From K - Craft Room Reveal (Part 2 - Stash Storage)

Before I had a craft room, I had a craft closet, and before that it was a simple craft trolley. About 6 months ago I decided a trolley wasn't cutting it anymore, but I hadn't yet committed to downgrading our guest room. As a compromise I invested in a practical storage cabinet so every little scrap could have a home.

While this closet didn't solve all of my sewing woes (like providing a dedicated corner to sew in), it has been one of the smartest sewing related purchases I've ever made (for my sanity especially!). I thought that during my sewing room reveal you might want a peek at where all the goods are stored, and how I manage my stash.

Lets open those doors up and have a peek shall we?

This closet system is roughly 8 feet tall, and while I'm nearly 6 feet myself, I figured that top shelf wouldn't get all that much use. I used a couple of large boxes from Ikea to keep it simple and store items I don't use as often, such as wads of stuffing, and sock monkey materials.

On the second highest shelf you can see three wicket baskets that I found at my local Shoppers Drug Mart. I put a blue tag on each basket listing the current contents. These baskets are my  valor laden effort  desperate try  half successful attempt at organizing my current WiPs and keeping them down to a reasonable number. The first basket is full of baby fabrics for various projects and I don't see that tag being removed anytime soon. The second and third baskets currently hold my wax print fabrics while I work at completing those two quilts.

Below the wicker baskets I have a shelf that holds my mini fabric bolts of 0.5m or greater (I use comic book boards as bolt supports), as well as various spray bottles (glue adhesive, 505, spray starch etc). I used some smaller ikea storage boxes to house my receipts, labels, fasteners, and resources (including patterns, colour charts and inspiration photos). Lastly there is a binder along the right side that holds my purchased PDF patterns that I have printed out.

 

I won't bore you with the layout of each drawer but I will show you a couple to satisfy your curiosity (you know you want to see inside!). Here is a peek of the top drawer. From the back, left to right, it's filled with mini quilt sandwiches to practice free motion quilting, my Machinigers, a collection of storage bags for projects on the move, and a large stash of Shout Color Catchers. In the front row, I have a sewing box filled with notions, the stitch chart for my Janome, a basket of selvages, and an assortment of fabrics by Anna Maria Horner (Innocent Crush), Amy Butler (Soul Blossom), Joel Dewberry (Heirloom, and Aviary Two).

The second drawer holds additional fabric storage for a number of completed projects that will soon be gifted, my Janome quilting extension table, yardage (4+), charm packs, some miscellaneous FQs and two quilt projects that are up and coming (I custom bundled each using various fabric lines).

 

The third drawer in my storage cabinet holds my scraps. I tend to toss very small scraps and hold onto the somewhat larger pieces that are most likely to be used. The first bin holds red-orange-yellow-gray scraps while the second bin holds green-blue-purple-grown scraps. The third bin holds black and white scraps, and the forth bin holds solids. I can guarantee that more scrap storage will be needed soon but there is still quite a bit of space to space behind those bins for when I spill over.

The last few drawers hold my batting, thinsulate, and template plastic, along with my non-sewing related craft supplies like paper, frames, punches, stamps etc.

I am really glad that I invested in this cabinet and I love having everything organized and at my fingertips now. It allows me to rearrange my stash, take inventory of what I have, and prepare upcoming projects, all while looking at my options in one place. Call me weird or call me crazy, but this closet is my happy crafty place.