Dixie's Sewing Room

Come behind the scenes at Dixie DIY and tour Dixie's sewing room in Austin, Texas.

My favorite thing about my room is that it's all mine and no one else's! Well, I occasionally share it with my cat. I love that I can shut the door and forget about the mess lurking within.

Tell us about your space

My room is quite small. I've seen walk-in closets bigger than this spare bedroom, but it's enough space to work in. There's a decent sized window and a tiny closet stuffed full of non-sewing supplies like gift wrap and scrapbooking paper.

Mostly the room is set up for clothes sewing with a cutting area, ironing board and sewing table.

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

I painted stripes on the walls in four shades of coral pink. The whole room tends to have a rosy glow, especially at night with only artificial light.

I sewed some cute little curtains and I've got a matching lampshade that I also made myself.

How do you keep organized?

I don't, ha! Seriously, I majorly cleaned up this place for these pictures.

I often work on several projects at once so when switching between them I'll dump all my half-sewn fabric into one of the top drawers of my dressers and return to it later.

For older projects that I have ignored to far too long but don't want to give up on I gather everything into plastic shopping bags and put those in the bottom drawers.

I've got a big box container thing under my sewing table for easy access to sewing supplies that don't get used as often like serger thread or snaps.

Any tips & tricks for organising supplies?

Utilize wall space. If I don't see my supplies I forget I have them so I put items I use often in hanging baskets or hooks on my wall. Plus, putting stuff like scissors and thread on the wall keeps my table clear as I'm sewing.

I hang up rogue pattern pieces on clothespins on one wall until I have time to put them back in their envelopes.

For patterns I print at home I keep them all in labeled 6"x9" manilla envelopes. They're the same size as most of my store bought patterns so I can keep them on the same bookshelf.

For my "cutting table" I bought two big dressers from IKEA, backed them together and use the drawers to store my fabric stash by type. There's a drawer for knits, wovens, quilting cottons, etc. I organize my folded fabric vertically in the drawers which makes it easy to see all my fabric at once without having to dig.

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

For some reason my friends and family all like to give me cupcake related knick-knacks so I have a little display on a bookshelf. It's kind of cute.

I occasionally do embroidery and one time I made embroidered portraits of me and my husband that I hang on the wall.

How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?

I have a small notebook for sketch designs. Other than that - Pinterest is my friend.

Where do you look for inspiration?

Sewing and fashion blogs are always fun. I'm also quite inspired by historical and vintage clothing. You'll often see cool shapes and details that don't appear much in modern clothes.

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

Does hiring a maid count? That and a larger space and a coverstitch machine.

Whose craft room would you love to explore? Send us a message!