Recently I posted a photo of my messy studio room on my personal blog Permutations in Fiber.  One of our regular forum members and a guest blogger here, Karen L., suggested that she would love to see a post about other forum members work areas. She thought it would be great to see how others used their spaces and whether or not they worked in a chaotic mode like I do or kept things nice and neat. I also think that most of the studio photos you see in magazines and online are really not the way most studios look. These types of photos look like “House Beautiful” or “Architectural Digest”. Do people really work in these studios? So this post is about real, working creative spaces. Maybe it isn’t a studio but just a corner in the house or wherever has worked out for creating fiber art. You can click on most of the photos to enlarge and see all the details.

Here’s the photo of my studio (actually when I look at it looks pretty tidy for me). I am working on a variety of paper collages here. There are several in various stages of completion.

And here are two more photos that show various stages of chaos when I’m creating. I do clean up occasionally but most of the time, I have stuff all over the place. And the room is pretty filled to capacity. I need a bigger space but then I end up using the living room, the kitchen, outside when it’s nice…

This photo is Ann’s (shepherdess) creative space. It actually looks pretty clean to me but she says it is messy. Ann wrote a post about her new space in 2015. You can see more of her studio in that post here. 

Marilyn (Pandagirl) has several different spaces that she uses for creating. Her work table is on the left, upstairs storage in the center and her “paper” room on the right.

This is Tracey’s space with supplies set up for stitching. And look at those yummy colors of roving hanging up behind her machine.

And here is Lyn’s work space. She wasn’t going to send any photos at first because she keeps her space neat and she thought I only wanted chaotic photos. She always tidies up after a project so she has a clean slate when she starts a new one. My table has not been that empty in years. Even when I do clean up, there is stuff that lives on the table. I am impressed Lyn 😉

And you might think, like mother, like daughter. But Lyn’s daughter Annie sent this photo of her work table. She said “Here is my current project on the go.  I’m gradually getting more stuff out as I’m testing different fabrics and colours etc on my picture trying to find the right bits.  I reduced the size of my crafting table down to about a third recently but it’s clearly not working.  A bit like getting a smaller handbag but stuffing it full! I will have a big clear up soon though before it gets really messy again during the next projects. I have recently had a big tidy up so the most of the room is not tooooo bad at the mo but it certainly ain’t one of those glossy mag rooms!”

Here’s a photo of Carole’s (akaCraftyWoman) space. Somehow, everyone’s spaces feel much tidier than mine. Even my floor is usually piled with stuff.

Lyndsay kindly sent these photos of her work space. She says it’s a bit cleaner than it normally is and “who knew I had so many pool noodles?”

Last but not least, these are Karen’s photos of her creative work space. So much to look at!

I hope you all enjoyed getting a glimpse into the creative lives and spaces of some of our forum members. I know I did, I want to get an even closer look and peer into all the storage areas to see all the yummy fibers and take a closer look at all the samples, artwork and works in progress. It’s such fun picturing our fiber friends in their spaces creating masterpieces!