Pegboard for the Win!

I am LOVING having pegboard in my shop, it's been really helpful for organizing and storing so many threads, notions, etc.  I may paint it in the future, because I've seen some painted pegboard on Pinterest that is really cute.  For now, the pale gray works fine with my Shabby Chic sewing room.

** If you're wondering, yes, my dress form is at a strange angle.  She's not assembled correctly since I brought her home.  I call her ......wait for it..... Aileen!


I have a plastic cutlery tray on my work table, which was much too full.  An organizer just doesn't work well if it's stuffed with too many items. It's much easier to grab what I need now:

Now my scissors are hung up, and not getting dulled by rubbing against each other. 

My cone thread sits on a rack I bought on our local online Buy and Sell. The pegs are too thick to fit regular small spools of thread, and those spools were getting very tangled sitting in a plastic storage bin.  Now they are separated by colour, and live in these cute Easter buckets and baskets, from Dollar Tree.  The pastel colors work with my decorating scheme, and each bin was 1.25!

From another dollar store, I bought these white baskets, 2 or 3 for a dollar.  On these hangers, they sit at an angle that is perfect for seeing what I have and easily grabbing it.  One bin for handsewing tools (thimbles, beeswax, etc), one for tracing wheels, and one is dedicated to bandaids.  The last thing you want is to get a minor cut and then bleed on a customer's garment - I have bandaids in a couple of locations in my shop.

And this little corner table was purchased at my very favorite thrift store, Nu2U in Olds, Alberta.  I think I paid about $8 for it, and it now holds my pressing tools - tailor's ham, clapper, spray starch, iron cleaner. 

My shop is mostly set up and organized, but my new worktable is coming on Thursday.  The Olds College fashion program has moved to fancy new digs in Bow Valley College in Calgary.  So the sewing tables from the Olds campus are being sold - one of the tables I spent so many hours at in school will be coming to live in my shop.  They are huge, and heavy and I am so excited to have a worktable big enough to lay out fabric for cutting.  I used to be happy cutting out patterns on the floor, but my body reminds me that I am no longer 20.  Cutting pattern pieces at the correct height saves a lot of money in chiropractor bills! 

**Update:

Here's my worktable, a whopping 4 by 8 feet!  I can get some serious work done now!