Reorganization

The idea of making better sense of my sewing area has been on my mind for quite some time.  As of late, like the past year, I have been a little more free and loose in my purchasing.  I have been, in part, because I have no more daycare payments and for the time being I have no car payments.  While orthodontist payments have started, they pale in comparison to daycare and the cars are hanging in there.  But I want to curb my purchasing just because I can.

I’ve struggled with what frustrates me the most in my area.  I have each color of fabric in its own milk crate under the table; some colors share a milk crate.  Each color also has a ziploc in the crate for small pieces.  This works super-well.  So well, I’ve bought more milk crates!  So this I want to keep.

I have made a fair amount of scrappy quilts, both of the controlled and kitchen-sink varieties.  So the milk crates are getting low on inventory.  And recently, I’ve had to, gasp, buy backs.  So I think I need to start by refilling my milk crates with what I’ve got in the purple Rubbermaid bins in the closet. 

Meanwhile, as projects have finished, I’ve just shoved their scraps in ziploc bags.  I now have at least 20 of those.  These are making me nuts; they are everywhere. 

So step 1 of the grand reorganization is to pull out the milk crates and color bags and replenish.  The first part will be to go through the scrap bags and interfile all those colors back where they belong.  Anything that reads multi-color, belongs to a holiday, batik or Civil War will go somewhere else.  The second part will be to go through the bins and put larger pieces / yardage in the bottoms of the milk crates.  When the milk crates are returned to their home under the table, I will have quite the palette to work from, and that excites me.

I also can say that I will eventually go through the milk crates and the color bags and cut stuff up using my Baby Go.  Cut the value die, cut 2 inch squares, cut some drunkard’s path, cut some strips.  I only have 4 dies and that is more than enough for right now.

The other thing that came up recently is that Judy over at Patchwork Times is hosting a UFO parade in 2 weeks.  This is like a Bring Out Your Dead exercise to me, but when I go through the sewing area to reorganize, I might as well.  Many of those bins have fabric and UFOs in them.  There’s no hiding it. 

So I will go through this exercise as well.  This UFO list will be separate from the one I work from now.  I like having about 30 to choose from right now; that’s more than enough variety to keep me busy.  But the 100+ that will end up on this list both scares me and excites me.  I guess that is good that my UFOs still excite me.  So I will try and be positive. 

One thing I will not tackle is culling the books and magazines.  I will organize the shelf and dust it but not go through it.  That would be too much right now.