DIY Sewing Room Cutting Table IKEA Hack

Since my last few sewing room organization posts, I've received a lot of email questions about my cutting table.  So today I thought I'd walk you through the details!

Here's the basics:  The table measures 31" wide, 63" long, and 34" tall and is made from 2 Kallax shelf units from IKEA, with a desk top surface (also from IKEA) attached to the top.  There are also locking wheels underneath to allow me to move the cutting table if I need to.  

**This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.

The wheels also help to add a little height to the table which makes it a great height for cutting.  This table is 34" tall, but if you're tall and need a taller table, you could use legs instead of wheels.  IKEA sells legs of various sizes (such as these and these.)


For the table top, you'll need a piece of wood that is at least 31" x 58".  We found a desk top at IKEA that had the right measurements but you could also grab something from Home Depot or Lowe's.  

edited to add: IKEA has changed the sizes of the desk tops they offer and I believe this size is no longer available. That may change again in the future however. 

IKEA sells different inserts to use inside of the cubbies of the Kallax shelf systems.  In this photo below you can see that I've added drawers, and one door for some different storage options.  

On the opposite side of the table, I use the shelves for books and magazines, and have added some fabric boxes (they come in other colors too - like navy, gray, and black) to store yardage for quilt backs, works in progress, and orphan blocks.  They basically work like nice, deep drawers.  Other insert options would be these baskets, or these hanging wire baskets.

The large cutting mat on the table is from Quilters Rule and measures 32" x 60" (total size) with grid lines for 28" x 56".  The mat was slightly wider than the table so I had my handy brother in law trim about a half an inch off for me with his table saw.  I wanted the cutting surface to cover the entire table top, but another option would be to have a cutting surface on half, and an ironing station on the other half of the table!  Wouldn't that be handy?

This Olfa 24" x 36" mat would work as well, and it would leave a bit of open counter top on one end that would be great for storing rulers or bins/baskets for WIPs! They offer it in blue as well. 

edited to add (Sept 2024): I currently use a Creative Grids 28" x 58" cutting mat and it fits great!

 

I sure love my table!  I love how much storage it gives me and how versatile the storage is.  I love that I can move it if I need to, and I have needed to move it more than I expected I would.  The table a great size for my room - it did feel imposing at first and does take up quite a bit of space, but because of how much storage it gives me I don't know what I'd do without it! If you're limited on space you could make a similar unit using two of these smaller Kallax shelf units.  

Now for the details:  Want to make your own?  Here's what you'll need- 

2 Kallax shelf units (IKEA)
1 wood surface /  table top (IKEA or Home Depot)
1 sheet of plywood 27" x 54" (Home Depot)
4 swivel locking casters (Home Depot)
2 corner brackets (similar to this one)
2 straight brackets (similar to this one)
screws, bolts and other fasteners

Any inserts you'll need for the Kallax shelf unit (drawers, doors, baskets, etc)


Build the two shelf units.  Next, use the 2 straight brackets to bolt the shelf units together.  We put the brackets on the inside of the shelves (on the top so it wouldn't get in the way of anything) - one on each end.  

You'll build the rest of the table upside down!  Place table top, right side down onto the floor.  Then place the two joined shelf units upside down onto the table top.  Secure in place using the two corner brackets, one on each end.  

Next, set the plywood on top of the shelf units (which is actually the bottom) and decide where you'd like the casters.  You'll first drill pilot holes for the bolts, and those pilot holes will go through both the plywood and the shelf units.  (Our bolts were too long, but I don't mind - I just work around them.  You could use bolts that are a shorter length so they don't stick up into the shelf as much.)

Those bolts are what connects the shelf units to the plywood base and helps to stabilize and strengthen the entire unit.  


Once the casters are secured, flip the entire shelf unit over and you're ready to start filling it!  You can add any Kallax inserts now, or use the cutting table for awhile before deciding just how you want to maximize the storage, and figuring out what works best for you.  

Leave any questions in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them!  We did make this cutting table several years ago so we're working from memory on some of these things.  


You can read more about how I use the storage in my cutting table in my Sew Organized blog posts:
Sew Organized Part 1:  Tips for Storing Quilting Tools and Rulers
Sew Organized Part 2: Tips for Storing Patterns, Magazines, and Books
Sew Organized Part 3: Storing and Organizing Fabric and Scraps
Sew Organized Part 4: Quilting Projects

Sew Organized Part 3: Fabric and Scraps

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**This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) when purchases are made through links found in this post.


Welcome to part 3 of our Sew Organized series.  Today we're talking all about fabric - ideas for storing and organizing yardage, pre-cuts, fat quarters, scraps...all of it.  

