How to Organize your Quilting Room Sewing Closet
Do you want to have better quilt room organization? Having a neat, orderly & organized sewing room is fundamental for me to successfully exercise my creative practice. And, I’m here to help you get control of your creative space with these sewing room organization ideas for quilters!
If you want to see these sewing room closet organization ideas as a video, check it out here:
Sewing Closet Storage Organization
When is comes to organizing your sewing closet storage space, it’s important to think first about WHY you need it organized. For me, the more organized my sewing space is, the quicker & easier it becomes for me to find the exact thing I need at the time that I need it.
Being able to find sewing supplies, notions, & tools quickly enables me to continue my creative process without pausing every time I need something from my sewing closet. My “WHY” for organizing my sewing closet storage space is so I can get things out of it as quickly as possible! In short, the more work-able my space is, the happier I am!
Create Your Closet Organization Plan
Before you even start moving around stuff in your sewing space, you need to create your plan. When organizing your sewing space, having a plan in place will help dramatically in the long run and give you the most information to use to make your organizational decisions!
Start off with Measurements & Inventory
Begin by measuring the space you have to work with. Get out your tape measure, then take down the measurements of your craft closet. It’s important to note the height, width, and depth of your sewing room closet so you can make the most of all the space you have available.
Next, take inventory of the items you need to store in your closet. If you have a lot of larger items, also take record of the measurements of each item. For me, organizing a craft closet is a lot like playing tetris with all my big, heavy sewing machines, fabric cutting machines, Accuquilt dies, quilting fabric, and other items.
While taking down the inventory of everything you plan to store, think: Can you get rid of anything? While decluttering is definitely not the point of this post and is not my favorite thing to think about, it’s always an option! See if there’s anything in your inventory list that maybe you don’t need anymore. You might be able to gift it or sell it!
Group Similar Items Together
As you’re taking inventory, you also can begin categorically grouping items together. For example, if you’re a quilter, you might want to store all your batting and batting scraps together. I’d recommend that you even get a large plastic container to put all the batting in. Here are some other groupings for craft storage ideas that I personally use:
- Fabric Scraps – sorted by color
- Fabric Scraps from a specific designer/manufacturer (if you want them separate from the colors)
- Finished Quilts
- Yarn and crochet supplies (or any other crafts/hobbies you have!)
- Shipping Supplies
- AccuQuilt Dies
- Quilt backing fabrics
- Packages Quilt Batting
- WIPs
- Cutting Tools
- Thread
- Rulers
Create Your Conceptual Plan
Using graph paper, sketch out your plan of where your larger items will fit. These are some ideas of things to think about while creating your organizational plan for your closet:
- Are shelves or other built-ins needed? Get the most of your space by using the vertical square inches!
- Which items do you use the most often? Place those first in the most easy to reach areas.
- What about heavy items? Sewing machines, embroidery machines, and other heavy items. should all be placed near the bottom for easier accessibility and so as to not cause any bending or broken shelves over time.
Decide on Closet Shelving or Built-ins for your Sewing Closet
If your sewing room closet is like any normal bedroom closet, there’s a good chance you only have one shelf to work with and a long hanging rod across it. That type of setup is great for clothing, but not so great for storing craft supplies! Depending on your situation, it might be worth it to invest in some additional shelves or organizational tools to help make the closet better suit your needs!
When I was going about my closet redesign I had two main sewing closet ideas I was considering:
- Removing the existing shelf and starting from scratch with custom built-in shelves.
- Keeping the existing shelf and just adding more shelves.
Ultimately, my husband and I decided it would be cheaper & sturdier if he were to build some shelves for the lower part of the closet and we just keep the existing top shelf. He ended up using an assortment of 1x2s and 2x3s to build my shelves at the dimensions I requested. This was the most custom of all the possibilities and was definitely the most cost effective for us.
If you don’t have a handy special someone to build custom shelves, you can also find a lot of variety online for custom closet organization solutions. If I were to go with the first option, I had my eye on a couple different totally customizable closet organization options:
- IKEA BOAXEL
- The Container Store ELFA
- Closet Maid shelving
- Floating Shelves from the local home improvement store
Put Your Sewing Items in your Storage Space
Now that you have your plan and you’ve arranged your shelves as you need them, this is the easy part! Start putting your sewing notions, tools, and supplies into their designated spaces.
Put things back “home” when you are done
The hard part for craft storage organization for a lot of people is KEEPING it organized. and trust me, you’re not alone! I struggle with keeping organized too. A vital step in having a workable sewing space is to keep it organized, and that means you put things back in their homes when you are done using them. Maybe that’s once a day or once a week, but I find tidying up after every project really helps me to continue the creative process.
Adjust Your Organization as Needed
You know what I love? The freedom to move things around as often as I need! If something just isn’t working as optimally as you thought it would, you have a full pass to ditch your original plan & keep adjusting until the organizational structure suits your creative process!
If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love to see my entire sewing room tour and learn more organization ideas for your sewing room!
