My Sewing Bar Cart

Written on March 13th, 2024 by Pearl Ryder

March is Spring Cleaning Month over in Social Sewists, which has inspired me to share a recent upgrade to my sewing space. I love to organize and tinker with my workspace, which just keeps getting better.

A few months ago, I brought a large desk into my sewing space. We’ve had this desk lingering in our guest room where it was barely used. I raised the desk to full height and moved it away from the walls on all sides, allowing me to walk around it and approach my work from all angles. As it turns out, I love this feature.

I love this large desk for ironing, pinning, and cutting. But what to do with all these tools and WIPs that clutter up the workspace?!

After moving this desk, I quickly realized that I needed a place to put my frequently used tools, notions, and works-in-progress so that I could keep the surface clear enough to use. I contemplated this problem for a few weeks before I remembered this bar cart that we inherited when we moved into our apartment. We’ve never really found a good use for it and it’s been a bit of a nuisance, taking up space in my daughter’s closet. But it’s a perfect little sewing cart!

Bring the tools wherever you need them.

Over the month or so that I’ve had this little cart in service, it has proven to work quite well. My rulers and cutting tools have a place to hang for easy and quick access. My pin cushion, mug for waste threads, jar for pens/pencils/markers, jar for seam rippers/awls/snips, waste needle jam jar, and a few notion containers live on the top shelf - most of these are accessed frequently. The bottom shelf is a bit more of a catch-all for works-in-progress and ironing tools and could be better organized (it’s the place for things without a place). (If this amount of detail is excruciatingly boring, well, I’m writing this during jury duty – think how I feel! ;).

I roll the cart to where I want it - the dining room, the desk where I work with my machines, as a prop for excess fabric that I don’t want to drape down to the floor, or into a closet to hide away. In practice, I don’t wheel it into the closet very often, but I do like the option.

Look at that clear surface!

There’s nothing quite like an improvement that costs no money and uses an item that’s otherwise been a nuisance. Win win. Next steps will be to provide a better place for works-in-progress and patterns-in-progress. One little step at a time.