First of all I want to just say that there's no one best way to organize your fabric.  We all create differently and we're all inspired by different things.  

If you already have a system in place that works for you, great!  I'd love to hear any tips and ideas you have to share.  

If you don't have a system yet, take a minute to think about how you choose fabrics when starting a quilt.  Do you first reach for a particular designer?  Or do you look for certain colors first?  Or maybe you like to work in specific styles, like Civil War era?

To be honest, I use a combination of all of these!  Here's where I store most of my fabric stash. 

As you can see, I use a combination of shelves and bins to organize and store everything.  

Storing by Color

When I start a project I often begin with colors in mind.  So it's most helpful to me to have my yardage stored by color.  

I try to keep myself limited to one stack of each color but as you can see in the photo below my aqua and green stacks have overflowed and are taking over the purple and brown spots.  Time to thin those out a little!

I also prefer to sort my scraps by color but you could also sort them by size.  My scraps are stored in the bins on the very top shelf and everything is just stuffed in there.  When I need to dig through for a scrap project it's kinda fun to just dump the whole bin out and make a colorful mess.  Clean up is easy because I just stuff everything back in, click on the lid and put it back on the shelf.  

Here's another way to store fabrics by color:

photo from Lori Holt, Bee in My Bonnet

This is a view of Lori Holt's storage - cute baskets with everything sorted by color.  


Storing by Size

There are a few sizes which are handy to keep separate from the others.  Anything about fat quarter size or bigger is folded on the shelf.  Everything else is sorted by size or stuffed into the scrap bins.

Orphan jelly roll strips and leftover binding strips (2.5" wide) get put together in this bin.  This is sure handy if I ever want to make a scrappy binding!  

I corral charm packs in this bin - which makes them easy to find when I'm ready to make a charm pack friendly quilt. In this bin I also have a stack of hand cut low volume charm squares.  The bin keeps them from fraying and I can easily grab a few to add in to projects!  I bought my bin at Walmart, and they no longer stock these.  But here are some similar ones on Amazon.

And 2.5" squares go into this bin.  These are so great for small projects and scrap projects like these!  Sometimes if I don't have an immediate use for a mini charm pack, I'll open it up and put all of the mini charms in here with these squares. 

I don't have a ton of jelly rolls, fat quarter bundles or layer cakes.  A few are kept in the closet, and my favorites are on a shelf and do double duty as cheerful decor!

Since pre-cuts like this are already conveniently bundled up there's not many storage options besides keeping them on a shelf or in a box or bin somewhere...

...or displayed in a lovely cabinet like this one!  I love it with the cake stands on top and the bundles of fabric all arranged inside.

Photo from Jessie Lathroum / Inside the Paper Box

Storing by Designer or Style

If you have a favorite designer it's nice to be able to find everything from that designer without doing a lot of digging through everything else.  I have a friend who loves everything from Fig Tree & Co. and keeps all of her Fig Tree prints together on the shelf.  I have two bins set aside for Bonnie & Camille fabrics. Another friend of mine is a huge fan of Lori Holt and keeps Lori's fabrics separate from the rest of her stash.  

 You could also sort by style - all reproduction prints together, all low volume prints together, all Civil War together, etc.  Most of my stash is very similar, but I do keep my 1920-30s reproduction prints together in one bin - and I've been using them a lot lately and have found it handy to have them all together like this.  

I also keep I-spy fabrics (mostly juvenile prints) in a box together and all Christmas prints together.  When I want to make a Christmas quilt I start in that bin and then add in some basics and blender prints from my stash.  


Need ideas on WHERE to store all of that fabric?  
(click on the photo for more information)

How about in drawers:

Photo from My Fabric Obsession

Stand alone shelves like these from Amazon:

Photo from Tallgrass Prairie Studio

Or in a filing cabinet?

Photo from The Thinking Closet

This hanging storage was meant for shoes - but works great for fabric:

Photo from Bryn Alexandra

Plastic bins like these fit great underneath a bed or under a desk:

Photo from Flamingo Toes

And I love this idea - an over the door shoe organizer that's now used for scrap storage.  The clear pockets make it easy to see just what's in there: 

Photo from Pioneer Valley Girl

And another fun idea for scraps - mason jars in rainbow order!

Photo from Canoe Ridge Creations

There's really so so so much out there for fabric storage and organization ideas and I know I've just scratched the surface!  If you have any tips and ideas you'd like to share, comment below.

Want to see even more ideas?  Check out my Sewing Room Organization pinterest board - and be sure to follow me because I'll keep adding great ideas to the board as I find them!


Next week will be our final week and we'll be talking about organizing projects.

