Where WESTies Create: Episode 3, Tawny Bee

Hi, I'm Tawny from Tawny Bee!

I'm a work at home mommy who creates sewn items (mostly housewares) in between shuttling two kids to school, cleaning the house, cooking, attempting not to eat all the leftover Christmas chocolate I find in this house, doing the hokie pokie, breaking up sibling rivalries, finding lost socks, laundry, snow shoveling, etc.

And my work space is in the middle of all the chaos.

Welcome to my basement.

Here is my sewing machine set up against one of the walls right next to my computer.

I move my chair back and forth depending on if I'm working on Etsy on the computer, or if I'm sewing.  Of course, I usually have to boot a lazy cat off the chair before I can even do that.

Directly to my right as I'm working is usually a scene very similar to this:

Those are my little munchkins. They are pretty used to playing around me while I work. If you look carefully to the very right of the photo is the entrance to my laundry room.... er... I mean.... STUDIO of course. :)

In my studio you will find my cutting table. It should be cleared and ready for me to lay out my patterns and fabric and do some serious work. But instead it has become more of a catch all for various projects on the go. The brown basket with handles holds the squares for the Tawny Bee quilt I'm working on. The blue folded mess is an almost finished rag rug for my son. My homemade patterns are stacked underneath the basket.

Most of my stock in stored in those bins underneath the table. And of course my crafty apron that holds most of my work supplies (scissors, pens, chalk, some safety pins, a ruler, measuring tape, etc) is folded on top of the happy face box. Lace and ribbon of every sort is hanging from a pant hanger above it all.

And the beautiful mural that my son made for me has a special spot on the wall. It features trees and train tracks. Bottle Squid that I made with the kids out of empty milk jugs are hanging right above the table.  I always have my kids' creative energy proudly displayed all over my work area.

We go a little further into my laundry.... I mean Studio... and we see my ironing board.  An essential tool for anyone working with the fibre arts. And once again it is half used as a catch all.  I also use my ironing board for packaging orders.  Hence the packing tape. And another use for the ole ironing board is "snap placing" table. I use my snap pliers to attach all the plastic snaps to my mama cloth creations on this board. Hence the jars full of snap parts. I have an analog Pinterest board above me here where I "pin" all the fun things I find from magazines and general crafty stuff including a calendar for blogging, craft shows, shipping deadlines etc.

Once again, I try to include my kids' art in my work space. Their Sponge Bob art gallery fills me with creative energy whenever they pin up a new masterpiece (this time it's 3 eyed paper monsters).

A little further into my studio we find the back wall where I store most of my supplies.

Fabric lines the one shelf.  It may look a little chaotic, but I can find most everything. The top shelf is for upcycling materials and is covered with a blanket because my cat likes to lay on top of this pile and even though I wash everything before use, I don't want her shedding on any of my fabric. The second shelf features knits, fleece and velour. The third shelf is for cottons. The bottom shelf is for quilt batting. Along the side I store binding, buttons, zippers, velcro etc. You can see my giant hanger full of repair items hanging directly in front of my supplies. I figured if I hung it there, I might actually get to it one day. Nope... that hasn't happened. :)

If you look to the left, you will see my basket of mama cloth and a box full of wrapped toy hammocks on the bottom shelf. And again, above everything is the stuff for my kids - puzzles, games etc.

Devo the Found Objects Robot that I made (on the second shelf down on the left most shelves) presides over everything. He's the Tawny Bee manager and quality control. He always reminds me to do a good job and not send anything out that I don't think is absolutely perfect.

Thus ends our tour of the Tawny Bee work space. I hope you enjoyed hanging out with me today! Stay tuned for more Where WESTies Create tours.