A Tour Of My Craft Room

I've been meaning to write this post since last summer when we decorated what was Daniel and Eleanor's toy room.

We had a two storey extension built on the side of the house when the children were small. Upstairs, Eleanor's bedroom was extended from a box room into a decent sized space, she now has a double bed in there along with fitted wardrobes, and downstairs the kitchen was made bigger, and a new room was created. The new room isn't huge, it's long and narrow, but we made it into a toy room, somewhere to store the many toys that Daniel and Eleanor had, and occasionally they'd play in there too. As they got older, Eleanor would use this room to mess about on her musical instruments and practice her singing and eventually the room became a bit of a dumping ground, a place where we started hoarding things. It got out of hand and we decided to have a massive clear out, most of the things we were storing in the room were of no use to us so they were either passed on to someone who could make use of them or sold on Ebay. We made a bit of money which will come in handy, but the best thing about sorting everything out is that the room has now been made into my very own craft room.

The desk is an old computer desk. It had a bit of ink staining on the top of it so I bought a piece of PVC from Dunelm to lay on top. I think the button design is perfect for a craft room.

Daniel bought me the lamp as one of my Christmas presents and it's brilliant. It gives out different types of light depending on what you're doing and has different brightness settings too.

Once I start using my new sewing machine it can sit on the desk and I won't have to put it away after each use.

To the side of the desk is one of my dining room chairs, we have six but only have four set around the table so it gives me somewhere to keep one of them if I use one in my craft room. On the back of the chair is the lovely bed runner which my lovely friend, Susan, from Granny Smith's Quilting, made for me. She brought it all the way from Australia and you can read all about it in A Beautiful Quilt post. I like to keep it here where it can be seen and enjoyed.

There's a couple of shelves above my desk which hold knick knacks, notebooks, a candle, a little tray where I pop all manner of things, and Paula Pig who you can read about in my Itty Bitty Craft Projects post.

The main shelves were here when the room was a toy room, they stretch the whole width between the walls and they were so handy for storing Daniel and Eleanor's toys, but now they're perfect for all my craft items.

I've bought quite a few storage boxes in different shapes and designs, I think they look more attractive than having lots of craft items piled up, and it makes it easier to find what I'm looking for.

To the left on the top shelf is a big box of Stylecraft Special DK in an assortment of colours. The pink plastic box contains oddments of acrylic yarn. The box on the right hand side contains lots of papercraft items.

On the middle shelf is Eleanor's sewing machine, two needlework boxes, the largest of the two is Eleanor's, the smaller one is mine. The pink spotty box contains a few fat quarters and some bits of material ready for when I start on my sewing adventure, the box underneath it stores knitting patters and the one underneath that holds bits and bobs for cross stitch. The large plastic box contains more Stylecraft Special DK, this time in autumnal colours. I was going to start on an autumnal blanket but still haven't got round to that. At the end of this shelf are some of my craft books and magazines. I've got more which were put in the loft when we were decorating and I still haven't got them back down yet.

To the left of the bottom shelf are an assortment of tins containing buttons, needles, ribbons, all sorts of things really. There's also my weighing scales there and my yarn winder. There's a couple of needle felting kits, one is mine which I haven't had a go at yet, the other is Eleanor's. Would you like to see what she made?

On the right hand side of the shelf is a box containing all my indie dyed yarn. It's full to the brim.

The next box along is full to overflowing with commercial yarn.

The pink box is full of both types of yarn which won't fit in the other two boxes.

The wicker basket sitting on top of the boxes held an assortment of gifts which Daniel's girlfriend bought me for Christmas. It now holds the beginnings of my mini skein collection. I've decided that I'm going to make a scrappy blanket. In theory, these blankets are made out of oddments of sock yarn left over from knitting socks, but you'd have to knit a hell of a lot of socks to get enough leftover yarn to make a blanket of a reasonable size so I think mini skeins are the way to go.

You'll see quite a few little suitcases dotted here and there. These hold my scraps of sock yarn, both commercial and indie dyed, though I do keep each type separate. There's quite a lot left over from some projects and not quite so much from others. These will be knitted up into my scrappy blanket.

There's also room on the floor underneath the shelves where I can store things.

On the bottom shelf are baskets and tubs holding the larger projects I've got on the go, including my Spice of Life blanket, a granny stripe blanket and my Joyful World cross stitch. There's also a cross stitch frame, toy stuffing and a brown paper bag which holds the things I've just bought ready to have a go at dyeing my own yarn.

In the corner is my flower press, a jar holding lots of teeny tiny colourful pom poms and my collection of old knitting needles which were passed down from my mum and grandma. I've got lots of different sizes and makes but the pouches to the side hold all my more up to date needles and crochet hooks, and you can also see the interchangeable set that Mick bought me for Christmas.

There's a little hook on shelf here where I keep the project bags I'm not currently using along with my sock blockers.

On the floor, underneath this shelf, is my guillotine, my still boxed sewing machine, blocking mats and my swift.

Would you like to see who's at the other end of the room?

Anyone who has a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel will know that you can't go anywhere without them following, they don't like to be left on their own, even for five minutes. The last time I was able to go to the toilet alone was back in 2010. Needless to say, Archie has a bed in this room where he can settle down whilst I'm crafting away.

He's looking a little bedraggled at the moment but he's going for a haircut on Monday so he should look his usual handsome self again then.

I'd like to get some sort of bookshelf to go between my desk and Archie's bed, as you can see, there's plenty of room for one.

On the wall are two prints of original embroideries by Amy Butcher. I bought them at Spring Into Wool last year.

So there you have it, my own little crafty space. I think the best thing about it at the moment is having everything organised but it will come into its own once I start sewing as I won't have to put the machine away each time I use it.

And yes, looking at these photos it does make me realise how much yarn I've got. I really need to make a concerted effort to use some up before I buy more. Having said that, I've just had a delivery from Wool Warehouse. Oh dear, where's it all going to go?