Welcome back to Open Line Friday…Last week we discussed books that have inspired us. Thank you to all who recommended books. I ordered several books and can’t wait to read YOUR favorites!
As you know, on Open Line Friday, ANYONE can ask ANY QUESTION, and WE ALL ANSWER!. There are so many quilters at The Inbox Jaunt and so many ideas to share…
I will start the ball rolling with a question from my sewing room…
Several weeks ago, I stitched this little quilt to decorate my sewing room which inspired me to do a bit more to spruce up the old sewing studio…So for today’s Open Line Friday Question:
If you had $75 to spend on your sewing room–not on sewing supplies or fabric–something to improve the efficiency or beauty of your sewing room…what would it be?
Last week, with a little assistance from my husband, I created a large ironing board by covering plywood with two layers of wool batting and Duck cloth. (Home Depot cut the plywood to size for me.)
I have two banquet tables in my sewing room and there was enough plywood from one sheet to cover them both. I will use one as an ironing table, and the other to hold my Bernina 150. (The Bernina 820 is in a Horn cabinet.)
For less that $75, I covered the two tables…Yeah!
Here’s an idea and photo from Ness–a follower of The Inbox Jaunt-– spray paint small frames in bright colors and frame vintage patterns. Darling!
Another reader told me she has a framed photo of the woman who taught her to quilt hanging in her sewing room–love that idea, too!
What would YOU do with $75? We’d LOVE to hear!
Lori
PS…All images, information and tutorials are the property of Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt and are intended for personal use only. Feel free to pin, share, tweet with attribution to The Inbox Jaunt. For all other purposes, please contact me at lckennedy@hotmail.com. Thanks!
94 comments
Donna
I just finished redoing my sewing room last weekend! The best buys I got were a vanity and a dresser off of Craigslist for $25 each…both antique! I stripped them down and painted them white and put some pretty knobs from Hobby Lobby on them. I then used a 4′ X 4′ white melamine board I had left over from another project to mount to the top of the vanity. This gave me a 4′ X 4′ sewing table! The dresser is used to store all of my denim and upholstery fabric. 😀
Donna
mjstephens1953
My sewing room is still a moving again wreck. But one tote has been cleaned out and given away. I have some ideas about storage. Furniture is not an option it is packed door to window. I had so much more floor space before this move. So the walls are it. Going to find good quality pant hangers. Cheap ones are worthless for this. Hit the huge discount builder store, for pretty knobs that will be nailed to the wall and hang all of the rulers, templates and class size cutting mat and ironing square. Also, have to quit being angry that the beautiful leaded glass cabinet door pulls stayed with the ex. This morning is a rough one. Hoping these plans will get me started feeling saner.
Lori Kennedy
Nice work! I need to check out Craigslist more frequently!
Lori Campbell
When we moved to our home my sewing room ended up in the smallest space and there are doors on 3 sides and a window on the 4th which really limits my storage space. I bought 2 30″ bookcases for $10 each and a 8′ counter top from Lowe’s for @ $40, the bookcases hold the counter which is wide enough for my cutting mat. The counter fits under the window. I can also have a sewing machine and a serger on it at the same time when I’m sewing clothes. I have put wire squares underneath and store my sergers when I am quilting. They also hold my UFOs in those plastic shoe boxes. All that cost @ $75 together.
Next I am looking to buy more fabric storage–our county government holds surplus sales every 2 or 3 months and I’ll be getting a file cabinet that stores files sideways–last time they had them for$10 each, I might buy a couple more if I can find a wall in the garage.
Lori Kennedy
Thanks for all the great ideas! You certainly go a lot of storage for under $100. I think I will go take a spin around Lowe’s.
Amy Neuenschwander
I would choose to paint! A cheery, coral color! (with white trim! And a chandelier! And new carpet! And coordinating organization boxes! And…..) Maybe I should just stick with the paint.
mjstephens1953
Keep dreaming, you will get all of those things.
