Open Studios virtual tour

So here's my space. As you can see, it's not very fancy. I share the room with the furnace, the hot water tank, the built-in vacuum, and our freezer. In an ideal world, I'd have painted the walls a soft turquoise, and there would be built-in cabinets instead of the random shelving that I've got. There would also be big windows - not one tiny little north-facing one that's half covered by the porch stairs outside... Ah, well. 

I do a lot of sewing, as well as knitting and paper art, so I've tried to divide the room up accordingly, but there is some overlap.

On the left-hand side of the room (facing in from the hallway) I have a small desk that I use for painting and mixed media art. I keep my paints and assorted goodies in the rolling stacked bins under the desk, and there are more paints and brushes and stamps and things in the shelves above it. As you can see, a lot of my fabric has migrated across to that side of the room as well... there's just not room for it on the other side! Also, I keep bins of fabric scraps and works-in-progress in the little closet-y area that also holds the vacuum canister. As you can imagine, it's a real pain to empty out that space when it comes time to dump out the vacuum! 

The other side of the room is where I do my sewing. My cutting table is tucked into the IKEA shelving unit, but can be pulled out if I need to use the entire space. The bins above the table hold my cutting tools (out of reach of the 4-yr-old), buttons, zippers, purse hardware, and other necessities. My larger pieces of fabric are kept in the big shelf unit beside the sewing machine. I like having them where I can see them - I tend to forget about things that are put away! Above the sewing machine are my boxes of yarn, sorted by weight. You can catch a glimpse, behind the sewing machine area, of my pride and joy of the summer... my pantry. It's tucked away under the stairs, along with all of our christmas things.

Signing up for this virtual tour was a real kick in the pants for me - getting the room organized and cleaned. I'm a messy worker, and I don't really like putting things away. One benefit, though, was finding out that I have two copies of the book Artist Trading Card Workshop by Bernie Berlin. If you'd like to have a copy, leave a comment saying so, and I'll draw a name in a few days.