In Case You Were Wondering

This is how you fit ten sewing machines in a 10'x12' room:

On top of the bookcase.

On every level surface, under the desk, and inside the cabinet.

And lined up along the wall with the extension tables removed to conserve space.

Oh, and I did say ten. I know last week it was nine, but this week it is ten. This is number ten:

She's a 1955 Singer 201, often called the finest machine Singer ever made. I can't attest to that, since I haven't tried every--or even most--machines Singer ever made, but she is a beauty. She has a "potted motor", which means that she is gear-driven. No belt to stretch or wear out and she's very quiet. Not nearly as powerful as my Pfaffs, but definitely an elegant lady. Once again (sorry, Kat!) $25 on craigslist, with the art deco cabinet. Yes, I am aware that I am approaching crazy cat lady territory with the sewing machines, but when they fall into my lap for less than the cost of a skein of sock yarn, what's a sewing machine enthusiast to do?

FO: My Knitting Room!

There's an excellent reason I haven't been blogging for the past week: I've been busy putting together my new knitting room...and it's done! My goal for this room was to make a functional, beautiful, comfortable space to accommodate knitting, spinning, and a little sewing, spending as little as possible and reusing as much as possible. Want a tour? Thought so!

This room is upstairs and faces west. It has a beautiful view of the trees in my front yard. In fact, that's pretty much all that is visible out the window; it's like being in a tree house. It's 10'x12', with a small walk in closet. We're going to look around the room clockwise, starting at the door (it's to the left in the first picture).

This is the closet door. I installed the mirror so that I would have a spot for trying things on. To the right, you can see hints of things to come. I'm going to make you wait just a minute, though, while I show off the closet (click here to see before pics):

It's all cleaned out now, and I can actually see and access everything in it. The bins on the floor are full of spinning fiber. So are the bins on the shelf. I don't need these out and available to me, since I don't spin nearly as often or as quickly as I knit. I can get to them easily when I want some new spinning fiber. The bags hanging from the rod are my knitting bags.

All my knitting books and magazines are now organized and accessible on the bookshelf, too.

Moving to the right of the closet, we have the part you really want to see...

The Great Wall of Yarn!

This is the IKEA Expedit bookcase that just about everyone who has a craft room seems to own. It is the only new piece of furniture I bought for this space, and worth every penny of its $199 price tag. It is, in my opinion, the perfect yarn storage unit. I know, I know--I just heard a dozen knitters gasp in unison because my yarn is not stored in plastic bags and guarded from moths! I thought long and hard about this. I really wanted my yarn out and touchable. That was one of my major goals in putting this room together, in fact. It always seemed such a shame to me that all my gorgeous, colorful, wonderfully textured yarn was packed away where I couldn't see or enjoy it. I couldn't even remember what I had (as I discovered while unpacking it today). But I was worried about moths. Here's my reasoning on that: I have never, ever seen a clothes moth or any signs of one. I'm not even certain they live in this part of the country, where it is generally hot and dry. Even if they do live hereabouts, I figure, having all the yarn out in the light and the air is likely to discourage any nesting. And, just to be on the safe side, I'm putting lavender sachets in every one of those cubbies to stink the little buggers out. The bottom line it, it's a risk I'm willing to take to have all my beautiful yarns out where I can enjoy them.

On top of the Great Wall of Yarn are my two antique sewing machines. The one on the left (blogged about at length here) was made in the 1940s and belonged to my great-grandmother. She, my great aunt, and my mother all used it to make their clothes. It is in perfect working order, and I had it cleaned an adjusted a couple of years ago. I intend to use it myself, but I am having some trouble finding needles that fit, so for now it's on display. The one on the right came from an old house my parents bought when I was a little girl. I used it as a kid, and it still works.

The baskets in between the sewing machines contain UFOs that I haven't yet decided to finish or frog.

This is another juicy shot of the yarn, just because. This bookcase is six feet square and 15 inches deep. Each cubby can hold at least three sweaters' worth of yarn!

