Friday, April 29, 2016

Spring Cleaning my Sewing Room

I have to confess that I did more of a tidy up than a spring cleaning, but what a difference!  I hardly knew where to start, there was such a mess in there.  You know it's time for a good cleaning when you walk in and want to walk right back out again!

I started with the worst corner - this is where I store my scraps and scrap batting.  When I get busy, everything just get tossed in the corner until I have time to fold and put away the leftovers.  Here is the before, and the after:

Yikes!  Towers of leftover batting and fabric ready to fall over!


Much better now, leftovers are piled neatly and batting is folded and put away in it's bin, except for some small scraps that are easy to grab when I need a small piece for something.

The next area to tackle is the dresser.  Again, random stuff is just piled on top of it - makes it hard to get to anything and is really unsightly!

Now it looks much better - still cluttered, but at least there is some order going on there!

Next I worked on the Design wall area:
I could barely even reach my design wall due to the stuff on the floor in front of the plastic drawers, not to mention the mounds of stuff piled on top.  The two plastic bags of fabric were gifted to me from a friend who got them at an estate sale.  Good stuff - lots of calicos and florals to make scrappy quilts from!  I need to purchase a large bin for those because I do want to keep them.  The rest was just sorting and putting away, so now this area looks relatively tidy:

Much better!

Now to get the cutting board cleared off - both on top and underneath.

It makes it really hard to get anything done when your cutting table looks like this:

Again, more putting away and sorting so now this area is ready for some quilting!

So many projects that I want to work on in all those bins and drawers!  I cleaned off the sewing table, that was also a mass of piles of fabric and leftover supplies from all the projects I've worked on over the past couple months.  Yes, that pattern laid on the floor for several days after I first dropped it - so embarrassing, but I want to keep it real here!  Do you see the ruler jutting off the edge of the table with a rotary cutter sitting on it?  Looks like an accident waiting to happen!

I put everything away, then organized the most urgent projects into piles so I can get to working on them:


Yay!  I can see clean table space!  Plus, as I work on those projects there will be more clear space, so hopefully I will be inspired to get them done in good time.  Now that I've got everything cleaned up I'm ready to get to work and do some sewing - a good reward for the time spent cleaning up.

I'm linking up on Cheryl Sleboda's blog - She and some bloggy friends did a fun spring cleaning blog hop and she has started a link up on her blog for other bloggers to join in!  I felt so much better seeing that mine is not the only hot mess sewing area around, so go ahead and check out all the other posts.  I hope I can keep my room looking a bit better this month, but I can't promise anything!  At least I hope I can get some of these piles of projects finished up.

What causes the most mess in your sewing room?  I know that I just have too many projects going at once and it makes it hard to keep things neat and tidy.  But I just can't see myself as a one project at a time kind of a person, so I will have to try a bit harder to keep things neat.

3 comments:

spacer said...

This morning 2 quilting friends were stopping by to pick me up to shop hop. It is amazing how quick a sewing room can get picked, especially when there is an empty quilted bucket sitting on the sewing table.

teachpany said...

I'm not officially moved into my new studio yet. I still need to finish painting and get a sewing desk (or figure out how to use a router to make the desk I want). So, my small area in my "living room" is a mess, too. Some things are up in the studio, and others are here. I'm hoping the person I asked to make my desk comes through this week, and then my DS promised a weekend to help finish painting and get the room organized, and move my machine up. It's not easy to stay neat when it's a disaster to begin with! Your room needs more shelves, I think. And I loved the little peek at your Island Batiks pillow! Good luck!

Miriam said...

I had to laugh--with you! My work area is on a par with yours... I seriously try to organize, but chaos rules. Most of the time I know exactly where a project is hiding. One of my co-workers had a sign on his cluttered desk: A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. After seeing another co-worker miss deadlines because of OCD and arranging pencils and note pads, I'm inclined to agree. Love me, love my mess!!!