I have a large quilting room in my basement where six of us get together on Mondays to quilt. (Of course I spend a lot time down there other days). We agreed that if you use something, you put it away. We take turns vacuuming at the end of the day. We have organized disorder. Can you imagine what it would look like if six of us weren't somewhat organized! Oh My!!

Mine somehow keeps getting to be a mess too. Not sure how it happens. Things just seem to fly out of the closet etc and end up all over. I think I have a messy fairy in my room. Mine is 12 x 14 and just seems to ooze fabric. I have been making myself slowly clean it up. I have been making myself put away 20 things every time I go in my room and try to put away 20 more before I leave it too. It is getting better. Hopefully I can get my pegboard up for my rulers this week so I can use my ruler shelf for fabric. MY DH saw my stash the other day. I will have to make sure he doesn't know when I go to the fabric store. I am trying to work mostly from my stash lately to use it up. I too could sew until I am 110 and never use it up. I really need to quit wasting time sleeping so i can sew more.

Some parts are organized, but while I'm making the quilt, there is pieces of fabric and thread all over the place. ONce the top is done I clean up the floor and put most of the stuff away. I used to have a sign on my desk when I was employed. Garfield saying "MY DESK, MY MESS, MY BUSINESS." I think I live by those rules. My DD made a comment one time, "If you coming to see me, then come on in, If you're coming to see me, Then CALL and give me 4 hours notice."
I am not OCD about clean and organization, but when I start watch out I can't stop.

I am guilty of all of the above except being a compulsive cleaner upper! I work on several things at a time because I get distracted too easily and want to try this or that. I do straighten occasionally but within days it's right back to being 'creative.' I don't need more space; I need less stuff. I have hundreds of quilt magazines and I do refer to them sometimes. I have given boxes of quilt magazines to the Guild to sell at our Quilt Shows. I've cut down on the number that I subscribe to but I still have a lot of them. Love getting new quilt mag in the mail. I've been guilty of buying the same fabric more than once because I forgot I had it already. I'm a hopeless, messy but happy quilter! Sew on! I tell my husband that at least I'm not out running around with other men and hanging out in the bars! He always knows where to find me -- in my sewing room, LOL!

How I wish I had your problems. I sew along one wall of a 9 X 10 bedroom. I have an 8 ft. table where I cut and press and a small sewing table with a recess in it for my machine. My fabric is stored in tubs under the table and in the closet and I baste my large quilts on the floor of my living room which is never used for anything else. I always have a project in process on top of the table and I have other in smaller tubs in the closet. The people who clean my house once a month are told never to touch what's on top of the table. Some how or another I get it all done in the space provided. My fantasy is to turn our unused living room into a studio but my husband says "absolute not" as there is no way to close off the room if we have company. We do use the room once a year when I host the family Christmas party. Such a waste.

Since I sew in our family room, and cut on the wet bar area, out of necessity, I need to keep it contained somewhat. My fabric is contained (primarily) to a tall 4 drawer dresser and a decorative open cabinet above it the size of a medicine cabinet. When I pull fabric for a project, it gets pretty messy, and stays messy until I'm done cutting. Then I clean up that area, put away the extra fabric, and make a clean start with sewing the blocks. It's always a little cluttered until I'm finished with the quilt, but at least I'm not searching for my cutter under piles of scrap fabric.

My sewing room is also my guest bedroom. I solved the space problem by installing a wall bed with bookshelves and drawers on either side. I usually like to work on one project at a time so my space is messy when working but I try to clean it up at the end. I don't have much of a stash any longer as I discovered that I am not the type of person who gets inspiration from looking at all the fabric I have stashed; I merely get frazzled and can't make up my mind. So, I donated my stash to a local group that makes quilts for homeless children. Immediate sense of relief. Now I only keep scraps of batiks as I want to make a scrap quilt in batiks. I guess I'm only a part-time quilter compared to most of you, but this works for me.

I love this topic. I am usually messy when I am sewing but when I don't feel like sewing I always clean everything up and that somehow gets me going again. I find things I really wanted to sew or things I started and forgot about. Loved your comments of how you gals sew. i love paperprincess's words 'fabric storage facility' that's a good one I have not heard before!

Mine looks like someone tossed a hand grenade in. I clean it up. It lasts about 1/2 hour if I am working in there. Such is life.

I reorganize after every project. It helps with planning the next project (especially with locating fabric for the next project).

I keep thinking fire hazard. Also the other day, I was cutting some pieces of fabric and when I reached for a piece of another print on a back pile of stash. I nearly got bit by a very large and ugly spider. Wasn't a tarantula but just very large house spider. whacked it with a fly swatter. Thank goodness no babies. So word of caution, careful when you reach for a piece of fabric. This particular stash was on a shelf.

