Florence's Sewing Room

Come behind the scenes at Flossie Teacakes and tour Florence's serene sewing room.

I really love how much natural light there is in my sewing room. It's part of a recent loft conversion, so I was able to have some input into its design and my main wish was that as much of the roof as possible should be taken up by windows. Even on the gloomiest day, the light up there is fantastic for sewing.

Tell us about your space

My sewing room is quite a small space, but I'm really grateful to have a place that's just mine. For several years, our bedroom doubled as my sewing room and I now find that the main luxury of a dedicated sewing room is not having to tidy everything away each night. It's wonderful to be able to sew until midnight and then close the door and go straight to bed, rather than having to launch a late night clean-up operation! My sewing room also doubles as an office (my husband and I run a business designing children's educational apps, so I work on that during the day), but I like being surrounded by my sewing paraphernalia while I work, so I'm happy to share my work space with my sewing space.

What have you done to make your space cosy, beautiful or inspiring?

I really love Liberty prints, so I've mounted a collection of my favourite designs in tiny frames. Having a 'design wall' means there's usually also some works-in-progress decorating the wall and making the room more colourful. I'd love to create some mini-quilts to put up on the plainer walls.

How do you keep organized?

Designing a sewing room from scratch meant that I had the chance to think really carefully about how I could best organise my space. A huge cutting table was the thing that came up highest on my wish list. In my bedroom-sewing-room I'd always really disliked having a free-standing ironing board as I frequently bumped in to it and knocked the iron on the floor, so when I was designing this space, I went for a table that could accommodate an ironing pad as well as a cutting mat. I have a row of plugs on top of the table, so it's also really easy to click the iron on and off in between pressing seams. The cutting table is created from several ikea units, with some legs and a table top added on.

Any tips & tricks for organising supplies?

I try to store things right next to the place where I'll be using them. So right beneath the cutting surface, all my rotary cutters and scissors are stored in one of the drawers. A rack on the wall keeps my threads easily accessible and tangle-free, while a series of small drawers beneath the desk allows me to store all the tiny bits of haberdashery away neatly.

Which are your favourite possessions and are there any of your own creations on display?

My favourite possession in the whole room is the Lego sewing machine, which my children made me for Christmas several years ago when they were really small. It came unassembled in a box, with step-by-step instructions for how I should put it together, which they'd photographed with my husband. It was the most thoughtful present I'd ever had - perfectly me, but also perfectly them, because of being rendered in Lego!

How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?

Often I'll see something and then try to recreate it from the picture I've stored in my head. It's always nice if I come across that same inspirational trigger at a later date, as my finished work is invariably nothing like the original, so using my head as a form of inspiration storage is an excellent way of coming up with something that's truly my own, as my memory is so unreliable! Other than that, I very occasionally go on Pinterest, but more often Instagram, which I find to be a huge source of inspiration!

Where do you look for inspiration?

Again, Instagram is wonderful, but I also look to more traditional quilters, such as Lucy Boston or Willyne Hammerstein.

If you had three wishes, what would you do to make it the dream space?

I'm actually really happy with the space I've got, because I didn't really ever think I'd have a dedicated sewing room. However, if it was to be my dream craft space? It would have an even bigger cutting table; my fabric drawers would be right next to my cutting table; and my desk would be even longer.