If you’ve listed to Episode 207, you’ll know that I’m participating in the 21-Day Decluttering Challenge run by Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts. (Today, day 3, is magazine day—I’ve already gotten rid of most of mine but have a few I’ll go through this afternoon after work; then we’re supposed to spend 30 minutes on a UFO. I have a couple of tablerunners that need sandwiching and machine quilting; that might make a nice break from the Storm at Sea Saga.)
I thought I should clarify for myself what my end-goal for this decluttering challenge is as, if you visited my sewing room today, you wouldn’t think it was overly cluttered. It’s FULL, mind you, wall to wall storage units, but organized. I did have one pile of stuff in a corner that got taken care of on day 1, and a few things that had fallen off the wall that I took care of on day 2. But once I get the day’s assignment done I’m using the remaining 30 minutes to move forward on other organizational goals as well. (Waiting with apprehension for Karen gets to the book day and the tools/notions day, LOL. Stuff is in drawers that hasn’t surfaced in years.) So, in my usual mode of using y’all to keep me accountable, here are my goals for this project.
As I said in Episode 207, one big issue for me is moving my office stuff back to my external (region) office and reclaiming the space for personal use at home. Some of that will take a long time as it involves breaking down my current L-shaped desk and finding one with a much smaller footprint that will still suit the task. Meanwhile, I’m going to pare down office supplies, cord storage, work-related books, and so forth.
The quilting-related big issue for me is that, now that I’m doing scrap quilts with regularity, my scrap storage system is woefully insufficient. It’s organized, but in a way that makes it hard to use.
In the gallery below you’ll see a photo of my current scrap storage solution—a nice set of shelves on wheels in which I’ve got my scraps mostly sorted by color (uncut) and then by cut size when I trim them down. Seemed like a great idea at the time. But it drives me nuts every time I go to use it. The drawers just really aren’t big enough, and I think I’d rather sort everything by size and get all the random pieces cut down to usable sizes to begin with. (Yay, Accuquilt!) That means in the long run I’ll need fewer but larger containers. So that drawer unit? It’s got to go. As an “oh yeah, and…” item, I have another variation on this drawer unit that I use to hold all sorts of embellishment laces, specialty yarns, and such when I was art quilting. I have to go through it to see if I’ll actually use any of it. If not, I may vote that unit off the island as well. I’m a little more hesitant on that one at the moment and it’s not really in the way, so it’s not high priority.
Meanwhile you’ll see that the storage cubbies on my cutting table are being woefully under-utilized. My plan is to get those cleaned out and then either use the cubbies for project bins of ongoing projects and UFOs, or for bins of scraps. Also, the pull out fabric containers that came with the storage shelves are cute but useless. I’m visual—I need to see what’s inside a bin. Otherwise they become what these are—random dumps of stuff that I don’t know where else to store and, well, out of sight out of mind. Several of them are pretty much empty but as I like categories, once I throw a couple of things that seem to go together into a bin I don’t want to put anything else in there. Hence, I’d far rather have clear plastic bins that I can label but will also show me at a glance what’s in it.
Also, when the office stuff is purged, I’ll have more room on the one set of shelves that’s still half-office and half-quilting. I may use that for my scrap storage instead. It all depends on how much space I can get cleared off.
The other two photos are my shelves of quilt books that needs another culling of the herd, and then my fabric stash which just needs to be cleaned up once I get some of the project bins and other space-hogs off the shelves. I’ve got two bags hanging from my strip hanger (tie rack) at the moment that will be leaving in the next couple so that corner will look much better than it does in the pic.
As another goal that I actually think will happen naturally once all this gets worked out, I have several quilt-tool-travel-bags that I inherited from my Mom that I hate to get rid of. I know what those things cost and they’re still in good condition. The problem is that they sat piled in her basement for years when she stopped being able to travel to classes and retreats, so they need a really good cleaning. I just haven’t ever taken the time to do that, so they’ve now spent 10 years stashed on the floor under one of my shelves. I want to get them cleaned up and then placed somewhere that will make them easy to grab when I’m packing for a retreat.
And yes, you’re seeing tangles of cords in a couple of places. That’s another thing that will magically get better once I get some of this other stuff taken care of. Baby steps.
So them’s my goals. Here’s to being able to get some stuff done!
Use the link in the top paragraph to join up with Karen’s decluttering challenge yourself! Leave comments here about your own clutter-magnet spaces or your scrap organizational system.
