juliasb

Never mind quilting this morning I Must clear off my cutting table. I can no longer even lay a small piece of fabric out because I have cluttered it so bad over the last few weeks. As I have been cutting pieces, threads and tools are all ending up at my feet. Larger pieces of fabric are being pushed to the sides along with markers, scissors, rotary cutters and rulers. Not to mention just "things" I put up here for ease while I am working. What never goes there is a cup of coffee or soda! In the meantime I must get all the "stuff" out of my cutting area. I must decide what to ditch.
The first thing I touched I am already having a problem deciding to keep or toss. A pattern for baby bibs for the recent charity quilting project I was doing. Now I am sure I have more than one but I have to decide when to stop with this project as I have gone a bit overboard with this over the last few months.
I imagine others here run into this same problem. We joke a lot about the housework falling apart when we are sewing/quilting. When do we call it quits and just dig in to find the 'space' again especially in our sewing area. There was a time when everything was put away at the end of the day. Now that I have gone beyond that point in my life I find that I get so involved I don't know that I should stop and straighten up. I can keep going into the middle of the night. Then I am to tired to straighten up and I start up in the morning all over again and the clutter builds up. Now I can barely find my wonderful cutting area. I won't show you a picture until after it is back in shape. How do others here handle it, on a day to day like I use to or let it build like I have been lately.

dunster

I have the same problem. I have packed my quilting room with so much stuff that it is hard to work in there. Yet I keep bringing in more fabric, more tools, and as a result I get less done. Time to straighten things up and make a plan to quilt more, buy less.

sewingitalltogether

I seem to live in those shoes also. Just like you described it. Maybe it goes with many years of quilting. I do wish I was finishing faster. And using up my stash faster. But everything seems to have slowed down.

SusieQOH

Julia, I'm having the same problem right now.
My specific problems are two: I don't put things away and I have too many projects going on at once.
I never learn..........

toverly

Since my sewing room is my guest room, I only seem to clean up when someone is coming over. Occasionally, it will just get too messy and I will pick up between projects. I do get my sewing table cleaned off when I actually quilt.

Onebyone

I keep a large basket on my cutting table. I put all tools, rulers, and notions in there after I use them. I keep two bins under my cutting table. One I drop scrap pieces in as I cut to be culled for the bigger pieces later. The other I put the fabric I was cutting from in to be put up later. This keeps my cutting area neat and I know where everything is during a big cutting session. I keep a basket on my ironing station too. I seem to take scissors and such over to it a lot. My cut pieces I will sew are clipped together and then put in project baskets or boxes to take to machine or saved for later. My sewing friends are always saying how neat my sewing room looks but all it takes is a system and actually using the system. Without some order I get frustrated in all the clutter.

juliasb

I have it a bit less that cleared right now but have to rest. I find myself running in circles! I am now trying to move things to the side that I cleared and that is not good! All Iwantto do is to be able to do some cutting!

my-ty

What a great organization method! I really like the idea of the two baskets, tucked under the table.

Rhonda K

I completely understand the issue with the cutting area. Pick up the items once and put it away. Telling myself to pay attention. LOL!

ka9sdn

I am in the same boat! I have just finished a quilt and shipped it out. I will take one day and clean (Friday) and see how far I get and then organize my next project then to more cleaning if needed. A plan to start anyway.