In this episode of the podcast we're chatting about sewing studio storage.
Quilt on the Wall: MJ's Messenger bag
Fabric: Tula Pink Tiny Beasts
Thread Catcher
Wide Mouth Mason Jars
Sew and Store
Quilt Clips
PegBoard and hook set
In this episode of the podcast we're chatting about sewing studio storage.
Quilt on the Wall: MJ's Messenger bag
Fabric: Tula Pink Tiny Beasts
Thread Catcher
Wide Mouth Mason Jars
Sew and Store
Quilt Clips
PegBoard and hook set
Hi, folks. I'm Nicole Gilbert and this is the stop scrolling start sewing podcast. Each Wednesday join me as I share the ins and outs of that quilt life. If you don't have a sewing machine, you can bust out or pretty fly YCM or you're just looking for the latest quilting news. This is the podcast for you. Hey, folks, Nicole here. Welcome to season three, Episode Nine of the stop scrolling start sewing podcast. On today's episode, we are keep it real. Okay. So what I decided would be a great idea was to go over how I'm currently storing all of the things in my sewing room. Okay, so I have not done a full tour of my Sewing Studio, which I'm still calling my new studio. So in studio, even though I've been in here for like four or five months already. For several reasons. One, I'm a hot mess. And I'm super busy. So because I'm a hot mess, and I'm super busy. I am doing a million projects, which I absolutely adore. I'm doing them for partnerships. I'm doing them to share with all of you. I'm doing them for pure joy. And so there's a lot going on at any given time in the studio, which means this place gets messy real quick. And quite frankly, it's relatively neat right now, but the addition of the long arm machine has created some obstacles to say the least. But on the flip side, my studio is now large enough for like all of the things multiple sewing tables along our machine walls of Billy bookcases like life is good right now. However, it's crazy. But I want to share all of it by all of I mean the storage portion. I'm not even taking you to that half because things get wild. But I'm going to share all of my storage goodies with you. And you may notice if you are watching on the YouTube I just said on the YouTube that that showed yours that showed age there. If you are watching on YouTube, you can actually see that there is no quilt on the wall today. So I do have a project to share with you guys. But I thought it would be more visually appealing if you could actually see all of the storage things that I'm discussing. So I have not covered the stash mess so you could see it behind me. So instead of sharing a call today, I will be sharing a bag. So this is the ultimate travel bag 2.0 It is following a bi anti pattern. You guys know I worship at the altar of Anais she is amazing. Her bags, just the the patterns themselves have such professional finishes to them that like I mean, come on. This is an overnight weekender bag. It has pockets on either side that are like a great size for putting water bottles and drinks like think airport style. It's got a slip pocket in the front, you know Id phone, boarding ticket, you know I'm saying zipper pocket. So you put the credit card and whatever little wallet you've got so you have easy access to it. On the back. Yes, there's another dry zip slip pocket which apparently I still have my pool key in. Good to know. I'll be looking for that eight months from now. But like, check this part out. This is a sleeve so that you could slip it over the handle of your rolly luggage and it could sit on top. Like these are like little things that set any patterns apart. Beautiful strapping that you can I mean if you follow too little like I follow Tula you know that she's got that beautiful webbing so you could use your own just colorful strapping. She also gives you directions to make your own which is what I did here. And this is using the fabrics on this is all to the pink line work on the exterior. And then I've got some true colors on the interior but the finishing is beautiful, there's not a raw edge inside. Bound all the way through zipper tapes are bound all the way through. There are mesh slip pockets with elastic on top, so things don't fall out. There are giant zipper pockets on the inside is an incredible useful bag. I don't think I have ever used this bag and not have at least five people be like, Oh my gosh, where'd you get your bag. And you know me, I love an opportunity to be like I made that. So I made that. I mean just phenomenal. The pads like come on shoulder padding, so it's nice and comfy to wear. It's just, it's a phenomenal project. It goes together in a weekend, it's not difficult. It can at times, I'm not gonna lie to you guys, it can at times be a little bit tedious. Because you are being very careful, you are sewing through some thick layers at times. So this is not something I would tackle. If you have a machine that is giving you problems with like, straight line quilting, your quilts if if your machine isn't kind of up to that task, it's not going to be up to this task. I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm not going to send you down trip and be like super frustrated. However, it's super fun. And like I mentioned in I guess it was last week's episode, the time is just all blending together. Now. Like as soon as Halloween goes by, and quote markets in the rearview mirror, all of a sudden, I'm like