New Studio Workspace Tour

If you're following along on Instagram (@grainlinestudio) you may be aware that on May 1st Grainline Studio moved from our third floor workspace to on the first floor of our building. I never ended up posting a studio tour of the original space on the third floor despite the fact that I kept planning to, but you can see most of it in the photo above. It was an amazing space to move out of my apartment living room into - it was the same square footage as my entire apartment with amazing light and windows - but with all that was happening business wise we ended up growing out of it more quickly than I had imagined we would. I was dreaming of a larger space but with nothing open in the building was pretty resigned that I'd need to make it work for another year.

Then in a rather sudden turn of events I came into work one day and ran into the building manager on my way upstairs who told me a new space had opened and if I wanted it he would need to know by the next morning. That lead me on a very intense 24 hour decision making process which ended up in us relocating downstairs. I'm SO glad we did, we now have three sewing stations, actual desks, an area up front for photos, and a large shipping and pattern storage area in back. Things are functioning so much more efficiently now it's hard to believe that we were making the old space work as well as we were. I figured I'd snap a few photos and give you guys a little tour before we move again. Just kidding, we're not moving for a while - it's too exhausting!

We have three sewing stations, one with my machine, one with Kendra's machine, and one with the serger and cover stitch machine. Previously we were rotating the serger, cover stitch, and Kendra's machine out on one table and it was a logistical nightmare. I'm also super excited about the basket drawers next to Kendra's machine, we're currently keeping the supplies and samples for each upcoming in-progress pattern or project in its own basket which has helped us cut down on random things all over the place. I know a lot of people say creatives work best in a mess but that is 100% not true for me.

Our desks are back to back which makes really efficient use of the space although Kendra has to stare at the back of my computer screen all day long. Could be worse. It is nice that we have room for separate desks because, in my opinion, people need their own space to chill out and collect their thoughts while they're working.

We have a little bit of a plant problem at Grainline which resulted in this front corner plant station. We're currently keeping the front third of the studio open for photos so the plants fit in perfectly here. So far they've adapted to the new space beautifully and are loving the bright dappled sunlight which is great because we were definitely worried about them! We also keep our rolls of paper up front and out of the way while we're working. The dress form is an old Wolf form I inherited which mainly serves as a hanger and place to keep the scissors and measuring tape since we don't use it for fitting.

I was lucky to find that these IKEA tables are about the same height as my Horn sewing cabinet which is nice when I'm sewing long or oversized things. We also have a few of these ubiquitous IKEA drawer units, but they're so handy for storing small sewing accessories, supplies, and notions! We actually need to order more thread holders, especially for the cones - we go through a lot of it with the serger & cover stitch!

We run on military time over at work...or at least my computer does.

Books, notebooks, loons, things to be filed, and more plants.

One nice change that happened around the time of the move, but not because of it, is that we finally got an industrial iron and retired the leaky Rowenta I'd been using for years. When your iron is on 4-5 days a week all day it's not a bad idea to get a heavy duty one. I also love the weight of it - the home iron always felt so flimsy after using these at school and work for so long.

Not shown in this tour is our industrial pattern table which is in the first photo of the old space as well as our shipping & pattern storage, and kitchenette. Those are kind of boring jumbles of industrial furniture and cardboard boxes so if you've ever looked in a Uline catalog, you know what it looks like, ha! I'd like to add another section of the cutting table and an industrial machine in the future but for now I'm so over unpacking and assembling furniture which means they'll have to wait.

Hope you enjoyed our workspace tour!