Today I wanted to share an updated post about The Cottage Mama Sewing Studio. Not a lot has changed since the last tour, but I’ve definitely upgraded in the sewing machine / serger department. And because we are going to be selling The Cottage Home, I wanted to document this space one last time (sniff, sniff). So here goes…….
My office is off of our dining room and is a pretty small space. I’ve just tried to maximize the space to the best of it’s ability. You get creative when working with small spaces. The shelves that hold my small cuts of fabric, some trims, iron (Oliso Pro), etc. were installed by my father-in-law. They are kind of sagging a little in the middle right now, but they definitely do the trick!
The button rug on the floor is from IKEA and was really inexpensive in comparison to many rugs I was considering. I love how colorful it looks in my sewing space.
The shelves to the right were already there when we bought the house, we simply painted them white…….an easy fix!
These smaller cuts of fabric are stored on ‘Fabric Organizers‘. I absolutely adore this product. I purchased my 1st set when my mom and I visited our very 1st Quilt Festival in Chicago. I was just getting into sewing and I thought these were genius. They look as good today as the day that I bought them. They are a tad pricey, but they will last you forever and they come in lots of different sizes. I have absolutely no affiliation with this company, but I am a firm believer that they are worth the investment. Another inexpensive alternative, would be to wrap your fabric on archival quality comic book boards. You can read more about the ‘Fabric Organizers‘ HERE.
This set of shelves houses all sorts of randomness. All of my knit fabrics are in the bottom two black and white boxes. Knits always look sloppy on shelves to me, so that’s why they are in boxes. The floral box next to those two, contain printed Cottage Mama patterns. There are 10 of each one and I use this box to grab patterns for retail Cottage Mama pattern orders. Then I have about 200 of each one in our loft in the house and the other 1000-2000 are out in the second floor of our garage. It takes a lot of organization to inventory and store everything from our home!
I also have all of my extra sewing feet, my silhouette machine, my GoBaby Fabric Cutter, elastic, extra thread, shipping envelopes / boxes and some scrapbooking supplies in those shelves. My ironing board cover is from Home Goods and thread rack is from Joann Fabrics.
Speaking of the loft…….here is where I keep the 200 of each printed pattern for larger wholesale distributor orders as well as my bolts of fabric. The shelves are from IKEA. I order my bolts of fabric wholesale, directly through the manufacturers.
I have the Baby Lock Unity Sewing and Embroidery Machine. It’s an absolutely gorgeous machine. I have a machine sponsorship from Baby Lock and I love everything about this company. Their product is of utmost quality and they truly are such an amazing supporter in the sewing industry. This machine pretty much does everything except for sew for you. It’s incredible. Miss Unity needs her own blog post to go into all the details. But if you ever have questions regarding, Baby Lock, feel free to leave me a comment and I’m happy to help!
Here is my Baby Lock Evolution 8-thread Serger and Coverstitch Machine. This use to be their top of the line serger, but they have since released the Ovation. It is similar but has some additional bells and whistles such as a larger machine throat area, a front presser foot lift and more. The Evolution serger is a work-horse and has jet-air threading. If you’ve never experienced Baby Lock’s air-threading, it will blow your mind. Again, my Evolution deserves her own post……we’ll save that for another day.
I have one other machine that is currently in storage (since the house is on the market). I recently received a Baby Lock Sashiko Machine. I haven’t had a lot of time to play with that machine since it arrived before our sweet baby #4, Josephine Mae, made her appearance. Once we move to our new house, you can bet that you will see some projects using that machine. I can’t wait!!
Here are some pictures of some spools of trim and thread. I sew with Madeira thread for everything. I use polyester for clothing, cotton for quilting and embroidery thread for machine embroidery. This thread is such high quality. I’ve used other brands, but now I’m hooked on Madeira. The small thread rack is from Joann Fabrics.
Here is my favorite Katie Daisy print in my studio. My mom gave this one to me. I love absolutely everything Katie Daisy. I have a few other pieces in our home. Her style just makes me happy. You can check out more of her prints HERE.
This is where I store my scrap fabric. I’m constantly sorting through these scraps and selling off some scrap bundles over in my Etsy shop. This set of drawers also has a bunch of layer cake pre-cuts, vintage hankies, tea towels and some embroidery that I’m currently working on.
Here are my books, ‘Sew Classic Clothes for Girls‘. I keep 10-20 in the studio at a time for retail orders. The rest are stored in the second floor of the garage. If you order directly from me then you receive an autographed copy. You can also order through Amazon and some other retailers.
So there you have it! My current sewing studio set-up. I love this room. The windows and light is fantastic. It’s also a blessing to have this sewing space on the main level of our home, so that when I pop in here during the day, my kids never feel like I’m very far away. I hope you enjoyed the tour! I guess the next Cottage Mama Sewing Studio tour will be in our new home……..wherever that may be!
Happy Sewing!
Lindsay Wilkes is the owner and designer behind The Cottage Mama. She creates timeless, vintage inspired sewing patterns for children’s clothes. She is also a fabric designer for Riley Black Designers / Penny Rose Fabrics, author of the book ‘Sew Classic Clothes for Girls’ and can be seen teaching nationwide and online in her video series ‘Lessons with Lindsay’ sponsored by Baby Lock Sewing and Embroidery machines.
