Not My Sewing Space

I have told you before that my sewing room is in the basement.  It has an oversized window and with a one hundred watt bulb in the ceiling the light is better than you might think.  This room is lined with shelves on three sides; it was the storage room for all the kitchen, household and gardening items and there are many such things still there.  All these things belonged to my hubby and his deceased wife.  There is a collection of ash trays from their travels around the world from back in the day when so many people smoked.  Seems a shame now that these are ash trays because some of them look valuable.

 There are all kinds of old tins that used to hold everything from tea bags to tobacco. Likewise a shelf of glass bottles.  There are old tea pots, corning ware sets (cornflower pattern), lots of serving bowls, trays and dishes, salt and pepper shakers, a Denby dish set from the sixties...dark brown with orange accents, every kind of small appliance, many apple baskets, ornaments with a little crack in them, sets of corn on the cob holders and rusting cookie sheets.  Some of the orphaned Tupperware lids and old mason jars have been thrown out. 

 All these things represent the decades of life in this house; though old and seemingly junk or of questionable use now, I am respectful of them as I know each thing would have been meaningful to someone at some time.

I measure and do my cutting on a large workbench rescued from a laboratory many decades ago and my sewing machine sits on one of three dining room tables that used to grace the upstairs.  This room is quite cold in winter so I have a little heater to try to warm it up; but this aspect of temperature works to advantage in summer because no matter how hot and humid the day outside, it is always pleasantly cool in the basement.

I look with envy at the beautiful sewing rooms pictured on Pinterest; you know the ones with all the fabrics folded neatly according to colour on specially built shelves or resting in lovely wooden armoires. The walls are always prettily painted and lovely handworked items decorate those walls. All the tools and gadgets get neatly arranged on a super sized cutting mat which always seems to be
there.

 Look at how bright and cheery this one is below.  Look at that chair.  I think that is a design wall in the background.  Feeling covetous!

                 Not My Sewing Space

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  Do I sound a little envious?  Yeah, but truthfully I really don't think I would produce more or better quilting even if I had such a space. And I know I'm lucky to have somewhere to poke about and not have to clear away the mess every time (like when I briefly set up in the dining room).  So...

Meanwhile back to reality, here is a corner of mine...