The best birthday gift of all

…the studio is FINALLY unpacked and ready to go!!

I am very pleased with how it’s worked out.  The room is small and packed with stuff, but it doesn’t feel cramped at all – instead it feels cozy and efficient.  Tools, books, and materials are mostly within arm’s reach (a few steps away at most), and neatly organized.  The room feels spacious even though you couldn’t possibly fit one more thing in.

Here are a few photos that I hope will convey what I mean.  The room is small enough that I can’t capture an entire wall in one photo, so I have done a roughly panoramic set of photos that I hope will give you the general idea.

Here is my starting point, the big stash shelves directly across from the door:

Eleven of the fifteen boxes contain yarn (about 175-200 pounds of it, mostly fine threads, mostly silk and cashmere).  Three contain fabric and interfacing, and the last one contains fine arts supplies (acrylic paints, pastels, drawing pencils, charcoal, and what have you).  The bag at lower left contains a fine supply of reusable bags.

Just to the left of the Stash Shelves is my ironing board, which sits directly under the window:

To the left of the window are my spools of thread, neatly organized in hanging totes – rayon embroidery thread in the top tote and regular sewing thread in the bottom.  If I need to take the spools somewhere, I can simply take the entire tote off the wall, snap it closed, and be on my way in twenty seconds.

Underneath the spools is my craft table, which is covered with a handy set of Olfa cutting mats that butt up against each other, giving me a continuous cutting-mat surface.  The three pieces are held together with thumbscrew-joints, which means they don’t shift in cutting.

Beneath the table are two more storage boxes, one with sewing patterns (which I mostly don’t use anymore, but am keeping for awhile Just In Case), and one with leftover samples, scraps, muslins, etc. from previous projects.  Also under the table is a chest of drawers, which neatly organize my sewing tools.  Previously they had all been crowded onto the table or onto the pegboard, which made it impossible to find anything.

Above the table is the pegboard, of course.  It contains anything that is either too awkward to fit into a drawer (the big quilter’s rulers, for example) or which I  want to have immediately to hand (scissors, rotary cutters, screwdrivers, pincushion).  It has vastly less Stuff on it than it used to, but the individual items are easier to get at – previously, for example, I had just two hooks with six pairs of scissors teetering on them!  Now they are spread out over the peg board and easier to reach.

To the left of the pegboard is the bookshelf:

The bookshelf contains weaving, dyeing, and sewing books; all other crafts have been relegated to the living room (and a lot have gone to Goodwill).  Even with draconian culling, the books just barely fit.

(I have just realized that the iron is in the wrong place; it should be on the wall next to the ironing board, of course!  I will move the iron-mount tomorrow.)

Continuing around the room, the next item is the computer desk, which I could only shoot a little bit of:

The big monitor is turned sideways so it’s vertical rather than horizontal; this conserves horizontal space (which is at a premium) and also lets me fit more stuff onto the screen vertically, which is handy when looking at a long list of emails.  The laptop stand lets me use the laptop screen as a second monitor.

(And yes, that is a tie-dyed bathrobe hanging on the chair.  Are you shocked?  I sincerely hope not.)

To the left of the desk is the door, which I didn’t photograph.  Here are a few of the built-in shelves immediately to the left of the door:

These are partially empty; I’m reserving them for future use.

And here is the closet immediately next to those shelves:

Most of my larger tools are in the closet.  (I spent half of yesterday building the shelves.)  My dress form is just barely visible in the foreground at bottom left.

And just to the left of the closet is my design wall, currently sporting the mood board I put together for Phoenix Rising:

I plan to use this wall to work out my thoughts on design, visually speaking, before moving to materials.  I may cover it with cork, so I can pin/tape/etc. things to it.

And that’s it!  We’re back to the Stash Shelves again (you can just see  them to the left).

The amazing thing, to me anyway, is that it all fits!  There is exactly one inch of empty space on the wall with the window – the Stash Shelves, the ironing board, and the craft table are butted up against each other.  The next wall has less than an inch of space – the craft table and the bookcase fill the wall entirely.  It’s like the furniture was made for the space – but I can assure you, it wasn’t!

So now I have  finally got a decent working space again.  I haven’t the slightest idea what I’ll be doing with it tomorrow, though I’m not too concerned – let tomorrow take care of tomorrow!  For now, it’s past my bedtime, so it’s off to dreamland.  Stay tuned!