Tada! The new sewing studio!

Well, I have a few paint touch ups and have to rehang the manilla paper on another wall since I changed my mind about the layout but here it is! I know there’s a lot going on in all the pictures but, what can I say?, I have a lot of stuff.

Here is the view from the door:

The two machines on the right side are my Singer 20U (zigzag) and my Consew 206RB (a walking foot machine). I had the two plain stands leftover from my embroidery shop - they were used as work tables and for hooping. Since I often work on really large projects on these two machines I put a plain stand behind each one to hold all the extra fabric. I really could have used this when I made the cover for my pool table!

On the left are my two coverstitch machines, back to back. I know I would have had more space in the center of the room had I put them against the wall but there is a method to my madness! Now that I live alone I wanted to be able to pull the attic ladder down without having to move any machines by myself - the coverstitch machines are especially heavy! I still have plenty of space to move around the cutting tables. Speaking of which, these are the cheapos you can purchase at JoAnn’s. I originally wanted the much more expensive Horn tables with the drawer but I’ve had these for a number of years and they are great! Of course, with the money you save you must buy the matching rotary mat.

I won’t be doing any construction pressing in this room (I have a Naomoto gravity feed in my other sewing room) but I’m thrilled to have the space to keep the ironing board up! I usually turn on the iron and press things as they come out of the dryer. Now I won’t have to set up in the kitchen!

Straight ahead is my 12-needle embroidery machine. I have pretty much decided to sell it as I don’t see myself using it all that much. After 10 years in business, the bloom is off the embroidered rose.

From the other side:

The Merrow machine sits in the corner to the left of the window since it’s not used very often. My manila paper roll will hang on the wall above it. That wall is concrete so I need to get the proper anchors before I can take care of that. To the right is the Jiffy steamer and on the table is the heat press (that’s the water heater enclosure next to it). Everyone is surprised that I didn’t sell the press when I closed my business. Are they nuts? With a 16×20 surface area I can fuse interfacing quickly and easily! Those paper dispensers on the hot water cabinet used to hold embroidery stabilizer, now they hold examining table paper.

Oh, and I just love my new floor! It’s epoxy garage floor paint and I sprinkled colored paint chips onto it while it was wet. The chips really help hide any imperfections and it was so easy! Since I couldn’t move everything out of the room I had to paint in two sections so the entire thing took nearly 10 days before I could move the machines back in. I had to let the concrete patch and then the bonding primer dry completely before I could even begin painting. The bonding primer drove me crazy because it stays tacky after it’s dry and my shoes kept sticking to it. I ended up wearing old socks instead which worked great.

The paint then requires 72 hours dry time before furniture can be moved back in. Of course, that is when The Boyfriend mentioned that the walls would look really nice painted a light tan (they were cold, stark white and looking a little dingy)… That set me back a few more days but it was so worth it! It drove me nuts to have my living room and bedroom piled with machines and stuff but now that it’s done it looks great! I can’t wait to get back to sewing. Unfortunately, I’m having oral surgery tomorrow and then going away for the weekend (provided I don’t swell up like a chipmunk!) so I’ll have to sit tight for a few more days.

DIY Paper Dispenser

After two years I thought it was finally time to get my roll of manilla pattern paper out of it’s box on the floor and into a dispenser. I looked online and the least expensive single-roll wall-mounted dispenser I could find was around $100, the most expensive around $200. Thrift is certainly not one of my strong suits but I had a problem paying that kind of money for something to hold a roll of paper.

On Sunday, I headed to Home Depot with the hope that I would find something that I could repurpose. My original thought was a pair of curtain rod brackets with a metal plumbing pipe but they were not deep enough for the roll of paper. Then I found the perfect thing: closet brackets designed to hold a rod and shelf! The metal closet rod was available in 4′, 6′ and 8′ lengths. Since my paper is 48″ wide, my boyfriend cut the 6′ rod down to 5′ for me - it is perfect! Although the brackets are rated for 125 pounds (my paper roll weighs 67 lbs) I opted to double them up and tie-wrap them together for extra stability. The brackets on the right are attached to a stud. On the left I used four 75lb EZ-Anchors.