Kris Leaman
I work in a windowless room. I would love to add a window. ( I know it would be more than $75.00 but I would have my husband install it.)
mjstephens1953
A window I understand..I have been very lucky to always have a window that my sewing cabinet can be placed in front of. It really is a must for me.
mollydooker2
Plywood for a combo table for cutting and ironning
Cecilia
I would buy another bookcase to hold my fabric.
Debbie D
Lighting, I like to sew Kate at night and my funds light is horrible
Susan
I would love to buy fabric to make new curtains for my sewing studio.
Deborah
If I had $75 I would add some lighting above my sewing area. I quilt in our basement so very little outside light and the lights that are in the room are not over the area where I sew. I love the idea of hanging the pictures of the people who taught you to quilt–my grandmothers and my mom are my inspiration!
Katelyn @ Sing While Crafting
I think that if I had $75 I would paint my room…it’s a super ugly yellow. lol. And I would see if I could get a new light fixture that produces better lighting.
Diane Bartow
Go to http://www.printfriendly.com/ They have a button you can drag and drop to your tool bar. When you are on a web page you can click on to the printfriendly button and it will bring up a box with the currant web page in it. You can then get rid of any unwanted text or pictures. At the top of that box you have a choice of either printing, making a PDF or emailing the content. Mostly I PDF and save to my hard drive for future use. It really is very simple to use and keeps me from looking for a page in the future and find the blog is gone.
lavonne
will try this – thank you
MJ Stephens
I need Niece Liz to spend the day with me. She is the organization queen. Every time I move my sewing area gets smaller and smaller. As things that lived elsewhere now encroach on my sewing cabinet, big board iron table, and the chest of drawers fabric storage. A 2nd or 3rd hand wood top kitchen table is now my cutting table. And the “toy box” chest that moved from parents to home to home to home and was used as a coffee table before now takes up part of a wall and holds batting and other odds and ends of craft things. I need some tough love. 5 years ago when my ex husband delivered my fabric storage to my apartment he had dumped carefully organized drawers into one big plastic bag. I have yet to recover from that site. But my machine sits in front of a window and the cats sleep in the sun on the Christmas fabric “gift”, that covers WIP and machine. I am willing to walk the maize to get tops out of the closet and move things 42 times to clear cutting space. I just wish my room said Welcome, come on in and set a spell.
Marta
This is what I needed last yearby my small sewing table and I found one in a Hospice Resale Shop..It is like a 30″ square end table with casters already..Cost; $10 and its Worth to me: ….maybe a million! For $ 75, doubt I could, but I would love hardwood floor in my small sewing room instead of the carpet already there. I cannot see metal things when I drop them.Don’t want to find them with my feet..so have to wear shoes in there. I use flashlight on the floor at night so items shine and I can retrieve them.
A friend told me, actually last night, about an automotive magnet on a telescoping rod used to pick up dropped items..On the way to get one for
less than 75…Hers was 3.97 at a big box store. Hope we all get our wishes!
Laura Tawney
It’s interesting that before I even scrolled down to see what you had done – I knew what I would do and that is build a bigger ironing board. I was at a quilt retreat for a day and someone brought one and I took pictures. It’s on my to do list this fall.
Thanks for the reminder and your ideas!
LauraT
Jana
I’d probably make a portable felt design wall and a bigger ironing table, similar to the one Lori made. I have a home made one but it is not quite big enough. Also, I would love to make one of those quilt suspenders like the one here: http://www.jennoop.com/quilt-suspenders.html
My sewing space is in the guest room, so my sewing set up has to be portable. One of the best cheap improvements I have made is to buy a big piece of rigid foam (not stryofoam balls, some sort of purple closed-cell stuff) insulation board that I cut to fit the top of the tall antique bed that lives in that room. It is about 2 inches thick, and I cover it with a piece of fabric and then put my cutting mats and small ironing table on it. It is the perfect height for me, and very light and easy to move when we have guests.
