You know, things aren’t always optimal in life. My kitchen table is a small and modest thing (see how almost all of it fits into the photograph), but it has four legs and a functional tabletop. It is rectangular, which allows me to keep both cutting mat and sewing machine on it simultaneously. And my pressing station (doesn’t it sound fancy?) is in the corner of the L-shaped kitchen, when I place my pressing board on the countertop in the only available place.
My craft stuff is stored in a walk-in closet and if I want to avoid visual chaos, I need to be extremely mindful of how, when, and what I make. Everything needs to have its own storage box and I can’t work on more than one project at a time unless I want a whole studio apartment upside down.
Not all of us are blessed with houses with extra rooms to make into gorgeous craft rooms. What I have, though, are mad organising skills and I know where I have almost anything you can wish for. My fabrics are in colour order, and tools and notions have their designated spaces. If I want to create something, it has to happen on a total of a few square metres, including storage space, which have multiple functions constantly.
I’d love to have one of those spacious and light-filled rooms with candy-coloured walls and pretty stuff everywhere, but when push comes to shove, I do enjoy the restrictions a great deal right now. It’s almost like a challenge; can I make it work within the narrow limits that are my everyday life currently? Of course I can!
So this evening I’ve sorted through my WIP box and located some projects. There are four on the table currently, which translates to three too many. Next up is the Sound Wave block for the Skill Builder 2013 quilt, because it’s almost completely cut and I need a small project to get started on again. I watched some of the tutorial videos by Alyssa on Youtube and am ready to start sewing tomorrow.
Speaking of Alyssa, there’s yet another small project in my near future. I have this notebook for sketching and today I found out why I bought it a while ago. Alyssa talks about practicing free-motion quilting through doodling and that’s what I’ll use it for. The cover is ugly and in sore need of some fabric to cheer it up, so once my journal cover is done, I’ll be a pro practically :)
Do you have space restrictions of some kind that you need to work with when crafting? I already flaunted those mad organising skills, so please drop a line if you’re in need of inspiration to work a mess out.
Nina With Freckles 
Glad to have met your kitchen table…or rather, Creativity Station :)
While I am one of those that is blessed to have a smallish room devoted to this craft, you might be surprised to learn that I still do all of my piecing, cutting and ironing on a table probably not too much larger then yours. I don’t know if it is just out of habit (I used to have a super small place before this one), or just because things are within reach; but I cannot seem to reorganize my room so that I have space to spread out. I think there is something to be said though, about making do with what you have…at least in my experience, it brings out the best.
I like the sound of Creativity Station. Even though it is transient, so that it can be cleaned out of way in an instant, it still deserves the recognition.
Showing gratitude is something I’m big on, because endless complaints seem unjustified if one has enough means to do something as expensive as quilting, and this includes the home. On the other hand, I’m not fond of comparing per se and placing oneself in an inferior position in relation to others either.
Sometimes it would be nice to have a larger cutting mat and more ergonomic working conditions in general, but it’ll do for now. I’m still not quite sure about what the optimal cutting height is, though, come to think of it.