holy smokes, holidays and the things so things are blending together. But I think in just last week's episode we were discussing, you know what, so long as you might be interested in me hosting next year. I'm thinking this bag might be a great so long as well. So, go into the comments, slide up into my DMs on Instagram, wherever you're listening to this, and let me know if you would be interested in so long with this bag. Because it's a lot of fun. It's a beautiful bag. And you'll use it for years to come through like, Okay, I'm gonna get this out of the way. And let's talk storage, guys. Okay, so storage is an absolute necessity when it comes to our quilting journey, especially when we get past the first six months of our quilting journey. And I say the first six months because in the first six months, we've got our machine, we've got our cutting mat, you might not even have a full size cutting mat yet, you still might be using like an 18 by 24, which is totally fine. That's a sufficient size for most projects. But you've got a smaller cutting mat, you might have one rotary cutter, which I mean, it's wonderful. Like I'm thinking about this. And I'm like, that sounds like a great way to live. Like those times when people like explain a capsule wardrobe. And you're like, oh, that's kind of awesome. But anyway, you've got a more streamlined trim down notions stash machine set up like all the jazz. And so that's great. Now, once you get past that six months, what tends to start happening is you finished your first project, or maybe your first two or three projects, depending on how prolific you actually are. And you start to have different things. Maybe when you stocked up on your original supplies, you decided after that project, Oh man, that rotary cutter I bought is not cutting the mustard, or, you know, I was using all cream thread. But now I need multicolored thread because I want to quote this one differently, or you know, all these things start to happen. And it's a slow progression. Nobody gets to all of these things in a day. Okay, I have a lot of stuff that I'm going to share with you and show you some of the stuff you're going to be like, Oh my gosh, perfect. And some of the things you're gonna be like that I have never had any use for this. What are you doing you crazy lady, and that's totally fine. But I want you to think not only what you need now, but how to organize what you bring in so you don't get to a position where you are like stressed for storage and stress for organization. Okay. So first I'm going to kind of go over what I've got working with here on my table. And first and foremost, I want to talk a little bit about my table so This and my head has now been cut off if you're watching this on YouTube, but it's because I want you to see my table. This table was actually made for me by my husband, it was actually a real he's, he does a fantastic job making me sewing tables. He's made me a few at this point. But it's kind of one of the only woodworking projects that he does. So I don't want you to think that this is like super difficult to do my table talk. And there's a reason why I'm talking about this for storage because it actually is the central hub in my room. And you don't need to have one this big, minus giant. I've seen them on a much smaller scale, and it's genius. So my table top is actually a woodblock, what a Butcher Block Island countertop, that is three feet deep, and six feet long. So it's six feet by three feet, it is also 34 inches tall. And I wanted it to be 34 inches tall, because I wanted it to be my cutting table as well as my sewing table. So I can fit a 24 by 36 inch cutting mat, which is what this mat is, on my left, I have space to line up my blocks in between. And then I have room for my baby lock chorus, which is the machine that I have built into this table. Okay, I love this machine. Now, what he did was he actually just went to Home Depot, got four tabletop legs tall, like BB bar height tabletop legs, two by fours and one by twos and created a frame. So legs and frame, put the top on it. And then using carriage bolts created a shelf for the machine to sit on. He then traced around the machine mitered it all and jigsaw or you know I'm saying saw names like I know what I'm talking about I don't. But he cut a hole. That's that's how I should have just attended, he cut the hole. And then we're able to put my machine in it and it can be raised and lowered. And using carriage bolts and nuts, you're able to adjust the height of where that platform is so that you can get your machine nice and flush with it. And I've seen people do similar things by buying tables off of like marketplace. In fact, the first time, the first table my husband made, he actually purchased a table off of marketplace, refinish the top, and then did that same mechanism for my sewing machine for a machine I had in the past. But they're great tables. What I love about this table is how big it is. So like I said, it fits a full size cutting mat, I've got space to kind of stage my blocks when I'm sewing, I fit a Baby Lock chorus, which is not a small machine on it. And then I have this area behind the sewing machine, which is rather large. And that is where all of the things sit. And you don't really see it in this video. So I'm going to be grabbing things over and I'm going to also put the camera up so