Dave
No doubt about it, I would use the money to invest in a design wall:)
Claire
I’d use it to hire someone to build/install all the things I’ve bought (pegboard & shelves) or to help me sort the bags of fabric people have given me!
andimc13
I need all sorts of little updates…a new cover for my ironing board, a new cutting mat, baskets to store my fabrics, project boxes for WIPS…I should make a list and get one thing each payday, then I’d have time to do the re-organization in between.
Janice
I have a small room so a wall cabinet attached high up giving me much needed storage without compromising work space down below.
Peggy A
I bought 2 unfinished wall mount cabinet from a local lumber yard. I painted them a white semi gloss and hung them over my ironing and cutting station. I then attached 4 ft shop lights to the bottoms of the cabinets that made perfect lighting.
terri414cb
I would like to have curtains for my quilting room. My room faces west and it gets very hot during the summer. As the sun starts moving westward, it also causes glare from the cars in our driveway. The sun has also faded the curtains I first put up. I would like two different curtains on separate rods. The back layer would be thermal, darkening curtains so I could shut out the sun on one side of the window or the other. The front curtain would be something pretty.
BARBARA
Lori, we are ion the process of moving to Knoxville, TN & will be living in an apartment while we build a new home. My quilt studio will have book shelves floor to ceiling along with a separate area for woven baskets, etc. I will hate apartment living but the new house plans will have to keep me focused. With no place for my quilting paraphernalia I plan to get back to my one time love of embroidery. Wish me luck for retained sanity!
Peggy A
I repurpose old furniture for my sewing studio.which is over 1/2 of my basement (about 500 sq. ft.) . An old china hutch base and a discarded 4-drawer cabinet from my daughter’s kitchen remodel (same height) supports a hollow core door I bought at a garage sale for $5. I have 2 large cutting mats placed side by side on the door. Perfect height for cutting. I have a small box with miscellaneous cutting notions placed over the door knob hole. I also have an old triple dresser that supports my large ironing board I constructed from some plywood similar to the one you made. The drawers in the dresser hold things like my pressing cloth, silicone sheet for fusiblse applique, and of course fabric.These 2 pieces are side by side and are about the same height and make a space over 10 ft long. Here I can spread out large quilt tops or long pieces of batting or fabric for measuring.. With discarded carpet tile samples that measure 18×18 inches and are rubber backed I carpeted the main area where I sew, these were free samples – none match but it looks like a scrappy quilt on the floor. The last thing I bought was a remnant of Lineolium (sp?) for around $79 to cover the floor under my long arm machine. It is much easier to clean up the lint and thread from the slick surface. I guess the Lineolium is my best use of the $75 (plus about $4).
Dianne B.
This is all great food for thought. I love all your ideas.
I have bought several wire thread hangers and mounted them on the wall near my sewing machine. They are practical and fun to look at. A peg board might be a good idea for a notions wall. I could really use one of those!
terri414cb
I used the back of the sewing office to put those thread boards on. You could put a peg board there instead. You can buy this double-sided mounting “tape” at hardware stores that is perfect. I’ve used it to put up the bulletin board on the closet door and the mirror behind the door of my bedroom!
terri414cb
Oops! Back of the door in my sewing office!
GwenH
I would use the $75 and buy a brighter light for above my sewing table other than that I have everything I need, now I just need to have a bigger room…. lol
I think that I am going to put that on my wish list, I only have a small table for my machine to sit on and I hate taking up space on my sewing table for my little Ott style lamp.
Deb
I already have a power strip mounted in the back of my sewing machine cabinet, makes it so easy. One thing I love is my pen holder. I mounted a pen/pencil holder to the side of my cabinet and it is perfect for pencils, seam rippers, small scissors. At the time I didn’t know if it’d work well but I love having things handy.
My to-do is exactly what you did.. A larger ironing area and I want to do shelves underneath.
quilty2
Paint! Change the color of the room. And, change the lighting to bright but cool in terms of bulb heat. Since I use my guest room as my sewing room, perhaps some funky wall art. I could go on and on and….
