How are your sewing room ergonomics?  Do you hurt after you sew?  I used to….but not anymore!   This is a no-brainer but I’ll say it anyways: sewing shouldn’t hurt.  I knew for a long time that my set up wasn’t ergonomic but, like many problems, I was too lazy to deal with it. Here’s what OSHA says you should be doing at your sewing machine: Makes sense.  I knew this for a long time before I acted on it. My cutting table was too low  (meaning I had to hunch over to work) and my sewing table was too high (meaning my arms were not parallel with the floor).  Sound familiar? To deal with my cutting table, I put upside down plastic buckets under the legs to prop them up and make them higher.  I bought the buckets at the dollar store.  They were intended to be a part of a sand digging kit for kids but I took the handles off and now they just look like those bed risers you see for $20+ a set.  Except mine are purple.   And $4. =) The sewing table was a little harder, which is why I put it off for so long.  I haven’t been in power tool mode for many months but…finally, a power tool mood struck yesterday!  I busted out my long lost jigsaw.  Don’t usually see these in the sewing room, do ya? Even though it’s less powerful and versatile than a circular saw, I prefer my jigsaw for little projects.  As a seamstress, it’s just more intuitive to work with the up-down motion.  It’s also WAY lighter which I good because most circular saws are really too heavy for me to work with comfortably. Since I was in my sewing room anyways, I used my quilting ruler to mark the spot where I was going to chop off each of the legs.  I made a saw dusty mess on top of my already messy sewing room… But I was smart enough to cover my fabric stash…. Now I have these little leg stumps.  I used them as pattern weights last night – pretty sweet. As you can see, the cutting got a little wonky…I was worried that it would make the table wobbly, but it totally doesn’t.  I managed to make them all wonky in exactly the same way. =) My newly chopped-up sewing table: This is my “impromptu power tools in the sewing room” face…yes I was wearing my blue shiny, lacy matching chemise-and-tap-pants set I made for lounging a while back.  You never know what you’ll be wearing when the power tool mood strikes! I agonized over it but once I took my saw out it was literally a 10 minute job start to finish.  10 minutes of power tools….infinitely more comfortable workspace for all time.  You do the math. If you haven’t dealt with your sewing room ergonomics, do it now! OK, that is the end of today’s PSA. Hope everyone’s having a good Wednesday! <3 Erin

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