Continuing our clockwise rotation, we move to the inspiration wall:

I did buy the cork board, but it was on clearance for $11.83 (marked down from $49.99), so I'm okay with that. I also bought some ribbon from Michaels to hot glue over the original aluminum frame, so I suppose I need to add the $3.99 I spent on that. The little chests were nightstands in the former guestroom, and they were in pretty bad shape. Here's a before pic:

After some sanding and primer and a couple of coats of white paint, they look a lot better. I found some drawer pulls in the garage that I liked better than the ones that were on these, so I switched them out as well.

The shutters on the wall came from my mom's house several years ago. She replaced her wood shutters with vinyl (why, I have no idea), and I couldn't bear to see all the pretty wood shutters get thrown out, so I grabbed these. They've been stored in the closet of this room ever since. I pulled them out and got hubby to help me hang them on the wall. The shelf used to be in the nursery; I rescued it from the garage. The baskets (as well as the ones on top of the Great Wall) were under my bed, full of paperbacks. I relocated the books, and the baskets now hold WIPs. The lamps were already on the wall; I used them as reading lamps over the bed when this was the guest room. Oh, and all those pictures on the cork board are inspiration pictures for this room. Google "craft room" sometime. You'll be blown away.

Rotating again, here is my new desk:

Actually, it's not new at all. My husband bought this desk 15 years ago for $5 from the aerospace company he used to work for. They were selling off some old furniture. This thing has probably been around since the 1950s. The base is solid steel; the top is heavy particle board with a fake wood laminate. The base was originally orange. My husband painted it black when he bought it. I repainted it cream ($12 for spray paint), and covered the top with self-adhesive contact paper in a black and white floral print ($12.99 for the paper).

Here's the "before":

I much prefer the "after". I can't tell you how happy I am to have a place to leave my swift and ball winder set up permanently. It's always been such a hassle to drag them out of storage and clear a space to set them up every time I need to wind yarn. Now I can wind at will!

The old folding chair will do until the budget allows for something nicer. On the floor next to the desk is a sewing box I bought for a couple bucks at a neighbor's garage sale, and next to that is my spinning-in-progress basket.

To the right of the desk is what I'm calling "Bertha's Corner" (Bertha is my dress form):

This chest was also brown and worn. I used the same paint on this as on the nightstands (it was "oops" paint I got for $5/gallon from Home Depot years ago and have used for multiple projects). This was a yard sale find my husband also bought for $5 before we were married (we don't buy $5 furniture anymore). It's solid hardwood with dovetailed drawers, and the hardware is solid brass. It holds a lot of stuff, including the fabrics for some projects I'm working on.

The basket on top of the chest holds my various knitting tools: tape measure, needle gauge, small tool bag, interchangeable needles, etc. I have more needles in the top drawer of the chest.

The picture above the chest came from my mother-in-law's house. I never met her; she died before I met my husband. But the picture has been in our garage for more than 20 years. I came across it last week and decided I like it, so up it went.

To the left of the chest you can just see my spinning wheel on the floor.

And finally, the last wall:

Very boring. Eventually, I plan to buy another Expedit unit, but one with a cutout for a flat panel tv. That will go on this wall with a new tv and satellite hook up. Someday. My birthday's in September, so, Honey, if you're reading this...hint, hint.

After I took the pictures, my husband hauled an old rocking chair up from the garage--do I even need to tell you he bought it at a yard sale before we were married?.

I think this chair has now been in every room in the house. It's a nice chair. I used it for nursing babies and reading to toddlers and studying for law school. Now it will be my knitting chair in here. It could use a cushion, but otherwise is in perfect shape, and very comfortable.

The bag to the right was my knitting bag in college. I haven't used it in a while, but I came across it while I was shoveling out the closet and thought it would work well here. It's full of the Noro Yuzen I'm using for my Noro Log Cabin blanket (which is going swimmingly, by the way).

