This is where I do all my sewing work. I am lucky to space for my hobbies, though I don’t have a dedicated sewing room, I feel like I have more than enough space for what I want to do. My sewing station is one corner of my office room, so it’s important that I am able to put things away neatly as I’d be looking at the clutter every day when I’m working my regular job.

My sewing station - iron and dustbuster both close at hand!

The gateleg IKEA NORDEN table is beloved by a lot of crafters for good reason, and two years into having it I’m also as big fan. Being able to put the table leaves down when I’m not sewing, and having a big cutting space available for when I am, is great flexibility. The only downside in my setup is that my room is on carpet, and moving the gatelegs is a bit difficult over carpet, but it’s not a huge deal.

The NORDEN has the option of 6 drawers, three on each side, but as one of the sides of my table is against the wall, I only use the front three. I removed the back three, and now my cats like to use that open space as a little feline highway to check out what I’m up to when I’m sewing. I keep my needles, pins, fasteners, elastics, and bias tapes in the drawers – basically messy but important things that I need frequently at hand.

The pegboard behind my sewing machine has all my other sewing supplies. I know there are nicer ways to display threads but they’re all a bit fussy for my tastes. Several containers up on the pegboard are things I inherited from my yiayia after she died – lots and lots and LOTS of buttons! As well as her old tailor’s chalk and even some machine needles.

The really long stick at the top of my pegboard sticking straight up is an orphaned cooking chopstick from an old pair from years ago. These are the super long, very thick kind that are meant for high-heat cooking or, in my case, for getting ingredients out of my donabe when I’m making hot pot with friends. But since I lost its mate, that lone chopstick has been adopted by my sewing station and is SUPER SUPER handy for turning tricky tight pieces. (Don’t worry, I got a new set of cooking chopsticks that live happily in my kitchen.)