At the beginning of the year I set goals for decluttering in Jan, Feb and March. Due to the gallbladder surgery, I fell a little behind, but managed to do a modest declutter of the hallway. My Feb. goal was to get the sewing studio/guest bedroom decluttered. The main problem areas have been the guest bed and the nightstand which are always piled high with WIPs and the side of the room that contains my Sweet Sixteen, small cutting table and the recliner that sits in the corner between the nightstand and the cutting table. The bed, nightstand, recliner and cutting table are always piled high with WIPs and an assortment of other things that don't have a home.

After looking at a variety of storage solutions I got some great, relatively inexpensive, plastic drawer units from Target. They are meant to sit on a desktop but the drawers are 14" so they can hold 12" blocks. Each drawer unit has 3 drawers and runs around $12. I bought 4 and stacked them 2 high on the radiator that sits behind my small cutting table. They took the place of a wire rack that was filled with an odd assortment of containers holding UFOs that were still in small pieces and various odds and ends. It looks so much better and holds everything that was in the wire rack plus some additional UFOS that were stored in those plastic scrapbook paper envelopes and stuck in a cardboard box under the table. That left room in the cardboard box for me to put some WIPs (in protective plastic) that were too big for the drawer units. Now my WIPs have a place of their own that's easily accessible without being stacked all over the guest bed and the chair! Progress:thumbup:

Rob

Sewbizgirl and oksewglad: Please pass some of those cleaning vibes my way. :).

Rob: Way to go with solving your WIP problem. Thanks for sharing.

Rob, it sounds like you have made great headway on your February goal. I’m glad you found containers to better organize your WIPs and UFO’s and I bet it feels great to have it neat and tidy. Congratulations on your decluttering progress.

I have been sorting through scraps as a break between sewing. Some I am cutting with my die cutter as strips. Others are just being put away. Some I am using to add to scrap projects. I go through stages where I just toss things into boxes and now I have a monumental task in front of me to sort through the boxes. It will be a loooong process but I don’t have any set time to have it finished. It just feels good to work on the process.

I’ve been slowly decluttering areas in my house for the past week. I’ve been feeling sort of smothered by all the stuff in my house & I decided to tackle that. Today I sorted clothing & have 1plastic bag to donate. I’ve put some books & magazines in a resale box, & other unused items to donate. I have way too much stuff in general, not just fabric & yarn. Last week I folded fabric, freeing up some storage bins. I’ve also cut some fabric into strips & squares so I can use them in a future project. I hope to find the willpower to go through my yarn & thin that herd, too. That will be painful.

When I finish a project I'm left with an almost full tub of the left overs. I finally decided that they have to go somewhere. So I started putting them back into their respective color tubs, and the small pieces into the scrap bags. That leaves an empty tub, so the next project goes in there.

But last night we had this thing call the "Wind". It took about 6 pieces of siding off the house, off the two story part and ripped them up and strewn them all over the yard. Of course along with horrible ripping sounds. Since I am so unstable on my feet I had the renter go out and pick them up so they would not blow around and hurt someone. The wind is still blowing this a.m. and I am afraid that I won't be able to turn that in to the insurance company until the entire event is over.

That siding is over 25 years old as I've owned that house for 25 years and I did not put that siding on. Anyone have experience like this?

Thanks in advance, Marcia.

Marcia, we had amazing winds all day and night. Sorry for your problem!

Sorry to hear about the siding, Marcia. I’ve had wind tear shingles off the roof, but not siding. In my case the storm was over before I discovered the damage, so I’m not sure if you need to wait to contact the insurance company or not. If you have a local agent who you bought the policy from I think I’d call them and ask how to proceed. Otherwise try calling the insurance company directly (that’s what we have to do now since our agent has retired) and see if you can get the process started.

Rob

Meant to add- your insurance company may have info on reliable contractors and materials suppliers. Mine keeps a list and if you use one of the contractos on ther list for covered repairs, the insurance company will guarantee the work and cover any fixes that need to be made if the work was not done correctly.

Rob

We had high winds Saturday, which I rode home in after our benefit ride for breast cancer research. It came close to blowing me off the highway at least once! I was glad I was on a heavy bike. It did blow a fan-shaped screen off my front window at home.