Two weeks ago I gave you a tour of my sewing room. This week I want to give you ideas on how I organize all of the necessities in my room. I, like most quilters, have lots of fabric and tools that make the quilting process faster and more efficient. Functional organization also helps me to be more efficient.
Plastic shoe boxes — these can be purchased at JoAnn’s, Target, or any store that stocks plastic storage bins. I have about 27 — really? — of these which hold most of my fabric and are sorted according to color. When I need a blue, for instance, I know exactly where to find it.
Wooden ruler holder — I purchased this at JoAnn’s several years ago and it works great to hold most of my rulers. I’ve also seen rulers hung from a peg board using “S” hooks.
12”x12” clear boxes — these boxes were also purchased at JoAnn’s and work well for holding the projects that I have in progress. I am not the type of quilter to do one quilt from start to finish before I begin another one. So this system works extremely well for keeping my in-progress projects organized. When I have some time to sew for myself I can just grab a box and get started.
Spool holders — I have six of these — oh my! — three for holding spools of thread that I use on the long arm and three for holding hand quilting thread, machine quilting thread, and thread that I use on my domestic machine. And they look so colorful on the wall!
Paper towel and toilet paper rolls — these are not the most beautiful storage idea but they are quite functional. These hold the pantographs that I use on my long arm. Using these lovely cardboard tubes has been a much better idea than using rubber bands which tended to break every time I tried to use them.
Baskets for batting — I find most of my baskets at garage sales and, as you can see, I probably need to get a few more to store my extra batting. Either that or just throw some away said no quilter ever. Let’s face it — we don’t throw anything away just in case we might need it! I do have two different containers at the moment — one for white batting and the other for natural batting.
Basket for misc tools — this basket works well to corral some miscellaneous tools that I have such as Perfect Circles, English paper piecing templates, triangle trimmers, Twister templates, Roxanne’s Glue Baste-It, etc.
Bernina organizer for bobbins, feet, and needles — this box came with my Bernina 430 and works very well to hold all of the bobbins, feet, and needles that I use on my domestic machine. My new Bernina 350 did not come with one, so I was glad that I already had one. It can be purchased separately and would be well worth the money.
Magazine holders — I find it very handy to have my magazines organized as I often search for new patterns either for myself or our Quilts of Valor group. At times I also need to refer back to a previously stitched pattern and I can easily find them in this organizational system.
What organizational ideas do you use in your sewing room? Do they help you to be more efficient? Just think — if you are more efficient then you’ll be able to complete even more projects! Sounds like a win-win!