you could see me on YouTube, it's going to be all the same for you if you're on the podcast, obviously. Okay, so I'm starting to pull out all of these things that are used for storage. And I'm literally just starting with what's what's in front of me. And I'm just gonna keep moving it so you can see it and hear about it. So this is a thread catcher, which is a total DIY, you do it using 10 charm squares. So if you've got any charge boards leftover. This is a super fast, easy project. I will include the link to the tutorial to how to make this for yourself. But this is a thread capture. And as you can see there's a delightful just mix of trimmings that are in here. This is what keeps you the cleanest, honestly, this fast little 20 minute project because that's how long it takes to make this thing will save you so much cleaning. Because I make a lot of my my preferred sewing style is very traditional. I use modern prints, but I am a very traditional quilter I love sawtooth stars. I love churn dash blocks, like that's my jam. And so there's a lot of trimming involved in that. And so what used to happen was I would trim I would have these little piles of trimming all over the place. I would kind of scrape them up or move them to the side because I'd be like doing this Aiden's and then I look around and there'd be like little bits in my carpet. You know, stuck to my legs, like let's be real, we all go to school. And by we all I mean, probably just me go to school pickup with like threads all over us and whatnot. But having just this instead of dumping it into a pile, and I think I'm being neat by creating this pile, like one central area by actually having this thread catcher keeps all of that mess from happening. So I just throw it all in here. When it gets full. I dump it I started again, no threads, trimmings, mess anywhere. So this is probably the best thing that I've gotten going. It's like one of my favorites. Next is the handy dandy mason jar. Okay. And so this mason jar, if you're watching on the YouTube or listening on the podcast, you'll be able to see this but I will tell you about it. This mason jar is like my go to mason jar. I've got my two rotary cutters. And yes, I said to this one is fabric only. And it is an OLFA splash and like an aqua color. And I actually have it labeled I used my handy dandy Cricut to label it fabric only. And then I have just a regular, you know, maybe kind of kit a little bit of a more inexpensive rotary cutter, and I have it labeled for mixed media. This is the one that I will use on paper on betting on soft and stable on you know, like that kind of stuff. Like you need to use a rotary cutter but you don't want to mess up your blade. And what I ended up doing is the new blade goes on to the fabric only the fabric only blade goes on to the mixed media. And then the blade that was on the mixed media gets chucked. And that's my rotation. Just a little FYI for you. Then I've got paper, scissors, fabric scissors, which these are not the fabric scissors I use all the time. These are the fabric scissors I now use all the time. This set is just like a standard old basic like Fiskars. And I'm actually going to put this in this bucket that I will tell you about later behind me. These are the ones I use all the time. Now they are to the pink hardware, this special edition black and golds. I love them. They're hefty. They're very, they remind me kind of of like gainers there of that quality level, like diggers or Guggenheim there. They're wonderful. They're sharp printable, they also say fabric only on the bleed. So like you open it and it says fabric only like how, how cute is that. And then in here also, I've got like a choco liner, a Botkin error erasable pens, things like that. Things that I'm gonna grab all the time. And I want a ready basis but that don't need to be like directly next to my sewing machine. Okay, so that's one mason jar. The other mason jar that I've gotten going is actually full of wonder clips. And if I'm being 100% Honest, which that's what we do here. These are not actually wonder clips. These are like Amazon 100 for $8 clips, which is totally fine because I've had them for years. And they work great. And I love them and they're a fraction of the price of wonder clips. Again, I will include links to all of these items. Okay, so those are my clips. But if I'm being 100 about us, I still refer to them as wonder clips. It's like Kleenex, you know what I mean? Okay, now next to my sewing machine. I've gotten this guy. And this is a I want to say it's called a soy in store. And it is a small plastic tray about two inches wide by eight or nine inches long. And it's got this silicone grooves on the top that allow you to like put in I've got thread snips and scissors and a stiletto and sewing machine cleaner and the stylus for my sewing machine. LCD screen I've got a seam rippers and, you know, the various sized screwdrivers that I'll need another pair of Tula Pink scissors because I have an obsession, but this sits right next to my machine. So it sits right next to my machine. I can grab any of these items in a second. Because these are the machines these are the tools that I use at my machine. Now I don't want them rolling around because how much of a mess would that be? Being in my space while I'm trying to sew but at the same time, I really do need these items. readily