Studio Tour!
As an emerging artist, I'm not yet at the stage in my career where I can afford a dedicated studio in some hip artist loft in downtown Toronto. Instead, I'm a 43 year old mom who has had to carve out some work space in my house. Here's how it's going.
My workspace is located on the ground floor of my family's townhouse, which also acts as the front entrance and the exit to the garage. Most of the space is taken up by the entryway and a large bookshelf my husband and I set up when we first moved here almost 20 years ago. My workspace takes up a little corner of this very multipurpose room.
My little corner of creativity
In such a small space, organization is key. I took over the bottom two shelves of our bookcases to house my reference books and materials in Ikea storage boxes.
Bins full of fabric and threads
It may look like chaos, but I have a system, I swear!
Next to me is my art caddy. Again, it looks super messy right now, but that's because I'm working on a piece (oh, who am I kidding? It always looks like this). The top shelf has all the things I need to hand for the project I'm currently working on, like my ORTs jar (Old Raggedy Threads), my pin cushions, and needles loaded with the colours I'm currently using. Some things are permanent, like my box of various sized needles (yellow lid), my ceramic organizer shaped like a spool of thread, and my grid organizer that holds my heat-erase pens, spare scissors, seam rippers, and any other tools that I use for every project. The middle shelf holds my snacks (shhh, don't tell my kids), and the bottoms shelf holds larger items like mounting boards, paint palettes, and my work matt.
The snacks are the most important shelf
This is what my actual work space looks like when I'm working on something. The table folds up so that this space can be used for other things, like my husband's workout bench, but I keep it up as much as I can get away with. I have two different hoop stands, but to be honest I rarely stitch sitting up at the table. I prefer to sit reclined on the couch with the stand on my lap or between my knees. But the table will get a lot more direct use soon, as I'll be filming some craft courses!
Looks comfy, right?
Not pictured is my cat, Neptune, who was curled up on his cat tree, to the right of the couch. He loves curling up next to me legs on the couch while I'm stitching, I'll do a post to formally introduce him, soon.