Jan
My old kitchen table is my cutting table, it was killing my back! I bought those bed risers, it lifted the table 5 inches, a perfect height for me.
Wendy
I would hire someone to help me organize my room by putting up shelving and moving the heavy things around. Probably need more money to do that (-:
Barb Schan
For me it would be a toss-up between your ironing table and bed lifters for under the table legs in my room. I am six feet tall and bending to cut gets painful quickly. Maybe I could squeeze out both…..hmmmm
Ellen R
There is another inexpensive alternative that I’ve been using for the last 12 years. I have a large space so I put 3 banquet tables together for cutting and quilting that have been raised by removing the rubber caps on the legs and slipping 10″ lengths of PVC pipe onto each leg. This makes a 36″ table that has eliminated my backaches. With this method the tables can be raised as much as you need by cutting the appropriate length of PVC pipe.
The church quilting ladies like it too!
mjstephens1953
I glued Hard backed Reader’s Digest books together. Got them free from the used bookstore. I liked the quirkiness. I haven’t cut enough on my used/new to me kitchen table to test the height. I had a o.t. tell me how to measure my table when I was getting a custom one built by the ex. We topped it with 12″ tile, so I just moved my mat where ever I needed it. That table is long gone. And I have moved enough times that the sewing room needs some hard decisions made. It will happen.
terri414cb
I’m tall too. The bed lifters are quite inexpensive. Joann’s usually has them and you could use a coupon!
Jan
Mine were $10, Amazon prime.
Carole D
I would buy some type of organizer for embroidery thread. I currently have it in three different locations around the sewing room, but would like to put it all in one spot. The cabinet where I would love to store it does not have drawers that are deep enough for the larger spools.
Lara B.
Oooh such great ideas all around that I might end up spending that $75 a couple of times and then some. LOL I want to run up and find vintage patterns to frame – I adore those graphics! But then the shelves and pegboard ideas are pulling me in their direction.
My husband and I made a large ironing and cutting table too Lori. Don’t you just love yours? It sure speeds up work and saves the old back!. We used different layers on ours – one of them being Insul-bright, which greatly increased how fast wrinkles come out. If anyone is curious about how that works, we posted a tutorial on my blog, just look under the Tute Sweet tab.
Donna Thompson
I would take down a (temporary) wall so I could have more room (as my husband originally promised but didn’t do). I need the room so badly! I have only a small triangle of space; I NEED room, room, room.
arxjdm
I might do a large ironing board.
The person who was asking about lighting: We had a really dark room with one of those weak “bedroom” lights in it. We went to Lowe’s or Home Depot and bought a large rectangular florescent and tubes in daylight warmth. You can’t believe the difference. It’s an easy thing to do if you have a handy husband.
Delaine
I need shelving for the totes that litter the floor. If I could get my DH to move out his beloved orange love seat, I believe I could fit in a shelving unit. I’m tired shoving the totes around with my feet. But I am not sure the couch will be going anywhere soon. Sigh.
Carol H
I would buy peg board to put in the closet and put my serger thread there! I love my sewing room! I just need to make curtains for it and I’m done. Now I need a bit more room!!
Brenda
I would hire someone to help me organize it and make me throw stuff out.
Emma
I’m with Deb, a peg board to get all my tools off the work surface. I would also like to make some of the hanging fabric slots for rulers and misc. other items.
terri414cb
Maybe we could swap? I’m great at throwing things away, but only someone elses. You could do mine, I could do yours!
Lavonne
you did what I need – the large ironing board. I have been running down to the local quilt shop to do my final ironing on theirs – Whoa let me think about that. I would need another excuse to go there. UMMMMM. I have a question. I cut and paste your tutorials into Word to print so I don’t get all the added stuff from the web page. I then take this to the machine. Is there any way you can format your tutorial so it has an easily printable format without adding a lot of work for you? Is anyone else of your followers in the same boar?
terri414cb
I do the same thing, copy and paste. Then I convert it to a pdf and save it on my computer. Since my computer is in my sewing office (love that term!) I can call it up when I need it. However the process is the same for printing. I also have a little tack strip above my cutting table and pin often-used charts and can put my pattern up there while sewing.
