Sharing Our Sewing Spaces – ElaineB Makes

Welcome to the 5th post in our series of “Sharing Our Sewing Spaces”. In this series members of our Facebook Group will be sharing their sewing spaces with us!

Today we have Elaine B, sharing her space with us. I won’t babble on as I know you are keen to have a peek into Elaine’s world so…..Over to you Elaine:

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SEWING ROOM – AN EVOLUTION

Hi everyone, my name is Elaine and I am a seamstress and crafter and I live in the UK.

I sound like I am about to undertake a counselling session for my absolute obsession with all things crafty but in particular sewing.  Sewing is my passion, there I have said it. I am bordering on becoming a hoarder of fabric, sewing notions, bag hardware and the ever increasing supply of stabilisers and interfacings.  You guessed it, I make bags, wallets, pouches and the like and I love it.

I began crafting in earnest about 6 years or so ago and started off with my “stash” stored in an old shoe box. Today that old shoe box has expanded into two rooms of my house being knocked into one and an extension on the back of the house that, as from last week, now accommodates my new sewing room!  I add at this point that I am married to a wonderful awesome man who has supported my ‘evolution’ wholeheartedly if not a little wearily at times.  He is my ‘go to’ guy when I need something making for my craft rooms – at the moment he is busy making me a new sewing table so that I can have all 3 of my machines out and ready to use whenever I need them.  I then have him earmarked for making me a thread holder.

Can I just say at this juncture before we carry on, that last week my husband and I spent 3 whole days going through everything.  That meant everything in cupboards, outside cupboards, on the floor, on top of cabinets and shelves, throwing out what was not being used and tidying up and labeling boxes to make it easier to find things.  I have to say that because looking at these photos, to the untrained eye, it looks like a jumbled mess!

This was my son’s bedroom before he left the nest and got married and it was the first time I had moved out of my shoe box and into a room.  As with most stuff in my rooms they are on wheels and so therefore portable and easy to move about when I need to clean up or change things around a little.  The dark trolley is a Raskog trolley from IKEA an invaluable piece of equipment!  I keep some of my vinyls in there and also thin plastic cutting mats that I use to make pattern templates for the more popular bags and wallets I make. The other trolley is from a hair dressing salon.  The light coloured wooden cabinet stores the overflow of bag hardware, fabric and pretty things such as lace, ribbon and haberdashery items and is, of course, on wheels.

This is my desk area and the hub of my pattern hoard and internet access.  I store all my patterns in folders on my computer where I also keep logs of each pattern.

When I need a particular pattern, I go to my log file and see what I used to make the bag the last time, what hardware I used and what I did and did not like about the making of the bag and sometimes I add my own adjustments to suit my personal taste.  I find it an easy way to refresh my fading memory if I return to a bag I haven’t made in a while.

This area is immediately behind my desk and chair and as you see, wall shelving houses threads, sprays, pliers, hardware and a myriad of other sewing related items.  The single cabinet holds stocks of glue, oils, papers, and more sprays.

I hate being in the middle of a project and having to stop and then wait to replenish stocks – believe me I could start a shop!

Now we travel into what used to be my daughter’s bedroom and the room we knocked into from my son’s bedroom to make a bigger crafting space.  This is my pattern cutting area and general craft area (I just use different mats for each craft so that my fabrics are kept pristine).  The table is from IKEA again and has deep drawers to house my scissors, pins, bobbins and other sewing paraphernalia and can be pulled out to form a large cutting area.  All the other cupboards have ribbon, adhesives and crafting equipment pertaining to other crafts that I do.  The box on the floor houses yet more fabrics – my husband is currently making me a ‘cradle’ type unit on wheels so that the fabric box  will fit inside it and can be moved easily  The corner is full of interfacings and stabilisers.  There is a trolley under all that and yes you’ve guessed, on wheels, for easy manoeuvre into the cupboard.

Now we move into my ‘new’ sewing room yay!!!! – since the reshuffle last week I have now moved my sewing stations into what we call the garden room.  It is just full of natural light as you can see from the atrium roof, and is perfect for sewing.  I have to say that this was actually my husbands idea!!! How lucky am I!

My new sewing space is now in front of a window looking out onto the garden which, in summer, is full of colour and flowers.  A small fold down table is being used for my overlocker. The cabinets hold all my crafting books and another Raskog trolley has my sewing bits and pieces I need with me when I sew.  The new sewing table my husband is making me will be situated on the wall  behind where I am standing to take this photo.  At the moment there is a sofa there full of stuff to be sold off and is not pretty to look at!

The chest of drawers that holds another hoard of my fabrics.

A super idea I got from IKEA that keeps stuff off the floor and holds things like cork fabric, adhesive fabrics and some vinyls.

I have enjoyed giving you all a tour of the homestead’s crafting areas, even if a little worried you might think I live in chaos but believe me this is paradise after last week’s de-cluttering exercise!

You can find me on instagram – https://www.instagram.com/elainebmakes/

and on Pinterest – https://uk.pinterest.com/craftygran3/my-handcrafted-bags-and-wallets/ showing some of my makes.

Thank you Christine for inviting me to jump into your blog and bombard you with photos and rambles!

Elaine

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Thank you for bombarding us with your photos and rambles Elaine! lol I have thoroughly enjoyed reading and studying your pics! WOW! What can I say!! Your spaces just blow me away! That hubby of yours is GOLD too, I might add! I particularly want to STEAL  your atrium roof! Not only does it look interesting, all that natural light has got to be FABULOUS! I want one….I wonder if my hubby would object I planned some more renovations…..hmmmm….maybe that’s not such a good idea lol….BUT I can dream!!

I LOVE the idea of a log file for each pattern you make so you can go back and see what you used etc last time….lets face it, we ‘think’ we will remember….but we don’t! LOL At least I don’t!!

Would YOU like to share your space with us? Please email me christine@chriswdesigns.com for more info.  Anyone sharing their spaces will receive a FREE pattern of choice from my website shop for their trouble! Come on….be BRAVE! 🙂