Whether you quilt on your dining room table, in a corner of a guest room, or in a large dedicated studio, quilting will be more fun and efficient if you follow three basic rules for organizing your space.
Rule #1: Quilters Need a Work Triangle, Just as Cooks Do
For many years, kitchens have been designed to make it easy to move in a work triangle between sink, stove, and refrigerator. Lois Hallock’s useful book, Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space [Martingale and Company, 2005], recommends organizing a similar work triangle for quilting’s three essential tasks: sewing, cutting, and pressing. If you have enough room, you may also want to include secondary work areas for other tasks such as laying out your quilt on a design wall, spray basting, and machine quilting.
Rule #2: Store Fabric, Quilting Tools and Supplies Where You Will Use Them
Every quilter also needs space to store fabric, thread, tools such as rulers and rotary cutters, supplies like batting and fusible web, patterns, quilts in progress, books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs, and perhaps finished quilts that are waiting to find a permanent home. The essential rule of storage: put each item near the spot where it will be used, so you don't have to go across the room in the middle of your work .
Rule #3: Put Sewing Machine, Ironing Table, and Cutting Table on Wheels
Buying rolling versions of any of your work stations or storage areas -- sewing machine table, ironing table, cutting table, or tools caddy – gives your work area much more flexibility. This can be especially helpful if you have to share your quilting room with other functions like a guest room or home office.
Tips for Important Quilting Room Work Areas
- Sewing machine. You’ll need a table to hold your machine. Storage for thread, your seam ripper, pins, and scissors should be located in or near your sewing machine table. If you use your sewing machine for machine quilting, it’s helpful to have extra table space behind and to the left of your sewing machine to hold the bulk of your quilt while you sew. Some quilters also like to locate small cutting and pressing mats next to the sewing machine so they can trim and press blocks without having to get up while they’re sewing.
- Cutting table. A cutting mat of at least 24” by 36” lets you lay out a whole yard of fabric at once. Your cutting mat should be at about the same height as a kitchen counter, typically about 36 inches from the floor, so you can cut without having to bend over and strain your back. Storage for rulers, templates, and rotary cutters should be under or near your cutting table.
- Ironing table. A separate pressing station is a must for ironing fabric and pressing blocks. An ironing surface should be about three inches taller than your cutting surface, to compensate for the extra weight of your iron. A standard ironing table can feel too narrow when you’re working with a large quilt or large cuts of fabric. You can create your own wider ironing surface by wrapping a piece of thick plywood with batting, then covering it with heat-resistant ironing fabric you can get at the fabric store.
- Design wall. Not all quilters have them, but if you design your own quilts, you will definitely want to reserve a vertical area on a wall or door for a design wall where you can lay out your quilt and make sure it looks right before you sew. Learn how to make your own inexpensive design wall.
- Spraying station. If you baste your quilts with spray adhesive, you may want to set up a separate area dedicated to spraying. You can either lay the quilt flat on a table or floor, or pin your quilt layers to a section of wall. Either way, cover the spray area with an old sheet to catch any overpray. Keep in mind that spray basting also requires good ventilation.
- Quilting frame. Frames for hand quilting are usually small enough to occupy any spare corner where you have good lighting. A machine quilting frame takes up a lot more space. You’ll need to set up your frame with empty space on both sides, so you can load your quilts on the frame and work from either side of your quilt without feeling squeezed.
See more articles on setting up an efficient and ergonomically designed space:
Choose the right chair for sewing or quilting.
How to organize your quilting fabric.