Did you miss part 1 and part 2?  Find them here:
Sew Organized Part 1: Tips for Storing Quilting Tools and Rulers
Sew Organized Part 2:  Tips for Storing Patterns, Magazines and Books

Five Friday Favorites: Favorite Free Motion Quilting Designs

Hi everyone!  I'm back with another Five Friday Favorites post.  This time I'm sharing my favorite free motion quilting (FMQ) designs.  These are the ones that are my go-to designs.  My favorites and the ones I use most often.  Any of these could be done on either a long arm OR a domestic machine.  I promise!  I know, because I've done them.  

First, a little about me.  I started doing FMQ on a small Brother machine, bought from my local Costco.  Man that little machine was a workhorse.  It did everything I asked it to - I even quilted a queen sized quilt on that thing!  Then I graduated to my Juki TL-2010Q - which has a much larger throat space and faster speeds.  Then a few years after that I bought a used HandiQuilter long arm.  

I've tried all of these designs on several different machines, so I know that they work.  If you can drop the feed dogs on your machine, then you can try FMQ too!  Now, by no means do I profess to be an expert.  You'll see in my photos that my quilting is far from perfect.  I've always enjoyed quilting my own quilts, and these are just my most-used and most-loved designs!  

#1:  Mod Dotz (or Curly Cues)

This design is available as a pantograph from Urban Elementz but it's a fun one to do freehand!  I love how this one flows as I quilt it.  As I go, I try to keep each loop about the same size.  As you can see, sometimes I'm better at it and sometimes I'm not :)  But it's okay!  That's what I love about the non-computerized quilting - it has personality!  You can see more of the quilting on this quilt here on this blog post.

#2:  Geometric Lines

  

This is a good one to have in your quilting repertoire.  You can make it as dense or as open as you want.  Work on "drawing" squares and rectangles - keeping your lines straight as you can, and angles at 90 degrees.  I used this design most recently on my Mazed Quilt - it goes really well with the geometric aspect of the quilt!  There's an awesome video here, where Angela Walters shows you how to do this design, as well as some other geometric ones.  

#3:  Basic Meandering

  

I hear some quilters refer to this as stippling, but to me this is more of a meandering design.  If this were really dense then I would call it stippling.  Like - REALLY dense.  But I'm not the quilt police.  So you can call it whatever you want.  This still is one of my go-to quilting designs mostly for it's speed.  And I don't have to think much about it as I go.  When I started doing this one, I would try to make the shape of a puzzle piece - some convex curves and some concave.  Keep that puzzle piece shape in your mind as you practice.  You can see more of the quilt and the meandering quilting here on this blog post.

#4:  Medium Loops

Recently this has been my favorite.  I think I've used this one 6 or 7 times already this year.  It's feminine but not frilly or complicated.  This design is just some medium (nickel-sized) loops mixed in with some meandering.  Add in as many or as few loops as you want, just try to keep the loops all the same size.  I like to imagine I'm tracing around the edge of a nickel or a quarter as I go.  You can see more medium loop quilting here on this Little Miss Sunshine Quilt and here on my Little Ruby Quilt.  

#5:  Swirls and Shells

This one is the most complicated design that I do free-hand.  I call it Swirls and Shells, although it probably has a whole bunch of other names.   This one takes me the longest to do, but I love it the most.  If you're new to this one, I would recommend practicing just doing swirls, swirls and more swirls.   Then try adding in a shell or two here and there.  

You can see some great videos that are similar designs here, here and here.  

And this video is great because she's using a domestic machine to make her swirls.  

You can see more quilts that use this design here and here.  

So there you go - my five favorite FMQ designs!  If you're trying a design for the first time, my advice would be to practice, practice, practice!  Get some paper and a pencil and try drawing it first.  Get the feel of how you will move through the space.  Then make some little sample quilt sandwiches (like 20" square or so)  and try the designs out on the machine.  For each design I'll go through 3 or 4 quilt sandwiches before I feel confident enough to move to the final quilt.  

Oh and before I sign off, I'd like to announce the winner of the Christmas Kitsch fat quarter bundle.  Congratulations to  Lorri!  And thank you to all who entered!

Five Friday Favorites: Online Fabric Shops

Today I thought I'd share with you my favorite online fabric shops!  Normally I prefer to see the fabric in person, but when my local shops don't carry what I need, or when I need the convenience of online shopping (which is happening more and more lately!) then I turn to these five shops.  

As a note, I need to add that these are in no particular order, and I receive no compensation for mentioning them here.  They really are my go-to places for buying fabric online!

(Click on the photo to be taken to their site)

The Fat Quarter Shop has a large selection, and I love the extras they have - the sew alongs, free patterns, tutorials, kits, etc.  They also have a nice selection of notions.  I can usually find what I'm looking for here!

