The first thing I wanted to do when I got home from vacation was clean my studio. I had fabric scraps everywhere, buckets in the middle of the floor, books and magazines on every surface. I still had a bag with the Christmas cards we received last year sitting in the middle of the room. Now that it’s all tidy and everything is back (mostly) where it belongs, I thought I’d post some photos of the Orange Room.

This is the orange wall that gives the blog its name. That’s not my whole fabric stash, just whole yardage of any prints. Those glass containers are a coup that I found on sale at K-Mart when we first moved in here. They were on clearance, so I could only get so many, but they’re perfect. Then I found blank ones at The Container Store and bought chalkboard paint and made some more of my own. Drawing supplies, clay, and office stuff live in those. I’m nearly out of room on my book shelves (for crafts and theory only, all others are in our library).

I have two closets in my studio, and the insides are painted orange, too. The rest of the room is that khaki color on the walls. The right closet is for yarn, fabric scraps, paper goods, and tools. The left closet is where I keep fat quarters, batting, solid fabrics, and binders. My camera is just about dead, so I didn’t get a decent photo of the left closet. That filing cabinet in the middle has patterns, articles, party notes, and resources from grad school and library life.

I was so excited about my yarn storage, and I hardly knit anymore. The Neverending Scarf seems to have done me in. I had a brief love affair with crochet last year, but I haven’t done anything with yarn for quite a while. I should fix that, I have some great patterns and yarns.

Then there’s the exit, and those shelves on the left are for threads, felt, postcards, knitting/crocheting tools, and all my miscellaneous sewing tools. And my Webkinz. That little round brown suede stool is for Adam. For the longest time when he’d come to visit he had nowhere to sit. So I bought that stool for him, and it has extra storage inside. It’s still often piled high with stuff, though, so it doesn’t get to be a chair that often.

And last but not least, the desk. This was the design feature I most insisted on when plotting out this room (I made endless blueprints to decide where I wanted things). The long desk against the wall holds the computer, the printer, the office supplies, and my planner and sketchbooks. The short, fat desk is my cutting table. The sewing machine and self-healing mat live here, along with baskets full of pins, bobbins, and other stuff. Can you spot RPM Turtle’s new home?

The legs of this desk are excellent because they provide yet more storage. And I bought a bunch of cork board panels 12″ square, covered them with various orange fabrics, and attached them to the wall above the desk as a giant bulletin board. It’s 5′ wide and 3′ tall. I didn’t show the full view because I’m sure it has stuff on it that I don’t want on here (where I work, my address, fun stuff like that).

And that’s the Orange Room. Now that it’s all clean and shiny, I can get to work on something new…any second now.