We live in a 920 square foot two-bedroom house. And since Junah moved into her own room three years ago, I've found maintaining a sewing space difficult. Until now. My wonderful parents gave me a fantastic sewing station for Christmas.
It is the Sew Essentials Quilter's Design Table available from Joann's (on sale for $134 right now!). And I must say, I just love it.
Yes, it wasn't the easiest thing to put together, but I did manage to do it by myself in a couple of hours over two days. And contrary to some of the reviews I've read, it seems very sturdy. Yes, the cupboard and drawer could be deeper, but hey, it has a cupboard and drawer! And it collapses to a very narrow 16" meaning I can wheel it from room to room (it's on casters) if I need to.
And my serger is just a pivot away from my sewing machine, yippee! Now just to remember to move my foot from one pedal to the other after I pivot…
As you can see it fits snugly in the corner of our bedroom (that's the edge of the bed there on the left) and I can set up my long ironing board close to hand or use my table top one at the edge of the table. And I love the depth when the back edge is folded up completely; plenty of room for keeping all parts of my project close at hand.
With Ezra's help, a nail and a few screws I added storage for my rulers and thread rack. Awesome.
The top of it has a 1" grid which I really want to paint over. For one thing I didn't manage to get the grid from the front half of the table to line up properly with the grid on the back half (a complaint I've read in reviews) and I use my big cutting mat when I need a grid. But, the major reason is that I use transparent gridded pattern paper. So I nearly went cross-eyed yesterday trying to draft a pattern. Although I could see the grid being really handy if I wasn't using paper with a grid. Hmmm. Perhaps time for some swedish tracing paper*?
* Don't know what swedish tracing paper is? You can read about it at NearSea Naturals.
And, yes, thanks to my Amazon Mom account two rolls of paper are already on their way to me. Guess I'll hold off on the painting for now.
Since I began blogging in 2006 I've always had a hard time finding the right balance between family, blogging and all the other demands of life. That's why I'm loving Rachel Meek's ebook