Claire
I also copy/paste to Word and then format the tutorials. I save them to FMQ folders based on motif/topic. Sometimes I print them and put them in a binder with sheet protectors so that I can stick my “samples” in after I practice.
Ness
PS: I love your new tables!!!
Ness
Hi Lori! I’m glad you liked my little framed patterns…! They are special to me as they were my Gramma’s patterns and she sewed for me when I was a tot. 🙂 I bought big square jars at Wallie World and spray painted their lids too…same color and put all my thread in them, sorted by color and I can see and dig in them easily. The jars reminded me of Gramma’s kitchen. Made a cute little ironing table out of a small table to sit by me as I sew, it’s cute and I love it but I tend to get in my “zone” sewing and don’t get up for a couple hours and that’s not such a good thing LOL! Need to move at least once an hour LOL! 🙂
If I could come up with a new cutting station…tall, sturdy, wide and well lite preferrabley with storage for cutters and rulers for 75 bucks that would be great! My head is working on it…DH is good to help me in the woodshop. He would love to have his pool table back…haha!
Or I love all those cute black wire decorations such as the old sewing machine silloette etc…I love those but are spendy! 🙂 OR…a maid would be nice…LOL! 🙂
Bea
I too need to remind myself to get up hourly — so i play a CD across the room — when the music stops, at least i get up and turn it back on! LOL (but usually also stretch and get a drink of water)
Ness
That’s a good idea…I need to be sure to leave the remote over there too…haha!!
Phyllis
If I had $75 to spend as I wish…. My sewing room is in the basement which is semi finished and still has the cement floors. I would get something for the sewing area at least that would cushion where I do the most standing. Which of course is the cutting table.
I really enjoy your blog and look forward to reading it first thing every morning. Thank you for taking the time to do this.
LaNan Eldridge
I need more outlets!
Retta
I bought 2 power strips from menards that each have 10 outlets. They plug into your regular outlet for power. My husband mounted them to the wall behind each of my machines. They are mostly full, but only a few active at one time.
Melissa Lamb
I would buy new window treatments. I still have vertical blinds on this large picture window! I live in Florida and the entire back of the house is glass. The view is gorgeous but it gets very hot and hard to see when long arming. But sigh I think $75 wouldn’t even buy 1 panel.
Elizabeth Cole
What I did was take some old panels and I quilted them then made roman shades. They look fantastic and I can raise and lower them as needed. Also since they are quilted they tie into my quilting room! I already had left over filling and the backing was an old sheet so it really didn’t cost me much. I had to buy the string and the rings. They were labor intensive but if you can quilt you can make roman shades!
PT in SC
I have cutting table which desperately needs an updated new table skirt and I have storage cabinet which I would love to paint.
rosemarazzle
Rosemary b here:
I love that ironing board you made. I need a combination ironing board/work table as I am 5’6″ I am using my mother in laws dining room table right now. I have it protected and it works well for stacking fabric, and other useless things. I use my ironing board for most of my construction work and it is not very big.
I was going to buy two book cases counter top high and make one of those cool boards like you have. Now I want to go to Home Depot right now. Fridays are kind of busy there and I have to compete with those builder fellas. They are hard to shove around.
It has to be super stable as my cornish kitties like to launch off of anything.
If I had $75…. hmmmmm.
