It is the time of the year when I start to get in the mood for tidying and making changes to our life and home. Every year I do a clear out of my sewing shed, last year I painted the exterior too.

I love my shed. This year is it's 7th birthday! Can you believe it?

It is a little weatherbeaten and has a few multi-legged residence which I regularly vacate. But, it's had a few coats of paint inside and out and still looks bright and welcoming to me.

You can see it brand new here and in it's second home here. It now resides in it's third and final home on the Isle of Wight.

I really enjoyed having a day to myself to clean it out and rearrange it a bit. My lovely new shell picture from Everly Vintage is a new addition.

My philosophical looking hare, has been watching me these last few years but I can't bring myself to hang anything on those ears!

I'm also rather fond of my 1970's bamboo cocktail trolley 😂 Makes a nice spot for my fabrics and wool. By the way, I have moved all my fabric into storage tubs and keep them in the greenhouse to give me extra space (my fabric stash is ever growing!). I'm going to use these plain fabrics next, linen, double gauze muslin, canvas, jersey and vintage cotton sheets 👌

And a different chair! We found a stack of four at our last trip to Kempton market.

My bumblebee door knocker is the home to a happy spider, so don't knock it!

Next door is my mister's shed

and beyond that is our greenhouse!

You can see it new here.

We have just fitted in a little jewellery making bench for making samples for our company RUST Jewellery

Our main workshop is in London where we both go every two weeks, but sometimes I'd just like time to work on some ideas at home too. So this is a sort of scaled down workbench for light soldering and such. It is such a nice place to work, the light is very uplifting!

I had to put up some blinds so that the sun over heat anything. The wooden lamp stand is the mobile stand that both my children used on their cots!

I have my desk space for designing (and for cutting fabric too).

So that's the end of the tour 😂 Having extra workspace is perfect for us because we have a lot of different interests and love making things. And it's good to have some time by yourself too eh!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my super modern Brother sewing machine, it does everything but make the tea, but it does lack a little, um, style? Just look at this chunk of metal...

It's an Alfa Challenge semi-industrial hand cranked machine, I guess its from the 1950s/60s, but the design didn't change much for decades. I found this one on Ebay, primarily to sew heavier fabric like canvas, although my Brother machine could do it, I don't want to wear it out. I'm hoping this will manage all that chunky stuff. I just spent the afternoon faffing about, trying to get it to work. Also the machine must have been dropped during delivery because the hand crank was bent and didn't revolve. Luckily my mister fixed it with a hammer. The smell of oil, the fiddly tension, squeaky handle, all remind me of my first experiences of sewing as a nipper on our old Singer (that Singer was the reason I didn't sew again until I was 30!).

I think it's a thing of beauty. 

As you can see it doesn't have a base, probably it was mounted into a desk, so I will have a look around for a donor machine's wooden base.

I managed to tweak the tension enough to make a pouch to keep all it's bobbins in!

Today I cleaned up my shed. I have to get Henry hoover in there every so often as spiders like to come a make nests and other creepies...my shed is in a spot that seems to attract critters like that. It's fine with a regular hoover. I have lots of fabric to sort out, piles get higher and higher until they topple over.

I found these empty metal tins at Atlantis last time we went there, I'm thinking to use them to store string (with a hole drilled in the lid) and other bits and bobs.

and I mounted my frame looms on the wall to save space (there is one inside the other, clever eh? ; )

ah I love my shed : )