I have no magic solutions either. But when any space, whether it is sewing room, bedroom, kitchen, living room or garage starts to bother me and my eyes see mess. I stop! Right when I realize the state of my space is awful and messy, I take time to clean up. Ten to fifteen minutes is more than enough time to "clean up the mess." I begin by putting away materials not needed for the project I have at hand. It start with large cuts of fabric, tools, then scraps. I put all of the materials for one project together. If multiple projects are going on, put all of the fabric, pattern or blocks together in a pile, a zip lock bag. Then into a bin of current projects. That will generally give me space to "breath" and I can concentrate on finishing one project before moving on to the next and the next.

I try, emphasis on try, to do a mini clean up at the end of each day or sewing session like many of you have mentioned. Creative minds tend to wander down rabbit trails creating. I honestly have started to gently tell myself to not have so many projects going on at the same time. Even forbidding myself from starting new projects. I have been mildly successful. If the good idea is still there in a few days, by then, I can pursue it. I like the feeling of creating so much, and I suspect the same with many of us, that I get caught up with new ideas, patterns and techniques too easily. The discipline of self-control seems to get hidden in my undisciplined piles of fabric and wonderful ideas. I do find my self-control more often now and that feels good too.

It is now time to clean up after myself so my current projects can get reorganized and finished.

Lately I've been buying a large fair share of fabric on line....but I have no place to put it all. So of course it's piled up on the cutting table, the side tables and anywhere that isn't the floor. Keep telling myself that I really don't need it, but it's so cute or pretty, or whatever. What I really need to do is have a quilters garage sale and get rid of so much stuff that I will never use. Then maybe my sewing room will be clean and I'll get my sewing mojo back again and can accomplish something!

I'm with WMU Teach. I'm working on finishing a project before beginning a new one. That isn't working with the quilt guild BOM, because the thing takes all year. So I am allowing myself to work on one other project as well. Getting distracted is easy for me, but really, how many more quilts do I need? Buying more is fabric is out unless it is to finish the project already in progress and there's nothing in the stash.

Good luck to all of us. I suspect there are a lot of us out there who have more fun with the creating than the cleaning.

Last winter I spent a long time cleaning out my sewing room and reorganizing. One of my promises to myself was to keep the cutting table clean. For the most part I have been good at that but just finished quilting 5 charity quilts and guess where they are sitting. Yep, need to check them for threads and mail them off.

I make it a point to clean my working surfaces after I complete a project. I get flustered over clutter so that is what keeps my sewing room useable, so that is what works for me.

I am a widow and live alone with my cat. I have a room in my basement where my fabric is stored and where I cut my fabric. I bought a great little cart at Aldi that has 2 laundry bags hanging under the top that is an ironing board. I use the laundry bags fir scraps and I keep it in my fabric room. I have continued to buy fabric until I am totally overwhelmed but would buy more today if a friend called and asked if I wanted to go to a QS. My cutting tables are hidden under fabric and I must go clean it soon. I sew upstairs in a bedroom I had for my late mother. This space stays pretty neat since I work on one project at a time. I have another iron and ironing board in this room. I need to stop shopping but it is so much fun and I so love fabric!

I know that many of us share your addiction! I have been doing my best with the fabric moratorium here. I fell off the wagon a week ago when I bought 140 yards of fabric. The good news in that was that I only spent $1.40, a penny a yard! The bad news is that I have no where to put it all so it is stacked under a cart in my sewing room where I can't even really see it to use it. That is the story of my sewing room, things everywhere! I did manage to find my cutting table yesterday however. I have done a wee bit of sewing this morning and getting ready to do some cutting here shortly. Sometimes I wish I had more space but then I would just fill that too.

My perspective.
Just finished a quilt I'd been struggling with for quite some time. What a relief to have it finished. The sewing mess was really getting on my nerves while I was battling with this quilt and now suddenly I'm not concerned about the mess. It will get picked up and put away.
Also, I realize now that I kept starting other projects either in frustration or avoidance of this quilt instead of facing it head on. So for me, the issue was not the sewing room at all, it was just the result of my angst.

Julia, yes many of us are in the same boat but honestly, how could you go wrong for 1 penny a yard? It would have haunted you :D

On another note: lately Mookie, my cat, runs into the sewing room as soon as he sees me going to it and immediately plops on my chair and won't budge! (can you tell who the boss is lol)

I had a houseful of kids and grandkids from the east and west coasts last week, which was wonderful, but because we needed the guest room the overflow went back into the sewing room. I had just finished a project that has haunted me for four years......yippee........so had a double mess to clean up. This week is quiet with my DH and son on RAGBRAI across Iowa, so I have been restoring order bit by bit, while I am working on putting together the Harry Potter quiltalong by Lorna on SewFreshQuilts. I, too, am having left knee replacement in a week so want to get this quilt at least to the sandwiching point as it is for Christmas. The laundry is finally done, I'm eating the leftovers and the dogs are not wanting for anything, so I'm heading out to lunch with a friend and then hitting the sewing room again. I am normally pretty organized with designated spots for everything, projects in individual bins or boxes etc. but I just have too much stuff in a rather small sewing room.