Supplies needed:

* 6′ Rod $9.79
* 4 Brackets $13.16
* End caps $1.79

Grand total: $24.74. And it looks nice! Now I am getting ready to paint my garage floor with epoxy paint, ugh. I was going to lay a nice floor down but now that my son is buying a house and moving out next month (!) I’m thinking I’ll probably sell as soon as the market improves and don’t want to invest in anything expensive. While I certainly can fill up a 4/3 house with sewing stuff, the maintenance is just too much for one person. I’d rather spend my free time sewing! Let’s hope I can find a large enough town- or patio home to house all of my sewing equipment…

Times, they are a-changing!

Many of you have commented on my lengthy absence - I’m honored that you’ve noticed! Truth be told, I have been working anywhere from 50 to 70 hours per week in our restaurant and trying to squeeze in my embroidery work in there somewhere. I am lucky to sneak a few hours of sleep in, let alone get any sewing done. Sooooo, after ten years, I have made the decision to close my embroidery business. I am just burned out! I know those ads in Sew News and Threads make it sound so fun and easy but, trust me, embroidery is a very competitive business requiring long hours and more physical labor than you’d imagine. I am ready to move on to something else and, happily, I may already have a buyer for my 6-head machine and my customer files. Do you know what this means? It means that I will once again have a few hours a couple of days every week to get back to my beloved sewing!

I have been running my embroidery business out of my converted two-car garage. Once the big machine is gone I’ll be left with a singlehead machine, five industrials and a heat press that absolutely won’t fit into my sewing room. So, I’ve decided to move all of the cabinets and machines from the sewing room out into the garage and allow my son to take over my old sewing room as a den where he can entertain friends away from the rest of the household. It will be awesome to have a huge sewing room where I can leave both cutting tables set up all the time! Unfortunately, there is only one window but I will adjust to that.

Where the action is

Some of you have never seen my sewing room and here it is. I know I’m not the only sewer who enjoys looking at everyone’s sewing spaces - or am I? The bones of this room have been about the same for ten years but it received a facelift last year in the way of new paint, new hardware, a new floor and wonderful water hyacinth baskets for organizing. It’s so nice not to lose pins in carpeting!

Here’s the view from the door. That wonderful little Bernette 334DS serger you see in the foreground has been sold since I took these pictures. I was feeling guilty that such a great machine had been sitting idle since the day I bought my industrial serger. I firmly believe that machines need to be used and loved.

The shelves above the industrial serger didn’t always hang so high. I moved them up in order to fit my industrial embroidery machine underneath back in 1999. That machine is now housed in my converted garage with my 6-head and the rest of my industrials. Just a quick walk to the other side of the house. I never bothered to lower the shelves back down. It doesn’t bother me and gives me more room for my thread racks.

Here’s the view to the right - pressing surface, small cutting area (which is usually just piled with fabric) and my Horn thread cabinet. I sure wish the thread cabinet had only deep drawers so that I could fit all of my serger thread in it. I have way too much regular sewing thread to fit so those shallow drawers on top are kind of useless. They hold tools and my knitting needles (I’ve been learning to knit for several years but haven’t progressed past garter stitch).

Here’s a little peek into my shop. The 6-head embroidery machine takes center stage, of course. She’s about 13 feet long. We actually built the room around her. We layed the carpet, painted, had air conditioning installed and then brought the machine in with a forklift (well, WE didn’t, the rigging company did it) and had the fourth wall put up. I usually stay out of here on the weekends - I have to go “home” sometime - but I am swamped with work so the machines are running as I sit here and type.

Okay, I’ve shown you mine - now show me yours!

My fabric stash!

I recently took down my www.gigisews.com website - I just have too much going on and hadn’t been maintaining it anway so….. However, several people have asked about the picture of my fabric closet so I thought I’d put one up today.

A couple of years ago, Leslie in Austin mentioned that she had rolled all of the fabric in her stash. I thought this was such a great idea that I spent an entire weekend reorganizing and rolling all of my fabric. Rolling makes it easy to see every piece of fabric and to remove a piece without causing an avalanche. Because you can stack the rolls higher than flatfolds, I was able to fit all of the extra fabric from the linen closet into my sewing room closet as well.

As you can see, I try to keep my fabric separated by color. This makes it much easier to find what I’m looking for.

The wire baskets in the center hold linings, ribbings, lingerie fabrics and stretch linings. Like any good sewer, I have a few fabrics still in bags on the floor.