The pictures below give you a pretty good idea of the sort of space I worked in while living in the Bay Area of California, where space is at a premium. These pictures are of my studio when I lived in Oakland. Later, we moved to El Cerrito (north of Berkeley), and lived in an even smaller space, though with more light. Then my studio (half the much smaller living room) was smaller, but I also had a huge doorless garage outside for dyeing.  To see a bit of what that space looked like, click here.

Below is a view of my very modest, but practical, studio.  It took up about one third of the livingroom of an apartment in Oakland.  The total workspace was about 10' x 11', and the wall surface area was 9' wide by almost 8' tall.  Not a lot of room, but it was a pretty well-organized space, and the smallness had its advantages; I didn't have to do a lot of walking!  My sewing machine, visible in the back of the room, is an industrial Singer, from the early 1900s.  Her name is Amanda, and she straight stiches forward (that's it; no fancy stuff for her!)  Amanda's head (which you see) is connected to a 1/2 horsepower motor under the table, and she can sew through just about anything!

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