I absolutely love your sewing area and look forward to see what you put together in your new home. Thank you for sharing a bit about your machines. I’m in the market for a embroidery machine and love knowing what my favorite seamstresses are using!
I have a question about the Evolution Serger and Cover Stitch. I have a basic serger – Brother 1034D that I bought from a friend for $25.00 and it has been worth way more than that. I am really wanting a Cover Stitch machine since I am a little fascinated with sewing with knits and love the finish it produces. Does the combo machine do as good a job as a separate cover stitch machine would and what is the approximate price of the Evolution?
Thanks
Phyllis
PS – your studio is beautiful. Make me very envious.
Phyllis I know you asked Lindsay, but I have gone through this question myself, so I have some thoughts on this topic 🙂 I own a babylock serger (the imagine, and I have had it for almost 12 years) and felt like I needed a cover stitch machine to really professionally finish my knit items. So I went back to babylock (since I OMG love my serger and it’s magic threading) and looked at all the new sergers (there were NOT that many options and models when I got my serger) and really debated between upgrading to a fancier model with cover stitch capabilities, or just a separate cover stitch machine. Ultimately after test driving all of the machines, I came to the conclusion that I needed to just get the cover stitch machine (my serger is pretty awesome after all) the main reason was because when I make knits, there are several stages where I would want to go from one machine to another, and the idea of having to change the one machine around 3-4 times in a sewing project just didn’t make sense for my sewing. I like to hem knit sleeves, before I sew the underarm seam, I like to top stitch across shoulders before adding the sleeve, but then I hem the whole shirt after it’s all serged, etc. it just makes me make a better sewer because I don’t skip steps (which I know I would get lazy and do, if I was needing to swap back and forth from one mode to the other) Anyway that was my experience!
Hi Lindsay – Beautiful space…exactly what I would expect from you; however, I was really surprised by the polyester thread for clothing. I’ve always used cotton except for my embroidery thread. Why polyester? I’d love to hear your thoughts/ideas on this and may have to consider switching!!!
love your beautiful organized sewing space. however compact it may seem, it obviously has worked for you.
And anyone would be envious to have such a beautiful array of machines, fabrics and accessories to create with. Aside from being blessed with this, you are also blessed with 4 beautiful children. Who says you can’t have it all! Lindsay you’ve proved them wrong!
Love your studio! I had a Unity, which I love, but traded it in for the Destiny, as I wanted the larger embroidery hoop. The Destiny works great as well!! I am with you, I love everything Babylock! They are an awesome company! Thanks for sharing your studio! You are so organized!
I just switched from a Pfaff Creative Vision, which I’ve owned for approximately 1 year, & fought with for 1 year, to a Baby lock Destiny !!!!!!! I absolutely love it. I don’t have any knowledge of the baby lock brand but can’t wait to get started knowing. I’ve owned a Pfaff 2144 for 10 yrs before getting the Creative Vision. I also use a Sears Kenmore which is my go – to machine for sewing repairs
Your sewing studio is lovely. Love the natural light and the view while you’re sewing. Looks so well organized and inviting for the next project. Fantastic!
This is the sewing room we all dream about! I love it! I have the Babylock Unity and love mine too. I also ordered your book and love it as well.
After today’s tour, I can’t wait to see what the new studio will bring, so I hope your home sells quick. Love your machines and would love to upgrade my Janome 9000, but not in the cards at present. I’m very satisfied with it and has served me well, but who doesn’t want a machine with more advanced technology. Thanks for sharing your studio with us.
I love your sewing office with all these colors. It’s a very nice place to create!! Hope you’ll find same area in your new home!
Your sewing studio is wonderful. I have a Babylock Ellisimo and a Babylock Evolution too!
Where are your tables from? They look very sturdy.
What a gorgeous room to get to work in! And I’m so jealous of all the natural light you have! I’m not so lucky here in Seattle ;).
I wrap my fabric around the comic cardboards. They come in packs of 100. I’m on my 5th package. I need more shelves. I have a whole rom but it is a small bedroom. Your fabric is wrapped so neat and tidy. They look yummy. My fabric is wrapped in such a mess. I have ribbon stands just like yours. Same color, on a wooden square painted turquoise and the same knob on top. I have about 8 but ran out of surface space so had to put most of my ribbons in drawers. I really have everything I need for a beautiful craft room except someone to keep it organized and clean for me.
I can’t wait to see your new space. It be beautiful and hopefully help me convince someone to clean it up. hmm…only 3 of us live here and one has 4 legs.
I live here close to Seattle and I am lucky to have my sewing machines in alcove in front of 2 big windows so during the day it is great. but I would love to live somewhere warm.
Beautiful sewing room. Love all that organization. Loads of natural light, which is so great when you are sewing.
Thank you for sharing that very nice studio! For me, it looks like e fairy tale’s space! Every day sewing in that place would be amazing! I live in France and I would like to know where I could find the nice fabrics used for your creations? Are they your creations to? Can we buy them on the web?
I discovered your creations a few months ago and I really love them!
I love your space. Amazing. I fold my fabrics and try to organise them but the boards are a great idea. 🙂
oh my, really love your studio. Dreaming have the same someday…thankyou for sharing
Wow! awesome!! jealous!!!
I agree, I will never use any other machine than a Babylock. The company also is one of the most community giving that I know. They support many small sewing and craft business’ and people. They deserve our loyalty.
i wish i could blink myself there and play, what a wonderful creative space