Crafting Setup for the Neurospicy
It’s time to dive in and talk about your workspace. Whether you have a designated floor, room, or corner desk, I’m here to help you maximize creativity and ease your workflow.
If you're hoping to have a glimpse into a beautifully colored pinterest wet dream design space, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It’s important for me to give you a little background on my own neurodivergence as it will help explain my design choices. I’m not in any capacity a medical professional and you should definitely talk with your doctor about any concerns you may be having.
I am a 35 year old woman diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety. My high level of ADHD causes me to have behaviors that mimic autism. To add a cherry on top, I am also diagnosed with dyscalculia which makes simple calculations incredibly difficult.
I say all this for transparency. Since my level of neurospicy is off the charts, I’ve had to get creative on how to make my workspaces functional for me.
Like my other post, I’m breaking this one up into categories.
Organization
Before you roll your eyes, I will NOT be telling you to keep a planner, buy special bins, or go nuts with a label maker. The paradoxes that are neurospicy homies such as myself is that we like to see our stuff, because if we don’t, it doesn’t exist. This phenomenon is called object permanence. It’s the same reason why you buy multiples of the same items because you literally forgot you already had them. It’s also one of the reasons we are inherently messy. The biggest struggle for me was finding a way to keep my fabric easy to access without spending hundreds on pretty clear bins. I wanted a way to remove and replace individual fabrics without disturbing the whole pile. I hung curtain rods on the wall and attached the folded fabric with curtain clips. My next upgrade will be to get thinner curtain rods and get “S” hooks that I can remove completely instead of having empty clips throughout my fabric stash. That will also make it easier to keep the colors together.
I keep a small, shallow basket on my table with tools I regularly reach for. This basket contains:
my rotary cutter
thread snips
small screwdriver for my machine
seam ripper
post-its
stuff to write with
a homemade weeding tool that I will talk about in the later post.
my computer mouse
I also have a small container with all of my clips and a wooden bowl with my basting pins in it.
After fabric storage and what's on my table, I have a cheap cube storage system full of odds and ends. I don’t use the storage cubes (so I can see everything) and a hanging shoe organizer in the closet for things like vinyl rolls, batting, etc. This set-up is not perfect but it’s what works for me.
Layout
My main crafting table is composed of two plastic fold-out tables side-by-side with an extra long industrial power strip running on the ground beneath it. I like the freedom to walk completely around my table so I keep it in the center of the room. Since I have the power strip, I don't have to worry about tripping over cords plugged into the wall. At least I only have to worry about one cord that's plugged into the wall. To assist me with my many quilting calculations I rely on my handy assistant, Alexa! I have an echo dot in the corner of the room. She is my VIP with it comes to fast math, playing my audio books, and answering general questions for me.
Realistic table full of WIPs
