How to tidy up your sewing room for the New Year?
The New Year is upon us, and with it comes its share of good resolutions. For 2024, we hope you’ll find the project that makes you want to sit down in front of your sewing machine and stop letting your fabric pile accumulate.
To get you started in 2024, we’ve put together a few tips for tidying up your sewing room and getting off to a good start!
Take inventory of your supplies
To tidy up your sewing room, we start with a tedious point that really helps to get the year off to a good start: take an inventory of your supplies! Grab a pen and a sheet of paper and take stock of your fabrics, the patterns you own, the threads… It helps you to know what needs to be put away and where, and it can also help you to realize that a forgotten fabric in a closet would go very well with that pattern you bought a few months ago. And that you have the right thread and buttons! Take advantage of this opportunity to sort through fabric scraps and see which can be used again and which are really too small to be used.
Tidying up bobbins and spools
When you sew several projects a year, you have to juggle several colors of thread. As a result, you keep a stock of leftover bobbins and spools, and it can be tempting to put them all in bulk in a tin box. As far as possible, try to avoid this: all your threads could get tangled up.
It’s easy to find storage for spools of thread, in wood or plastic, and the same goes for bobbins. This will enable you to organize them neatly, sort out the colors you won’t be using any more, and see at a glance which threads you have. No more unpleasant surprises when you buy a duplicate color!
A perforated panel to keep everything in one place
If you want to have all your sewing supplies to hand and keep them neat and tidy, a perforated panel is a great solution. They are available at all price levels, from wooden perforated panels to plastic solutions. Simply fix to the wall and add components. You can, for example, add a pencil pot to store your sharpener, chalk and pencils; a tray to hold the spools you’ll be using for a future project, or your centimeter; hooks to hang your scissors, and clips to hang your current pattern explanations or ideas for a future sewing project.
Find a storage solution that works for organizing fabrics
Anyone who sews has scraps of fabric in their closet, or even whole coupons waiting for the perfect project. Keeping them organized means you won’t forget them, and they’ll be easy to find when you’re planning to sew a new pattern. You can store them in large boxes, preferably transparent so you can see them at a glance, or on shelves, neatly folded and ironed.
There’s no one type of fabric storage that’s better than another – you just have to find the one that’s right for you! For example, fabrics can be sorted by color, so that they can be matched as required (if, for example, you have lots of scraps and would one day like to assemble them into a patchwork quilt). You can also sort them by print: flowers, polka dots, checks… Or by material: cotton, linen, wool… Do whatever makes the most sense to you and best suits your stock and needs.
Recycle a kitchen sideboard
If you have a kitchen sideboard you no longer use, use it to store your fabrics! With their tiers, they’re particularly handy for neatly stacking fabrics and organizing them according to color or print. And the top tier can be used as a shelf for extra space when you’re sewing. If you don’t have a sideboard, you can easily find one in a furniture store, and they’re often inexpensive.
How do you organize your sewing space? Do you have any tips for keeping it tidy all year round?
