A Tour of my Studio
The folks at CreativeLive came over to film my workspace a few weeks ago. They asked me if I would like to film a tour of my studio, and I said yes immediately! Mainly because I don’t think there’s nearly enough basement studio spaces represented out there, and for a lot of us, a basement space offers the most amount of square footage we can dedicate to making creative messes. For me, it keeps my work (and play) away from the rest of the daily living that goes on in the house.
I have a long table table with my two sewing machines and a drawer unit underneath. I used to have my computer on one half of this table, and paperwork would constantly drift over to my sewing area, which made me feel so unorganized. There is hanging space for many many quilts thanks to my husband’s custom built quilt ladder and some additional IKEA hanging racks. The high center table stores lots of things underneath, and I am able to hide it with curtains made from painter’s drop cloths, a cheap, neutral way solution.
A basement would not be the first place I would have chosen to have a studio. Its a tough place to work for someone who needs to see color in daylight. The reality is- its dark, cold in the winter, near the cat’s litter box… and probably many other reasons why basements aren’t optimal for a quilt/craft studio. However, now that I’ve worked down here for 4 years, I really do think of it as my own special sanctuary. I’ve made it as unbasement-like as I can. It’s bright white, from ceiling to floor
, and looking at color is aided by using daylight bulbs in all the overhead and task lighting. Early in 2015, we took down a half wall that separated the space and today it is wide open. This allows me to have a design wall in the back of the room that I can stand 15 feet from. A wall like this is immensely helpful in quilt making. When working on big pieces it allows me to stand back to see the overall design from a distance.
The bookshelves we all use, its where I store a lot of my own work and favorite books.
There are three small windows against the west wall, where I get to see the trashcans and an occasional neighborhood cat. I have a type of Indian garland hanging in each that I found in Vancouver’s Punjabi Market. I thought they were so pretty when I bought them, had no idea they’d fit my windows as well as they do. And there’s always a candle burning in here.
I am weird about storing things and tend to be more of a stacker than an “everything in its place” gal. Something I try to work on. I’ve had to be very disciplined about designating a place for all my supplies and put things back in their proper place when I’m done. There’s no real closed storage in my studio, unless I create it. And if I don’t create it, it all just looks like chaos. Quilts are the only things made down here, and the amount of supplies can accumulate and pile up fast, and require discipline to keep pared down and organized. I took a lot of time when I moved in, and again when we took the wall down, to find a place for everything, label drawers, cull down what I don’t need, etc. It was a big job, but very worth every minute spent on it. Now, when a project is done, I know where things go, and can take some time to tidy things up before starting the next task.
Although I will always feed into my scissor addiction!
You can see the entire studio in the beautiful video shot by CreativeLive on my studio page. I hope you enjoy it! Just a reminder, but I have a whole assortment of classes available on CreativeLive. Please let me know if you take any of them!