Decorating My Sewing Room: Using Thrifted Materials

Sew Organized for the Busy Girl has really inspired me to get my sewing room organized.  Time is so much more limited with a new baby and it's embarrassingly true that I waste far too much sewing time looking for things instead of sewing when I get the chance.

My habit of buying crafty items at yard sales has not kept pace with using such items and I am now trying to change that!  

First up, is a big thread wreath.  I used to buy any and all thread I came across at yard sales.  Sometimes I would use it for sewing but have since learned that very old thread is unreliable within one's projects.  It becomes brittle and often dusty, not something you need in your machine.   About two years ago, I made this thread wreath with autumn colors.  It was finally time to use the rest of my thread stash and make a rainbow one to decorate my sewing room.  This thing is heavy, many of the spools are wooden.  I love how it came out.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, four years ago (!), I went to Quilt Market and bought this Basic Grey Canvas Sampler at the Sample Spree.  I finally put it together over the weekend, adhering fabric scraps via "wonder-under."  Choosing the fabrics took an eternity, actually putting the whole thing together was very quick.  Once all of the fabrics were placed, I sewed some vintage glass buttons at most of the patchwork intersections.

Wooden embroidery hoops are always easy to find and cheap to buy at yard sales.  I've stashed these for years and tortured myself by tripping over them as they lay in the corner of my sewing room for months recently.  I finally selected a non-traditional rainbow of stash fabrics and put these together as hoop art.  I really like how this looks, this picture doesn't do it justice.  I will add to it as I find more wooden hoops at yard sales.

Eventually I will do a "final reveal" of my sewing room when everything is put together.  That may be a while, my next project is to organize my patterns- a mammoth task I'm still not sure how to approach.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts at Finish it up Friday.