Yes, my room gets cluttered and messy. I love to quilt and when I get going, there is ironing board and iron set up and fabric all over, I have way too many books and magazines and love them all. Please do not throw your magazines away, I am the person who buys them in thrift stores and charity stores like Goodwill. I have all kinds of cutesy pincushions on my desk and yes, I know they need to go, but not just yet. I have just finished a scrappy quilt and I love it, but it is a job cutting up all those pieces of fabric and the room gets too messy while I am doing it. I always have about 3 or 4 quilts I am working on at one time and I am very productive so I have no big plans on stopping that. I am with you in not giving your fabric away, it's yours. Don't be so hard on yourself about the mess, you will wake up one day and decide what to do about it. I did and things are much better in my room now. Good Luck !

Ditto here! It seems to happen every time I turn my back it sneaks up on me!!!!!

I can relate as I'm sure so many other can too. In my Florida home my sewing room was just 10 x 18 and it was very crowded with a 8' quilt system. Now in my new home in Iowa I have most all the basement which I measured the other day to be around 20 x 25. I thought I was in hog heaven with all that room. Well, one thing led to another. I decided with all this room I'd enlarge my cutting table. Then came an upgraded quilt system....12 foot frame. I leave my ironing board up all the time. I added a design wall which I didn't have in the last sewing room. It just keeps going on. I can get around my room well enough but as we all know............we want more. I'm fairly organized thankfully. My fabric is all folded and on their shelves. Have lots of pegboards for rulers, scissors, threads, etc. I know I still have totes filled with UFOs I started down in Florida and I'm getting to them once I finish quilted the last of the quilts I started eons ago. I clean up the room and vacuum after every project/quilt so I can start new again. I tend to throw threads, scraps on the floor as I work. Then clean it up afterwards. When I start a new project, I pick out the pattern, then the fabrics, lay everything on the side of the cutting table and get started. If I need more fabrics, then I take what I have to the fabric store to add to it. I have lots of fabrics so its seldom I need to do this. My scrap pile is overflowing and even after making 4 over sized lap quilts, it didn't go down. But I'm happy in my little haven down here.

Sorry, but there is no cure. :) Michelle

I try to leave the room tidy before I go back to the house. It doesn't take too much time. I also bought another portable clothes line and hang fabric on that if I'm going to have it out for a while. Mine is not spotless but I work better when things are tidy to start with.If I do pull fabric out and I'm not going to use it I put it back in the cupboard.
I still have quite a lot of organizing to do but would rather be sewing or quilting. Haven't been out there too much recently because I'm knitting for a lady for her new grand child. When I finish knitting I intend to spend a lot of time out there.

LOL, I cleaned and organized sooo well that I couldn't find anything....seriously. I lost my yellow brick road pattern oh soo long ago and yesterday, I finally found it right where I put it ....But now I try to keep things tidy. I've kinda fallin off the edge again and have 4 projects set out to be cut...so my counters are cluttered again. Oh hum whats a girl to do...sew I say sew...I'm currently working on a baby quilt doing the smaller big star pattern from Missouri site an I can say that I'm just about ready to take the blocks and burn them on our drive way.....I used 5" charms that had pinked edges ooooooh How I hate them....

Sometimes I wonder who I am trying to impress, myself or company. I am fairly neat and organized. I mostly put things away after their use and mostly get the aftermath of scraps from a project cut up and stashed. But not always. I feel so fortunate to have my sewing studio, my machines, my stash. I feel gratitude each time I enter my space, be it clean and tidy or a little messy. I've worked years for my stuff. It's my solace. I feel blessed to be a quilter. I feel blessed to have stuff to use and make a mess. I feel blessed to have a mess. I feel blessed to clean it up. It's my gift that I have been given and that I can in return also give. So if someone else looks inside my world be it tidy or messy perhaps they just might be blessed too, because magic happens here, wonderful creative magic. Because out of that room comes items of creation that is born thru work and imagination and out of needed messes. There is a deep love for color, texture, shapes, combinations and my world is filled with it when I enter my space. I love my organized tidiness and messyness. It's what defines my creative process. I am wonderfully fortunate to be a quilter.

I'm just chiming in to say that I have the same issues. Last weekend I decided to pull my sewing room apart because I thought (that is the operative word - thought) I had come up with a better arrangement for my shelves. Needless to say, the room is still an absolute mess because I work during the day, and I haven't had any time to get back in there and put anything away. I keep telling myself to leave well enough alone and ignore all these "organizing ideas" that pop into my head, but do I? Nooooo!

My biggest problem is not fabric though - it's magazines and books. I love both, but at times I just want to sell them all and start over again. They take up so much space and I find myself going online all the time to look things up. Sigh......

Rhonda Lee - I love your post. I want to print it out, frame it, and hang it up in my sewing space. You have such an awesome way of looking at this issue!

Yes. We all have that problem. On magazines I have been getting the DVDs on back issues and that has helped my urge to keep old magazines.