available. So that's where this comes in. I also have this right next to my machine, which is the actually, the feet, the foot. I'm gonna take these few items right here, ouch. Cuz I just had kind of some junk in here. Not gonna lie. This is the foot case. What else was that? That was about foot. That makes sense. This is the foot case that came with my baby lock. And this case is phenomenal. And you have many of these cases, when it comes to your sewing machines as well. A lot of times, it will fit in the compartment that is in the front of your like bobbin case, like your bobbin area, there's like a little compartment on most sewing machines, it might be what comes off to create a free arm. Right, I don't have it in the compartment because my machine is built into my table and I wouldn't really be able to open it. So I just have the tray out next to my machine. Side note on Baby Lock ones do you see this? I just turned the case over and none of the feet fell out. So it's wonderful. It's just like a clipping system that they've got, but it's just really well engineered. And what's helpful about that is that nothing goes flying when I'm sewing because sometimes, you know things get things get rowdy at the sewing machine and things get knocked over and none of my feet get like lost. So that's pretty great. So I've gone over what I use mason jars for I've gone over the thread capture which you can totally make for yourself and I will include a link to the instructional video for that. We've got the feet and the sewing machine notions. So what was going on behind me because it's a lot. Okay, so here in the center, I've got a pegboard and I highly suggest getting one of these. This is actually like a Home Depot. Three by six. I think pegboard they make IKEA Mix Paint boards and they're prettier. I think it's just because of the material that they use. The cut holes are a little bit smoother looking so they are a little bit prettier. Not gonna lie, but this is just a standard pegboard that you get at Home Depot. And then to frame it out, we got decorative trim. And I just put decorative trim and painted it hot pink because like hot pinks, the neutral guys. Um, and so that is my pegboard itself. And then on it you can get pegboard kits on Amazon for legitimately like less than $10. Like if you pay $20 You're getting like the whole kit and caboodle. And so I have you know all different types of hooks. And then with those hooks, I've have all of my different and by all of I don't really mean all of I have a bunch stored elsewhere. However, these are the ones that I go to quite a bit. We have, you know, your large acrylic, rectangle rulers, your standard block squaring rulers, some triangle rulers, I also have a thread rack, which I know I spoke last week about the wonderfil thread storage. I'm actually very intrigued by it, because one of the things that they were saying which I was like done and yes, what they were saying in the presentation for that product was we have these beautiful thread racks like this one up on the wall and there's this great Andre of of colors. But as soon as you start using them, you start to have all of these thread tails and you know you've got the bobbins to go with them and it's like it becomes like a thing and it doesn't look as pretty as it did when all of your thread was in on the exact same spools from the exact same manufacturers and they still have the plastic on them. It's a different look. And so I really am intrigued with that storage also, your thread will last longer, it just will because it won't have all the light on it. So this is how I store my thread or how I store my go to thread at the moment. And I say go to thread this is my go to colored thread. I just use gigantic cones of gray cotton 50 weight on my machine. I guess in this video you can't see it but On the right hand side of my machine, there's a thread stand with two gigantic Ray cones on it right now. So that's that's the pegboard. Also on the pegboard. One of the hooks is made to hold cups and I've got three of them. I've got one for like colored pens and stuff, I'm trying to be pretty. I've got another one for like just regular just like pens, any a pen, that's where it goes. And then this is for like secondary notions. These are like notions of like, but I don't really use them, but I want them near me. So I've got a couple of pair of fabric shears, I've got the water erase a bull pens, I don't really use water erasable pens. I mostly use air erasable pens. I've got fabric Turner, pinking shears, like some of these things. And like I don't even know what I bought pinking shears. I also don't know when the last time I used them was, but I feel the need to have them. You know, a Hara marker. I'm not a hair marker guy. I'm just not. It's probably because I'm all I do long arm and free motion quilting. That like hair markers don't really do it for me. But you know, I'm told they're necessary. So I've got one. And I think that there's quite a few of you who will kind of commiserate with what I just said. I've said, I've heard they're cool. So I have one. All right. Now, the last thing I'm going to show you guys is the Billy bookcases and I'm actually just going to show these two here. And I'm actually just going to keep it kind of what you can see because there's just there's a lot going on. I was planning on