New Sewing Room for the New Year

Though it's been configured many different ways in the eight years we've lived in this house, my sewing room has always been located in the basement. Despite its flaws (prone to flooding, cold as ice), the basement has two great advantages: first, it's roomy and second, it has lovely south-facing windows.

In the winter, there's no getting around the essential chilliness of the basement. No matter how long we run our electric space heaters, the concrete slab never warms up, and it draws the heat right out of your body.

So when my recently-turned-thirteen-year-old son started campaigning to move his "office" to the basement, freeing up an upstairs bedroom for the sewing room, I was filled with excitement...and dread at the thought of moving all my gear. Just to be clear, my son still has his bedroom on the main floor of our house, not in the cold basement. It's a tiny room, though, only big enough for a single bed, a dresser and a bookcase, and we've always given him the other bedroom for his computer and toys. He's not the greatest sleeper, and I feel that separating daytime and nighttime activities into different rooms promotes better rest. The joys of being an only child (which I am too)!

So we set about the switch three days ago, and only finished yesterday evening. My new room is just lovely and snug. I am excited to know that I can step in and sew any time, without thinking about warming up the space first, or adding multiple layers of clothing to my already-layered usual attire. It's at least a third smaller than my previous space, however, so I've been engaged in a massive clean-up and clean out.

New ironing board cover, my Pfaff 130 in an industrial table, Juki F600 and Juki MO-654 DE serger

The first project of the new year and the new room was a fresh new cover for the ironing board. Since the Rowenta cover it came with fits nicely, I copied it in some Denyse Schmidt County Fair canvas from my stash. The ironing board occupies a large part of the room, so covering it with a cheerful and fresh fabric made a great change from the stained muslin cover.

The cutting area, such as it is, is to the right of the ironing board in this photo.

The biggest disadvantage of the new space is a lack of cutting space. There simply isn't room to set up a table of any size. The options seem to be buying one of those drop leaf tables that expand to the size of my cutting mat, or setting up on the dining room table whenever I need to cut out. I'm going to take my time in deciding the best option. We took two loads of unwanted chairs, tables and stools to Goodwill in making room to rearrange things, and I am not eager to replace any of that volume with new "stuff".

My beloved pattern cabinet, along with the "sewing library" and notions storage

Though the basement windows were nice and quite wonderful for a basement, the street-level view from this room is even better. I think it will be such a happy place to work. The pressure will be on to stay organized and tidy, and to find a good solution for cutting out, but I am optimistic that it will be a nice change. My son is thrilled with his new-found privacy and space in the basement, by the way. He is fairly impervious to cold, so the chill doesn't seem to bother him.