So there you have it: a wonderful new space for my crafting activities with a pretty minimal investment of time and money. I spent all day organizing the space and haven't even had a chance to sit down and enjoy it, but I just couldn't wait to share it with people I know will appreciate it as much as I do!

A Room of One's Own

A few posts ago, I mentioned that the lighting in my guest room isn't the best and showed a picture of my Enchanted Wood Shawl blocking on the guest room bed. That is the only time in the past two years that bed has actually been used.

For years I desperately wanted a guest room. We had three kids at home and no spare room, and it seemed like people were forever visiting and having to sleep in the living room or the office. Or we would move the kids around and put guests in the kids' rooms. When Oldest Son went away to college six years ago, I seized the opportunity and turned his room into a guest room. It was gorgeous and I loved it. I painted the walls and ceiling a deep shade of coral and moved in our old pine four poster with all-white bedding and linens to keep it from being too dark. I hung sheers from rods from the ceiling to create a canopy around the bed which was piled with pillows and down comforters and quilts. The room is small and the bed took up most of the space, making it wonderfully cozy. Everyone who saw it wanted to stay in that room. And for four years, it was in almost constant use. My brother lived with us for two stretches of several months each. My sister and her little boy came to visit like clockwork every three months. Oldest Son regularly came home from college and stayed there.

But in the past couple of years, things have changed. My brother moved in with our parents, just 20 minutes from us. My sister and her son have also taken to staying with my parents when they visit. And Oldest Son has graduated from college and moved into an apartment only 15 minutes from here. So for the past two years, the guest room has lain fallow. At the same time, my crafting habit has grown. And grown. And grown. The yarn that used to take up only a bookcase in the guest closet has since grown to a stash of yarn and fiber that overflows the closet and spills into the family room. I have acquired a spinning wheel, skein winder, swift, ball winder, yarn meter, and various and sundry other bulky tools that also live, for lack of a better place, in the family room. I own two old sewing machines, both of which are in storage in the garage, and currently have my mother's sewing machine on loan for some projects I'm doing--on the dining room table.

My husband has, on several occasions, suggested that the guest room might be put to better use as a crafting space for me. I always brushed off the suggestion, because we needed the guest room, right? But square footage in this busy house is way too valuable to sit unused, no matter how pretty it might be. A few months ago, I turned the entirely unused formal living room into a game room for the kids (they had been playing video games in the office, which was...disruptive, to say the least). That room now serves the neighborhood boy pack every afternoon. It's been used more in the past six months than in the previous ten years put together. And thanks to lots of good storage, it still looks like a living room, too.

With all this in mind, I finally bowed to the hubby's superior judgment in the matter and decided to take the plunge. The guest room is no more. I sent the mattress and bedding to a local charity. I persuaded hubby to put the four poster bed frame, which I can't bear to give up, and all the boxes under the bed, up in the attic--more work than it sounds, since he had to lay more plywood in the attic to create the space for them. I emptied the drawers of the various furniture I will be reusing--mostly full of junk I didn't need anyway.

Now I am getting to work plastering and painting the ceiling. Long story, but it needs to happen. I'm keeping the coral color on the walls, but painting the ceiling white to reflect more light. Then I need to paint the old furniture I'm keeping in the room--a chest for storage and two nightstands which will be the base of a new desk--as well as the old worktable that is currently out in the yard and is destined to be my new sewing table. All of these will also be white when I am done with them.

I plan on buying an Expedit bookcase from Ikea for open yarn storage on one wall, and we have an old rocking chair in the garage that will also be moving in. I need a desk chair and a floor lamp, and I'm hoping to buy a nice rug at a decent price. Eventually I plan on bringing in a tv with satellite hookup and maybe a dvd player. And then we'll see. I think this is one of those spaces I'll have to live with for a while to figure out exactly what it needs. Even though I will miss my beautiful guest room, I am so excited to finally have a room of my own!