

I trace the pattern I'm using onto tracing fabric (there are many brands available but I use the very thin sew on interfacing) and store each size in it's own zip lock bag, labelling the bag with the size enclosed.

I then put the main pattern envelope in a large zip lock bag with all of the individual sized zip lock bags.  

I find this an easy way to preserve the original pattern and keep all previously used patterns easily organised.

♦♦♦

 I keep this draw in my buffet full of my most useful tools including all my scissors and pins as well as my size labels and my "adore" clothing labels.

The little pouch came from my Oma. It was handmade a long time ago, I remember her telling me her niece made it for her. I use this to hold my small collection of hand embroidery things.

Now when I collected my Oma's sewing items this box was amongst her things. My Opa (German Pop) was a carpenter and so he had made this box out of scraps he had around the house.

I thought it would be great to store all of my small items like needles, tape measures, marker pens and chalk, chopsticks (I use these for pressing out corners and seams).

It makes me happy to keep a memento of my Opa and use it in a way that makes my life better.

♦♦♦

My next point I wanted to show you was how I organise my fabric.

This made the post way too long so I will save it for the next and final post of

"Organising my Sewing Centre"

So stay tuned :)

Organising my sewing centre

Hello.

I want to share how I organise my sewing centre with you all. After beginning this post I realised that it would be too long to show you everthing in one post so I will show you bit by bit as I get around to documenting it.

Lets begin...

A few months ago my Oma (German Nan) moved out of her home and into a nursing home. She was a great sewer, not the most technical but was completely capable of making her own clothes and clothes for any who asked. If you can inherit sewing genes then she was the one who I inherited mine from. Unfortunately I didn't spend enough time with her learning all she knew about sewing before she stopped.

Anyway, when she moved, everything in her home had to be cleared out for the house to be sold.  I pretty much got to have all of her sewing supplies (minus the sewing machine and overlocker, which I didn't need anyway)

My Oma was possibly a hoarder, not one of those whose home you cannot walk through, but one who survived the war and never threw away anything that could be used for something.

It was quite amazing finding 5cm pieces of ribbon saved from the packaging of something that is long gone.

Here are a couple of pictures to show some of the small items I received.

Some of the small items which include...

Lots of Lace

Heaps of Zippers, mostly new, some removed from garments

Bias Binding

Trims

Some extremely vintage bands

Along with all of these items I got a mountain of fabric and thread.

I already had one of these containers to hold my thread, but I needed to purchase another to cope with my new load.

Neatly organised by colours

Now to organise all of the ribbon, lace, trim, elastic, velcro, tape etc... I used the largest zip lock bags I could find.

These stack neatly in the cupboard and make it easy to find what you need.

♥

So that is where I will end this post.

I am off to take some more pictures of sewing centre for my next instalment of

"Organising Your Sewing Centre"

Linking up here:

skiptomylou

mommybydaycrafterbynight

sewcando

shwinandshwin