Outfitting one’s sewing room can be an expensive proposition  After all, between the fabric, the machines, the thread and scissors etc.  a.k.a  all of the essentials,  sewing can be an expensive hobby or startup.

So when I can combine my love of sewing and wanting all the sewing gadgets, and my love of thrift store shopping, it’s a win win!!

Many of the most useful things in my sewing room came from thrift stores and some of them aren’t even traditional sewing tools but work beautifully in the sewing room.

Let me take you on a pictorial tour of the “tools”  I’ve found while out and about that I love and use often.

Organization is always a issue, because I have found that no matter how big a sewing room I have I still need more room.  I’ll easily find a way to fill it up. 🙂

Here is just one solution I found while browsing the shelves at the local Goodwill Store.

Shoe organizer becomes a sewing notions holder

A shoe organizer becomes a notions organizer, priced at $1.99, and works beautifully hanging over the door to my fabric closet.  I do not have a label maker, I would need a place to keep it, but I do have and use masking tape in my sewing room so as you can see I use masking tape labels on the front of the pockets.  I keep elastics, bias binding separated by colors, Velcro, ribbons and whatever little things I don’t have another place for.

Another fun find was my “pattern weights”  a.k.a ceramic coasters.  These were such a great find and they work so well as they are heavy and have little feet and felt on the bottom so they never catch on the fabric and they hold still.  Some of them are Christmas themed but that makes me happy too and for a grand total of $2 for all you see and I have a coaster for the water bottle!

coasters as pattern weights

These next two items are really fun and I must say pretty creative.  Sometimes I make key chains that fit on the wrist. The hardware that goes on the top needs to be pounded on tightly without making a mark or denting the hardware.  I found this cute silicone frog potholder and wooden mallet at my much visited Goodwill store.  As you can see in the pictures below, I place the keychain with hardware inside the froggy mouth and use the wooden mallet to pound on top of the silicone.  It works brilliantly without marking up the hardware.  Total $1.  How fun is that?!

On another trip I found a three pack of hemostats for 99 cents.

These I use for tube turning, pulling elastic through casings and I use them to hold together a seam that I need to hand sew closed, especially for a stuffed item such as pillow.  It was so stuffed that I couldn’t really grip it well to hold it closed while I hand sewed it so I clipped the hemostat on it and I had both hands free to sew the opening closed.

The last item I’ll share with you today is actually a sewing item but these were obviously handmade, which is very cool!  And the workers and at store were very happy I purchased them because they were dying to know what they were!

This is a Tailor’s Tool, I found two of them for $1.49 each.  These are so great!  You can use the narrow top for pressing seams open, the pointed end for getting a crisp point for a collar, for instance,  The curved edge can be used for pressing a nice crisp curve and the rounded thick bottom is the clapper pressing bar.  It helps you get a very crisp seam, especially on hard to press fabrics, like some knits.  You fold your seam over and press it with steam then quickly hold and press FIRMLY the clapper over the steamed seam for 10-20 seconds and you will have a very nice crisp seam.

Of course because I save money on these fun finds and many others I get to spend more money on fabric right?

Hope you enjoyed this small pictorial of my favorite sewing, not sewing items!

What do you have in your sewing room that isn’t a sewing item but you use and love?  Please comment below, I’d love to know.

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Thanks for reading and happy sewjourning!!