Stop staring and start sewing!

Build your own DIY cutting table for your sewing room

I get a lot of questions about how I made my big cutting table and it's so simple you'll be amazed. It's got a big work surface (80" x 60"), oodles of storage, and it goes together quick and easy.  No power tools needed!

Here's my supply list:

* 2 Hollow Core Interior Doors 80" x 30" (about 28.00 each)

* 4 Omar 36" long Shelves from IKEA (or similar shelves) (24.99 each)

* 2 Omar 18" long Shelves from IKEA (or similar shelves) (18.99 each) (these are optional)

* 3 Mending plates (w/ 4 holes each) (about 1.00 each)

Assemble your metal shelves so they are all at the height you need (the whole shelf unit is 36" high but the lower shelves are usually adjustable).  

Secure your doors to each other using the layout picture below.

Place your doors on top of the shelves (mending plates facing down) and center it so the edge of the doors hangs over by about 4" all the way around.  You are done. I've never had mine shift off because the doors are pretty heavy (but we don't live in an earthquake zone and the boys aren't allowed to wrestle in here). My husband has climbed up on the table to install our new lights and it's crazy solid.

Here's a closeup of the center mending plate (I took this picture under the table, it was tricky).

Here's the top. It's the perfect width for one of those big cutting boards. I really love this work surface.

The 18" wide shelves are optional. I pull mine out and stuff big boxes of fabric under there.  You might want to leave one out (or both) and maybe put a trash bin at the end if that's where you do most of your work.

I had a similar table a few years back for my fabric store and it was nice but smaller than this new one (and we made it much more complicated than necessary). I still get questions about it but honestly, the new one is better.

Here's the same room with new everything (floors, paint, lighting, curtains, everything!) and our bigger table.

It's my happy place.  I hope you found this to be helpful!  Let me know if you make one, I'd love to see pictures.  Keep on sewing!

Doohickeys and thingamajigs, etc.

Who knew shopping for industrial sewing supplies could be so much fun?  I've been getting little accessories to go with my new/old Juki and it's really been nice.  The one thing I really needed (that isn't part of this particular machine) is a built in thread cutter.  When I've got my little assembly line going it's kind of pesky to have to stop and pick up my scissors and cut the thread by hand (sounds like a small thing but I'm all about efficiency here baby). 

I found this nifty little item on eBay and it really does the trick.  It attaches to the side of the foot (using the same screw you use to secure the foot) and has coils to hold the thread while the razor cuts them.  The razor lays flat on the coils so it's not a slicing danger for my fingers.  The coils also keep the thread secure while you start on your next stitch (so no more pulling out a length of thread to avoid having it pulled back through the needle).  Fun!

 

And then I found this little goody.  A magnetic seam guide.  You just move it to wherever you need your seam and it holds tight.  Nifty!  You can get them from any place that carries Dritz notions and they run around 5.00.  Well worth it.

 

Here's an idea of what it looks like in action.  If you're not ready to invest in a 1/4" foot then this is the way to go.

 

And here's some eye candy.  Daffodils in bloom!  Joey bought that cute little milk jug for me from a local crafter (he saw me swooning over it at the local Art Walk and snapped it up for me, nice man) and it's the perfect place for my flowers.

 

And I got a chicken (it's ceramic but whatever)!  We're not allowed to have chickens in our housing development (it grates on my nerves that we pay the mortgage and they can tell us what we can't do with our backyard but that's a whole 'nother episode....) so this little cutie will have to suffice.

Anyway, we're just enjoying the Spring and taking a break from school this week.  The Arizona weather is lovely so I may just go outside and see what's going on.

My new (old) machine. She's a monster.

I'm so glad some of you took my advice and made some money selling your Loopy stash.  Isn't that fun?  I'm not sure why that fabric is in such high demand right now but I seems to be an Australian thing.  I'm curious.

Anyway, I've been wanting to show off my new machine for awhile now!  I bought a 20-ish year old industrial Juki from a dress shop in Phoenix (God bless Craigslist!).   It's a DDL 5550.  She was asking 395.00, we offered 300.00 and got it for 350.00.  Yay!  It's fast.  Scary fast.  But it was exactly what we needed to crank out our Christmas orders and has made life much easier around here.  Check out the 1/2 horsepower motor.  This thing weighs a ton and it took a lot of effort to get it upstairs and settled into it's place.  It's not going anywhere.  The machine part tips back on a hinge but I don't do without Joey here to help since my friend Karen LePage had an accident with her industrial machine (story here but it's not for folks who are squeamish).

I love this side bobbin winder so much.  I just pop the bobbin in and it winds it while I'm sewing.  So efficient! 

So this is my new Hipster Haberdasher factory set up.  My regular machine is for putting buttons on the laptop cases and the Juki does the rest. 

I got a 1/4" foot for it and decided to try a scrappy block with it.  I was in such a hurry I put some strips together in the wrong order.  Duh.

It's going to take some adjusting since the first block on my new machine was a little off from the others and the second block came up significantly goofy compared to my previous blocks done on my other machine.  I can make this block work with some stretching and tweaking but I definitely need to make some adjustments before trying again. 

I hope you're having a great week.  We are in the middle of The Great Uncluttering here in our home so it's been extremely messy and ugly but we are now in the process of tidying up and it's really feeling much more clean and sparce.  We still have a ways to go but are so glad we went from "Where do we put this?" to "Why are we keeping this?".  We should have asked ourselves that question in the first place.

Crafty folks are good at making messes but it's really hard to feel inspired if you live in a mess too long.  Onward and upward!