Wednesday, May 27, 2009

More Messes, Looking for Order

First I'll show you something productive. It's my Hoffman Challenge. The applique is ready to be sewn to the background. I think I'll keep it this size. Hopefully quilting will enhance the design. I keep waffling about the lion - he needs some enhancement, but I'm afraid I'll ruin him.

Once I finished the color run shown in yesterday's post, I decided that I needed to set a goal. The goal was to dismantle the changing table that had been acting as shelving in the sewing room. I've achieved that objective, and then some.

I started moving things out of the closet too. That's when I lost control.

First, these are some of the bins that I found in my closet. Today I'll put them in the Sewing Annex. I left them out, so you could distinguish these from the bins already in there. (Too bad I didn't buy stock in Rubbermaid years ago!)

The front 3 bins, and the top one in the back pile contain more of a stash I inherited from a friend. I think I will be taking these to guild, to raise some money for the Scholarship fund. The bottom bin in the back contains "kiddie prints." hmmm. I forgot this bin existed. Apparently I'd expanded to a second bin, which is already in the Sewing Annex.

The middle stack contains (top to bottom): 1)sports prints (primarily football & soccer) 2) green fabrics pulled for some forgotten project, 3) cow & farm animal prints, and 4) chunks of every turquoise/ocean-feeling print I owned, cut for a project that I never even started.

When I open the door to the sewing room, this is what I see today. egad. The boxes are all empty, saved for shipping. The white bag on the left is full of flannel. I ran out of bins.

When I take the picture from the reverse angle, you can see that the changing table has been dismantled, and I can now access the closet. whoopie.

In the closet, the shelves are pretty full. I need to cull through and be sure that I NEED to keep everything in here. I can already see things that can be sent away, but not many. The beautiful board is part of my quilting frame. It's so big, I have no place to set it up. Hanging on the rod are (mostly) finished tops and quilts basted for quilting.

When I found this box, I had no idea what was in it. It is more of my friend's stash. I have absolutely no use for this. It's gotta go.

Oh look! Wasted space! I don't know what I'll put up there instead, but I can definitely make better use of that!

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me today. I hope to post pictures of PROGRESS tomorrow.

***Now don't you feel GOOD about where you sew? This has GOT to be encouraging even to the most cluttered quilter. I've got you beat. This poor little room is barely 11' square. Amazing.

3 comments:

Jan Krentz said...

Feel yourself hugged, Suzie! this is huge and hard work, too. I know because I moved the contents of my sewing studio THREE TIMES in 2006 when we did the remodel.

My husband helped with my tall cabinets. I have about 3x more stuff than you do.... it is really overwhelming!

pb said...

Looking at your stuff makes me want to not collect "stuff" I know that I have fabric from pre quilting days that is stashed somewhere in my house. How in the heck did you get anything accomplished in such a "full" space. The goal should be not to buy anymore fabric but I just can't help it there is some beautiful fabrics out there calling my name. By the way 4 circles to go.

Quiltedtime said...

I have gotten to the point of trying to only buy fabric when I absolutely need it to be able to complete a project. Unfortunately, that isn't even cheap. I just dropped over $100 online buying fabrics I need to finish summer projects that I have lined up and ready to finish. The good news: Only 1 1/2 days until summer vacation!

Kay