Spring clean for inspiration

I am extremely fortunate to have my own room in which I can keep all of my fabrics, paints, sewing machine and creative paraphernalia in. It was a dining room at first which housed a huge dresser, a huge table and an assortment of chairs, a hostess trolley(!) and a filing cabinet. I somehow crammed all of my creative bits and pieces in here, housing my fabrics in the dresser and my paints and tools in the, er, hostess trolley! My wool sat in a wine box on one of the many chairs and the whole room was dominated by the huge table which was wedged across the room so I could look out of the window while I worked.

I kidded myself that this chaos was part of the creative process and for a while it worked. Sort of, I was also terrified of appearing ungrateful for the space however crowded it now was, not that my husband is an ogre, but I do spend a lot of time knitting, sewing, puppet making and he is spending increasing amounts of time cooking and unloading the dishwasher!! So I just piled it up and beavered away until finally it spilled out into the kitchen. And that is when it had to change!

I was working in the kitchen, Matt was trying to cook toast and avoid getting pastel dust in the butter, he casually asked why I was in the kitchen and I stated my problem. We swiftly devised a scheme to sell the dresser, move out the hostess trolley and put up shelves. I imagined this would all start in a few weeks time. But it started within the hour! These pictures show the transformation that took place & even though the shelves need painting white ( hopefully a job for this weekend.) And the second set of shelves need finishing as we ran out of wood. But I have sorted out all my fabrics and needles and threads. Everything is in carefully labelled boxes and my creative juices are flowing much more freely!!


This picture was taken after we had decided to sell the dresser so it was being emptied of fabric.


This was the wool store and ironing table!





I am adoring and relishing being this sorted out and organised. It is such a joy to go into my room now and to appreciate the calm of the space. I feel like I can work seriously in there and apply myself to the course in hand. So, whilst I did little actual college work last weekend I was thinking constantly about the tasks ahead and I could feel the inspiration coming together the more I got rubbish out and created the space I craved. In fact on Monday the Andy Goldsworthy essay came together and flowed well whereas last week I had been grumbling to myself about having to write anything down at all!!







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I will add more photos when the shelves are finished and the pictures are on the wall. But for now it is much improved and I have worked in there all day today and been highly productive. Hurrah!!