Um, I will have to think about this one. $75 isn’t enough to get me cloned, or hire a minion 😀
Happy Friday to everyone @—>—–
terri414cb
I use a dresser for my ironing board and cutting table. I looked around for a used dresser about 4 feet in length and then covered a butcher block with batting and fabric. I put a large cutting board at one end and use the other end for ironing. The nice thing is that I can take off the cutting mat and the whole dresser top is long enough to open up 42″ fabric and iron it! I am tall and looked for a higher dresser, you could look for a shorter one.
terri414cb
Oh and I forgot! The cool part of having a dresser is that you have drawers to put things in. The long drawers have my cut-down men’s shirts and the other has my fat quarters. One of the two half drawers hold my scissors, square and triangle rulers and a few doo-dads. The other drawer holds my rotary blades, needles, the most current blocks I’m working on. I like to group them in 10s before I bobby-pin them together and put them in their storage box.
Angele
I think i would make a wider ironing board to put over my regular one and I would like an idea board where I could plan blocks, see colours in different combinations before I decide which ones to use.
75$ doesn’t look like much but it is actually amazing what you can do with it.
Connie in Florissant
I would put in new lighting, my dream would be more outlets, but can’t do that on $75.
terri414cb
Omigosh! You and me also! I have a plug strip on every outlet in my room. I only have one outlet on each wall. I would need at least three on each wall. I would want them on different circuits so I don’t overload the circuit breaker.
Lori
I really like the idea of a pin cushion collection that Rajean mentioned! I love to visit quilt shops when I travel and it would be fun to buy a pincushion and then label/display them at home. They even fit in the suitcase! Thank you for that idea!
Lori in Minnesota
azuliverdepatchworkandquilting
Hi, Lori!
Here is my version of “little ironing table”.
I think I made a mistake using double foam, but I’ll try it and then I’ll see if it works fine.
http://patchworkandquiltingazuliverde.blogspot.com/
Best regards!
Blanqui 🙂
Ruthie
I would use the $75 to make a design wall. Currently I lay out my quilts on the bed of the spare bedroom. I try very hard to keep things straight when I go back to the sewing room to sew them together, but I get squares turned often and sew the wrong sides together. I think if I could just pull them off the design wall and sew, I would do a better job. That will be my next project.
rosemarazzle
Rosemary B here:
Ruthie! Do you have any large area of wall (anywhere close to your sewing office (yes I call it my sewing office, no matter what size) Well, go to JoAnne Fabrics and buy the thickest felt they have. It is usually $8 a yard, roughly. Wait until you have a coupon and get a couple of yards of that in white. you can thumb tack that onto your wall.
My sewing office is the sun room right next to my other office the kitchen. So there are a lot of windows but on either side of my windows are two 3 and a half foot spaces that I have put up my thick felt.
I also have the wall sides covered. Well, just cover all of the walls of your house with thick felt haha. It works great and use white thumb tacks
Claire
Rosemary, great idea! I also use the flannel backed tablecloths you can get for a couple of dollars in the summer and the clear command hooks on the wall (leave no marks or holes on the walls), and hang the tablecloths (flannel side out) with small binder clips. I can layer several table clothes AND roll them up to go to a sewing group without disturbing the layout!
Patti Kaplan
I would build an ironing table.
Claire
I built my own ironing table by purchasing a heavy duty wire shelving unit from Loews/Home Depot that had the big locking wheels, and plywood + 1″ x 2″ boards to cap the top of the shelf unit (that I used a hacksaw to cut to the right ergonomic height for me to iron on). I covered the board with two layers of batting and a layer of the heat-reflective fabric (from my local quilt shop), using a staple gun to pull it tight. This gave me a large, sturdy, ironing surface that is mobile and has lots of storage underneath. 🙂
Jan
I love this idea! You’ve got my wheels spinning!
sillyandrea
One of those shelving systems (bookcases?) that are all squares, with the baskets to go in them. One each for current projects. Right now they are just piled *everywhere*.
http://www.target.com/p/room-essentials-8-cube-organizer-white/-/A-15113339?reco=Rec|pdp|15113339|ClickCP|item_page.vertical_1&lnk=Rec|pdp|ClickCP|item_page.vertical_1
Comments are closed.