My Studio

My studio is 10' x 13' and has one north facing window. It originally had a small poorly placed closet which would have made it nearly impossible to have a decent sized cutting table in the room. We tore out the closet and used the door (78" x 24") for a worktable (attached to a wall and my sewing table).
My design board is 4' x 4'. It is homosote covered in gray felt. I chose the homosote insulation because it is heat resistant. This works great because I often do fused applique in my quilts and this allows me to spot fuse the pieces to the background fabric while it's still on the design board. That's much easier than trying to pin small pieces on the design board and then move to a flat surface for fusing. Once I have my applique pieces spot fused I move the piece to a flat surface for more thorough fusing.
This is my lovely cutting table which is 56" x 53" and 36" high. I can't bend easily because of my MS and fibromyalgia so this works really well for me. The top was covered in an old thick mattress pad and then covered with plain white canvas. Since I often sew for decorators I keep a sheet over the top to keep as much cat hair off the canvas.
Though I have an ironing board hanging on the wall to the left of the cutting table, I usually just iron my fabric on the cutting table. It's much faster since I can have the fabric out full width.


This view shows more of the "door" work table. You can also see some of my stash on the shelves up above.

The low "box" on the left corner is a non-functioning scanner that my husband turned into a light box for me.








My sewing machine table has a dropped section for the machine and butts up to an intrior closet door that is attached to the wall for a work table. This work table (wood tone) is great when I am doing large pieces as it holds the weight of the fabric, making it easier to sew and quilt.


This is the view as you walk into my studio. You can see my rolling carts with my stash. The black cart is actually a wheeled tool box that I take when I go to my quilt meetings. It allows me to take a small machine and all the supplies I need to work on a project.

The white cabinet behind the cutting table is actually four pieces stacked. They are all available in the storage areas at most discount stores and home improvement stores. The top cabinet is basically a divided box with two doors. The middle cabinet has three shelves behind the two doors. The bottom is actually two, two draw units. We anchored the whole stack to the wall for safety.

My husband actually has a small corner workspace in the room as well. He is an avid fly fisherman and he joins me in the studio and ties flies as I am quilting. It's great because I don't have to feel guilty for not spending time with him when I want to work on a piece. The only problem with his hobby and my quilting is that we now are often shopping for similar products. Which means that we tend to spend a lot more when we go to the fabric stores and craft stores(he didn't use to go in with me), and the fly fishing shops (they have great things for embellishing-thread, beads, feathers, yarns-lots of neat things!)