My room is in a mess...I a getting ready to move to a bigger space...

The only way my sewing area stays neat and organized is for me to never go in there to accomplish any quilting. Once in there, all bets are off!

Yes, but so was my classroom when I taught 4th grade, there were 5 teachers in space for 3. So space was a premium. My closet is also a little disorganized, I guess I'm just a "messy".

I tidy up after each time I sew. I may leave what I'm working on, on top of the sewing machine and I may have threads on the floor but the room is always neat. I have some odds and ends stuffed in the closet but at least it's out of sight and the room always looks decent. I can't sew in a mess.

I have a very small room with limited floor and wall space. I at least straighten up after each project or it would be a total mess all the time. When I have something going on there will be strands of thread on the floor, pieces of fabric, etc laying around. This weekend after I finish a job I'm working on I'll straigthen up and then have some embroidery to work on while I chose the fabric for my Happy Daisy quilt that will be a tribute to my sons dog who died this yr of old age but last yr saved his whole house from a burning house that had to be rebuilt from the bottom up. Her name was Daisy and I plan on putting a picture of her on the back with the lable.

Amen, Amen!

Jeanne - looks like you are not alone!

I think quilting is the messiest craft there is! So many supplies to keep track of... threads... scraps... you name it!

Using bins and containers for projects and supplies makes a big difference for me. It makes cleanup quicker which means that I am much more likely to use them (elaborate storage for me means I don't use it!). Drawers and using every inch of closet space helps me too. I find that when my surfaces get cluttered I avoid my room!

The short answer is yes. I consider my work room just that, it is a room for working in, with several projects in process at any one time. Is there organization?... of course. If it did not have some level or organization, I would have to keep buying notions, fabric, cutting tools etc. But is it squeaky clean and neat all of the time? No, I am working in it. If you clean periodically and return tools, notions and fabrics to their places then that is enough.

I think you are on a good path to de-clutter by getting rid of what you don't use, magazines, excess fabric and so on. But do not be too harsh on yourself if your room is not picture perfect. Remember many of the photos on this site show beautiful rooms that have just be redesigned, re-organized or simply new rooms. Three cheers for those rooms but those same rooms at the end of a busy day may not look quite so perfectly clean and organized because they have again returned to "work rooms". Smile you are making progress! :)

Rhonda...what a great thought! My sewing room has it's ups and downs but it's my space which I thoroughly enjoy every day. My space is small and I always have more than one project going so I'm forced to keep it somewhat picked up. So far, I haven't lost anything for very long!

Mine is always a disaster area sometimes worse than others. I have been going through and giving things away in order to try and regain some control no luck yet. I have been coming up with more ideas on how to put things away but will have to see how things go. I encourage you to keep trying and sew, sew, sew. The more projects that get done the more room one day we will have. It's a Dream anyway and I always told my children if you can dream it, then it will happen.

I stopped collecting magazines and have donated all of mine to a local thrift store. That gave me several shelves for more storage, besides, I can get all the patterns/ideas online and from my QB friends - get rid of them, it'll give you a little more room. Also, if you take the time to fold and sort your fabrics and 'show' them you'll be (I am anyway) more likely to keep them neat. I thought about going the storage tub way, but I decided to do all IKEA shelving and have all my fabrics folded, sorted and on comic boards as a quilt store would show them. My FQ's are on a tall IKEA cd rack that matches the shelves. Only my 'scraps' are in small, clear plastic shoeboxes sorted by color. Now I go into my room and enjoy the view. It's not easy keeping it all neat and tidy, but it sure is worth the effort!
I'm not saying it's always this neat, because when I'm on a roll, well, you all know - our sewing rooms can look like the aftermath of a major hurricane! But when I'm between projects or just feeling uncomfortable with the mess, I do take the time to neaten things up. I often just don't feel like I can be productive when I'm surrounded by the chaos!

Me too! While I'm in the middle of the designing/piecing process, I have stuff everywhere. I put it all away after each project and pull it out again when I start the next. The biggest problem is planning the next project before the last is finished!

Well Said!

When I start a project, its pretty straight. I try to keep things organized for what I'm working on; but, somehow about half way through, things seem to be everywhere. I guess I am just creative, not a neat-nik

I clean everything up after completing a quilt and sometimes I have to put some things away just to make space to work, but that's life. I think just about everybody wants more room no matter how much room you have, it's the human condition. I also think the more room you have the more you buy, it takes longer to feel "full".

My dh moved me down to the basement and took the small bedroom as his computer room so I'd have more space...I'm just as cluttered in the basement as I was in the small bedroom. In the bedroom, I would stack up high, and in the basement I spread out and then stack

My dh is not happy, he thought by giving me more room I could stay organized. Something I need to work on.

jcrow that is a disease I have too, are we sister?