Normally on Fridays, I spend much of the day preparing articles for the following week.

Last Friday, though, I was in the throes of the Great Studio Overhaul of 2021 – which perhaps isn’t as great as it sounds. Still, it’s functional and organized, there’s a place for everything, and hence, it’s a big deal to me.

So this morning, I thought I’d show you what was achieved at the end of last week and share a few suggestions in case you’re planning an overhaul job of your own.

These are the types of shelves I put together for my shipping and supply room.

They are industrial looking, and, at a pinch, I’d call them ugly.

There are other shelving options – and much more attractive ones! – but it’s hard to find 24″ deep shelves that are sturdy, affordable, and easily portable (should the studio move in the future). I didn’t want anything permanent, but I wanted heavy duty, and deep. These fit the bill for the most part. I’ll be adding some shelf liners to some of the shelves, in order to solve the open wire concept.

Now, I did have an option of red or grey. For some reason, I thought the red might be silly – after all, it’s just a storage room. In retrospect, I think the red would have added a touch of “something” that lifted the look slightly beyond “utility shelf.”

In short, if you have the opportunity to add a touch of whimsy with color, why not?

I needed the square footage that four shelf units would afford, so I had to butt one shelf up to the other on a corner.

When doing something like this, you really have to be mindful of what you’re storing where. The corner becomes deep and more difficulty to get into, so I knew I would have to put our least-frequently accessed stuff in those corners.

This end of the shelving is our shipping, packaging, and kit supplies. It all fit cozily onto the shelves. There’s a little space left, and there’s a little overflow into the next section, but that’s ok!

Much of this will deplete as the year progresses… I hope!

And these are the other two shelves along the same wall, stretching down towards the only small window in the room (which is where the shelves had to stop).

I’ll be adding a better blackout curtain over that window. It’s got one over it now, but it doesn’t block as much light as I would like.

While I love natural lighting from the sun in the front room where we do our stitching and so forth, I don’t want a lot of sunshine coming into this room. I have good overhead lighting when I need it, but otherwise, I prefer to avoid too much sun in the area where I’m keeping my fabric and storage.

On those two shelves, the one on the left is dedicated to products that are sold in my shop, and the other holds my fabrics, threads, and the like that I use for my own projects and samples.

The cabinets at the end hold my threads. They are “collectors cabinets” from Bisley, which I wrote about here. The cabinets on top have their ground plinths still on them (I should remove those!). They’ve worked out well for me as a good storage solution for threads. They are not air tight, but they keep out the light and the dust.

There’s still quite a bit to arrange this week, especially with some exciting items coming in!

Seconds

Locally, I’m selling off seconds of ready-to-stitch towels with the designs pre-transferred on them.

I will likely have several groups available to put here on the website, too, at a deep discount. They are groups of randomly selected towels from the different designs I’ve put out over the past couple years.

The towels have small flaws on them, maybe a spot that will wash out, or a slub, or crooked stitching on the hem, maybe a mistake in the transfer placement or quality – but they are still perfectly good for stitching. Most people might not even notice the flaws. I can’t use them, but I don’t want to throw them out, so I thought I would sell them as seconds for those who want to dabble with them.

Later this week, once I know exactly how I can make them easily available for those who are interested, I’ll announce it here on the website if there’s any interest.

Coming Up

Coming up, I’ll share some night-time stitching I’ve been working on with you. I’ve also working out a strange tutorial for a completely different approach to a dimensional stitch, so look for that!

I’ve got books coming in, and other products, too, so if you’ve been on the wait lists for different items, keep an eye on your inbox. You’ll get advanced notice emails as soon as stock is ready.

So the work continues! Hopefully, we’ll be back in full swing in our newly organized space by the end of tomorrow. Whew!

Hope your week is off to a great start!