cleaning them out and organizing them more. This one that's here on my right hand side is pretty well organized. The one on my left is a little crazy pants, not gonna lie. But then I was like, No, this is this is me showing them how you could functionally use them and in the state that they currently are in. That's how they're functionally used. Okay, so, in this Billy bookcase I am and this is on both sides. I use my top two shelves to hold my pre cut fat quarters. I think I have some Trump packs on this side as well. But they this side is all Tula so these top two shelves are all Tula. I have a problem. This is a mix. There's Tula in here, because I have a lot of Tula guys, but then I've got other stuff going on too. I've got some Riley Blake's. I've got some Mota. I've got you know, a lot of stuff. Then across this third row that starts on this side. And it goes across is my yardage on comic book boards. And the reason why we want to use Comic Book boards is because they are archival quality, they are acid free, they will not damage or discolor your fabrics. And I start over at pink. And I go straight through the rainbow all the way to white. And I think that's pretty well organized as far as coloration goes. It makes it a lot easier for me to find a bolt. It also makes it easier to shop my stash. And it's actually a pretty small yardage stash. I have a huge fat quarter stash. I love a pre cut. And so that's kind of where most of my my stash lives is in the pre crud realm, not in the yardage realm. So I actually am pretty proud of the stash size that I have, considering how much I so but this is not all of my stash. I also have a rather large scrap stash. So I'm going to show you how I organize my scrap stash and they're in the bottom half of my Billy bookcases. So Billy bookcases come without doors. And then you could get doors to put on them. And there's two styles of doors. There's doors that are solid, they're totally white, you can't see in Oh, there's three sets of doors. Certainly white you can't see and there's ones that are totally glass, you could have glass from top to bottom. And then there's the ones that I have, which are the top three shelves are glass, and the bottom three shelves are white. I love that because I get to see my fabric. I've got all the pretty colors and I can keep this relatively neat. And then the mess does not need to be seen and yet it's still readily available. So I'm going to pull out some of these scrap baskets and talk you through how I have that organized and again my head has been and cut off because I want you to see the stuff that's on the table, not necessarily me. So the first set of baskets I have are these, they're like six inches by eight inches. And these are my work in progress scraps. I make a lot of scrap quilts. I enjoy making scrap quilts. I just, I just think they're phenomenal. And so what I do is, for a work in progress I will use usually it's like four sometimes it ends up being like five of these baskets. And I will separate them up by different things depending on what the quilt is right now. It says this is a Christmas scrap quilt I'm doing I am leading a the sampler spree slow along, which is based on Susan hockey's sampler scrapbook. And the version that I'm completing is Christmas. And this is the one that I'm making alongside all of the people that join the so long. I made a previous version of the same quilt using all Tula and I did the same organization. What I've done is I've separated them by color. Now since it's a Christmas quilt, I only need four baskets. This basket here on the right or left where I was could get confused on how cameras turn things around, is background fabrics. And so they're low volumes. They're they're overall they're white fabrics, they've they've got some designs and whatnot on them. But overall, they're white fabrics. This basket here is my greens, all different greens, Christmas, okay. Next one is my reds. And then this last one is turquoise, navy blue, black and gray, not typically colors that we think of with Christmas. However, the Christmas lines are coming out with more and more of these colors in them. And so I am mixing that in for a more dynamic quilts. So this is one way to organize your fabrics. Obviously, you can say, oh, it's by color. But this is my works in progress. And I keep these underneath this table. Because this is something that I'm working on all the time. This, this Solong in particular is going to be a very long one. There are 106 blocks, you only need to make 100 of them. But there are 106 blocks. And as the leader of the solo, I need to make all 106. So I am making blocks constantly, like every week I'm making a few. So it just doesn't make sense to put them away and bring them out, put them away. But I do want it to be organized. That's where this comes in. This is also great if you are just working straight through a project, but you have a lot of fabrics going on. So this is one method. So I'm going to put these away. And then I'm going to bring out the next set of bins that I use. Okay, so now this is another set of baskets that I use. And I actually have quite a bit of these, I only brought out these ones because I wanted to demonstrate very specific things. One, I want you to note that on these as well as those ones I showed previously with the Christmas fabrics in them, they were a