Westwood Acres is known for their fun bundles!  They also have some really cool clubs to join, like the newest one - The Mini Quilt Club!  Join the club and each month you'll receive everything you'll need to make a mini quilt.  Such a fun idea.  

Fort Worth Fabric Studio has a fun way to browse on their site - a color picker.  You can't see it in my screen shot above, but when you go to their site you will see it in the lower left corner.  Simply click on the color you are looking for and a list will be generated.  So quick and super handy!  One of my favorite ways to browse for fabric online.  

 

I love checking out what Southern Fabric's Daily Deal is.  They also have a fun club called the Sew-lebrity Club.  It's a monthly fat quarter club at a great price.  Read more about and see the schedule here.

Hawthorne Threads has been a favorite of mine for years.  I find their site really easy to navigate, and I appreciate all of the various ways to search for fabrics (by line, by designer, by manufacturer, by color, etc.)  But my favorite thing is that when you are looking at a specific print, the site also shows you the same print in alternate colorways, and below that the ability to search for coordinating prints by color.  Genius! I can spend a long time just perusing fabrics on this site!  

I recommend checking out each site's blogs, and subscribing to each of the shop's newsletters.  I love that each week I get an email that shows the sales and new fabrics.  And a lot of times there's an exclusive coupon code available for newsletter subscribers.  

I'd love to hear your favorite online shops.  Have a favorite?  How about a favorite Etsy seller?  

Five Friday Favorites: Organization

So...let's be honest.  This hobby of ours can get out of control pretty quickly.  We have fabric, projects, tools, pre-cuts, scraps, patterns, rulers, notions, magazines, threads.... How do we contain the chaos??  Today I'm sharing five tools I use to keep somewhat organized.  And I'd love to hear your favorite ways to stay organized!

#1: My WIPs clipboard

 A couple of years ago I made this clipboard to help control all of the loose papers floating around.  Over time, it became the home for my WIP lists.  I keep this in my sewing space and it helps me keep track of the status of each of my projects.  

The clipboard is just a plain brown clipboard from any ol' office supply store.  I found some fun scrapbook paper, cut them to size and modge podged them on.  Much prettier!

Last year my friend Holly gave me the coolest WIP list to use.  Her husband (the talented artist behind Stately Type) designed it for her and I thought it was SO helpful!  I used it, and filled it up.  Quickly.  He's designed a whole new set of them for this year and you can find them here.  They're available to purchase as an instant download - super handy.  Go check them out!  There are three different sheets:  WIPs to Finish, My Fabric Stash, and Quilts to Make (a wish-list of sorts.)  

#2:  Pattern Binder

Yep this is super fancy, high-tech and state of the art.  Not really.  It's a $3 binder from Target.  In it, I keep several things.  I keep those free patterns / tutorials from blogs and websites.  They stay in here while I'm working on the project.  Then they get filed into a permanent file.  While in this notebook, they're handy and easy to refer to.  

I also keep my new patterns that I've sketched up but need to be tested and worked on.  I also have a section where I keep info for upcoming sew-a-longs, or quilt block swaps that I'm a part of.  

Pretty much any info that is needed for my current and near-future projects.   This notebook is kept in a convenient spot on a shelf.  You can see it on the bottom shelf in the photo below.

#3:  Pattern & Manual Organizers

I have four of these white cardboard magazine files.  At least they're made for magazines.  But that's not what I do with them.  I store quilt patterns in two of them.  All of my sewing machine manuals are in another.  Another keeps miscelaneous papers.  They hide a lot of visual clutter.  I love that.  

#4:  Project Bins

I have just a couple of these bins that I keep to-go projects in.  They're about 13" x 13", so they're perfect for those 12" blocks that are waiting to be made into a quilt top.  There are some different variations of these bins, but I love the ones with handles - so much easier to transport.  When I go to sew with friends I load one of these bins up with everything I'll need - my pinbowl, rotary cutter, small cutting mat and the fabric I'll need for the day.  You can find them at JoAnn (wait for a sale or use your coupon) and here on Amazon.  

#5:  Todoist

Lastly, is my favorite app / website, called Todoist.  I keep my to-do lists (family, sewing, church, etc) there and I can access them from either my phone or the computer.  I love that I can break down a larger project - say for spring cleaning the house, or writing a new pattern - into smaller, more approachable tasks.  And I can put things into categories such as "sewing & piecing" and "family errands."  I check my todoist first thing in the morning to get an idea of what needs to be tackled that day.  

So there's my top 5 tools for organizing.  What are yours?  I'm always on the lookout for great ideas!