“A place for everything, everything in it’s place”, a famous inventor once said. Ben Franklin must have also been a crafter/hobbyist as we creative types tend to accumulate a lot of stuff. “Stuff” really isn’t a problem so long as you have room for it all and can find what you’re looking for when you need it.
Your Janome Canada dealer has items like the Janome Pin Pal and the Janome Bobbin Saver2, which were specifically designed to help sewists keep their tools of the trade organized and close at hand. Fabric stores and quilt shops are also good resources for sewing-related storage items, but also check out the office supply and discount stores for some unconventional organization solutions.
The “Office Desk Set” below is easy to find at the office supply store, but also check out second-hand stores, which is where I scored mine. The tray on the left was designed to hold a notepad, but I instead lined it with foam to keep smaller, commonly used items like pins and a tape measure close to my machine. The foam allows me to stick hand-sewing and machine needles in it, so I don’t loose track of them.
The “Pen/Pencil” holder is good for holding a variety of fabric marking tools, and the little metal seam gauge I’ve had for over 30 years. I’ve used it a million times over the years because it’s always had a home, in one form or another, next to my machine where it’s always handy and easy to find. The other “Pen/Pencil” holder is great to hold scissors and is lined with foam to protect the tips of the scissors.
The discount home-goods store is one of my favourite places to shop for storage/ organization solutions. The metal hangers of the “necklace” holder below reminded me of a Barbie closet, so of course, I had to buy it! I thought this would also make a good place to hang strips of binding for quilts in progress, left-over bits of ribbon, etc. The base keeps other items; notepads, embroidery CDs, thread stand, organized and at my fingertips when I need them.
The metal stand below is meant to store nail polish and other beauty items, but for my purposes, it works better to store some of my Iris polyester thread. It could even hang on the wall to take advantage of the often under-utilized vertical space in the room.
Since I use several machines at home in a relatively small space, keeping all the accessories organized, and accessible, yet stored out of the way when not in use is key. The collapsible metal cart was a great find at the discount home-goods store as it fits the Janome MC550E and Janome CoverPro 3000P perfectly! The cart is on wheels so I can wheel it next to my sewing table to off load the machines to use them and put on other machines temporarily. It’s works out great.
I love these red metal drawer units I use for scrap storage and to store commonly used sewing items under my sewing table. The drawers are shallow so nothing gets buried and they were easy to customize with a set of organizers from the discount store.
Since the drawer units are metal, take advantage of the vertical space using magnets to hold items so they’re organized and easily accessible.
We’d love to hear how you keep your sewing “stuff” organized; so please let us know in the comments below!
Happy Sewing!
Janome Life 