little bit they were a denture tote, but they still had air holes. These you can see are wide open, we want air to be able to get in and out of our fabric we don't want there especially if you live in a humid climate, or you use like a swamp cooler to cool your house there's like a dampness that can occur. And we don't want anything to to like discolor or smell up or any of that. And the best way to do that is to keep things nice and open. These particular baskets, those blue ones that I showed before. Again, I've said Amazon left, right and center center. Those were Amazon, these ones are actually target and I think they're actually still available. They're like those ones that they they have all the time. And I've got quite a few of them. Now I use these as my color baskets. And I've got a bunch of them in one of my bellies. And so like this one is my oranges and corals. And so it's just all the random fabric I've got left of oranges and corals. And then this one is pinks. And again, this is all the random Oh, that's a pretty one. Sometimes you're just like I don't even know, like if I've got a fat quarter bundle, which there's quite a few like like this. This is a full fat quarter from Anna Maria. I'm gonna say it's from welcome home. Because I did a quote recently with that. If I open up the fat quarter bundle, and there's 24 fat quarters in it, but I only need 16 for the quilt top. That means there's eight leftover, they get sorted with my scraps. I know I try to keep only things that are bundled up on my fat quarter shelves unless it's too late, because there's just there's tools a whole different beast because of the sheer volume of Tula that I have. But so that's one, one thing is just by color, throw them in there. And then that way when I'm going to do another quilt, I'm just like, Okay, I want a pink, I want an orange I want to read and I go into their appropriate buckets, and I pull them out. And there we go. We're good. Now this over heaping basket is to left. And so I keep my two lists separate, for obvious reasons. And I really need to stop just talking about two I talk about her way too much. But this one is separate. And I keep that in mind too. If you have a designer that you absolutely adore. And you tend to not mix other designers or fabric lines with it, keep it separate. It just makes your life easier. And so what I do is I will shop my scrap basket, then I will shop my fat quarters and then I will shop my yardage because I have got some pretty awesome yardage of everything. You know, every time I buy a fat quarter, there's at least one print that I am a fat quarter bundle, there's at least one print that I absolutely adore. And then I buy it by the yard. And that's for any any designer because it's just great. And I tend to go through it because I adore it. And then I know we talked a few weeks ago about intentionality with the fabric that we're buying because we're we're getting stocked, not stashed. And I go through my fabric and that's why I don't have a TON TON of yardage because everything I purchase for yardage is something that I adore. And so I use it, which is great. So there is the fabric storage. Holy smokes guys. Okay, folks. So I was about to say there you have it. However, I was just thinking some of you may be wondering where I store my bolts, and where I store my bedding and patterns and whatnot. I have a basket like those blue baskets, I showed the Christmas fabric and I have a basket of that full of patterns that are mine. I have a basket that are full of patterns that I sell on my E commerce. And then as far as bolts go, on the bottom shelf of this Billy bookcase, I am able to put bolts, so I have bolts of fabric there. Now when it comes to batting, I buy my dad and by the roll, I am a prolific quilter I make a lot of quilts. And now that I have a long arm, I'm quilting, a lot of quilts, the throughput of the quilting of the quilts is just become insane since getting alarm. And so what I do is on my long arm frame, there's a pole underneath it. And so I put a giant roll batting on that. So I can just pull it out and load my machine, which is great. But then I also buy my batting in bulk because it is more economical that way. And so I have a walk in closet in this room that has big rolls of bedding just stepped up and ready to take the place of the previous roll when it runs out. So that's where I keep my patterns, my batting, and my bolts of fabric. Okay, folks. So that was a lot of information. I will include links in the description, so that you can check out some of the items that I'm using. Oh, I need to say also mason jars, wide mouth mason jars. A regular mason jar isn't going to be very helpful because the opening at the top is kind of narrow to put items like what I use like a rotary cutter and scissors and all of that kind of bulkier things. So a wide mouth mason jar. So there's that. So I will put links to all of these items that are discussed in the description. I would love to see and hear how you're organizing your sewing space. And so please post on social media tag me so that I can see those posts. I cannot wait to see them. You have completed another episode of the stop scrolling start selling podcast Thank you so much for spending some time with me. And go ahead and make sure you hit subscribe wherever you listen or watch. All right, folks, bye for now.