Where oh where can it be??????
 

Hello ................

Well I am wondering if any of you have the same problem I do when I clean my sewing room???

Mission organization - well it seem that when I organize and everything is nice neat and tidy - I can never seem to find what I am looking for??????? Before the cleaning I could go to my sewing room and know exactly where to look for things and after the cleaning things are never to be found again. Spent 2 hours looking for a piece of fabric I had in hand the day before cleaning oh where oh where can it be. I know it here someplace??????????
Please tell me I'm not the only person this happens to........ lol

Yes, I know exactly what you mean! When I am cleaning and organizing, it will always seem so logical when I put something somewhere but then I guess I am never that logical again! I had my space looking pretty good a couple of days ago and now it looks like a small tornado has gone through the area. Fabric pulled off shelves. Bits and pieces of cut fabric on the floor. Piles of fabric to be cut. Instructions all over the place. Plastic bins all over the floor with the lids off. Rotary cutters, scissors and rulers every where. What took me 30 minutes to destroy will take a a half of a day to put back together into at least a bit of order.

Yea, I resemble that cleaning remark. Like you, one day it seems this is the perfect place for that something and the next, well who knows. Organizing is like stringing beads with no knot on the end.........

You are not the only one.

Oh heck yeah I know that feeling all to well.

Not by a longshot!!!

I resemble that remark too! :)

Thank you thank you at least now I do feel I still have my sanity.

Welcome to the family! I have resorted to making a list as to where I put things when cleaning my area, LOL

It's a "safe place", like many of my items.......than I can't find!

It's not just my sewing room....I am that way ALLL over the house, husband isn't much better so seems as tho we spend half our time searching for something we know we have!! For instance. about a month ago I made little individual meatloaves in my muffin tins...I remember washing them.. then put them away....we haven't seen them since!!! LOL
I'll find them in some ODD place one of these days...ahhhh ole age!!!

looks like you have a lot of company ....me included

You are probably a very visual person. You may not function well when things are put in concealed storage. Maybe implementing a storage system where everything has its place it is still visible would work for you. For example, a peg board for tools rather than in drawers... Fabric on open shelves and projects in clean containers...

i would love to work as a full time personal organizer when I eventually retire from speech therapy. I love to organize things

Me too. That's my excuse for not having cleaned the sewing room lately. However, I am to the point where I can't stand it anymore, so will have to do something.

Around here the saying is ''Its on the islands ''-Out in the Bermuda Triangle there are several islands - Island of Stray Socks-Island of Lost Keys- "Glasses- "Gloves etc...etc...etc...And on occasion the island will send back some of the over flow to us.

Then I put the list someplace safe and lose it, go figure 0;-(

oh you are certainly not alone on this one. but, I try to clean up after each project and that has gotten me in the habit of putting some things it the same place over and over. My sewing area is a total disaster right now and I do not plan on seeing it clean and organized for quite some time.

Oh, yeah! Exactly what I set out to do yesterday, get in there and go through everything and find out what is where. I now have a mess that is unbelievable and I have no idea what is anywhere. I did label a few containers and that is the only sensible move I made all day.

I'm still looking for my Thread Heaven from last November!!

I thought it was only me. I have that problem. But I found that if I look for something else, guess what, I find the first item I was looking for. I have started to put the item found in a safe, standard place, a basket on my sewing table, so when I get back to the project I need it for, I can find it. I thought age is causing this but maybe I am just too busy and not together.

good luck and hope you find what you are looking for.

Sounds like to me is why are we all that crazy on being neat and tidy and sooo lost lol

Oh yes. And my darling daughter thought she would help me and she cleaned and reorganized my sewing things and now I have to call her and ask where such and such is. Love her - but I had things where I could just walk in and pick them off the shelf. There really was a method to my madness!!

I was just looking at my quilting room and want to add some more storage units...but maybe i should leave well enough alone because i know i will not be able to find anything as well!

I like that comparision

Wow - do I ever have the company on this one......... lol Guess I will never be lonely.

Not only can I not find things after a major organization, when I throw away something that I had not had a use for in ten years, within a few days there will be a need for it.

I had the same problem as the rest of you - organizing then not knowing where stuff was. Here is how I solved it for me:

I bought 2 of the 10-drawer rolling carts that JoAnn's sells. The drawers are shallow and the carts go together really easily. I then used masking tape and numbered each drawer 1 - 10 and 11 - 20. Then the fun began. For 2 days I went through every box, drawer, plastic shoe box, etc., that I had sewing/quilting stuff in and sorted it all into the different drawers. BUT what I did differently this time was to list each item in a notebook (I used a composition notebook and labeled each page A - Z) and what drawer it is in. Now when I want to find rotary blades (drawer 4) or binding clips (drawer 15), I know exactly where they are. When I can, I am going to purchase a third so I can subdivide some of the drawers that are really packed (button drawer, embroidery thread, etc. I do embroidery, crocheting, knitting, and several other crafts as well so have lots of stuff.). I also want to divide my small rulers into 2drawers because of the weight.

I used ziploc bags to organize things within each drawer (embroidery needles in one, sharps in another, quilting needles in a third, needle threaders, etc.) The snack size worked well. I also found some smaller bags at Hobby Lobby that worked great, especially for sorting buttons by color and needles by purpose.

Since this was working so well, I labeled the drawers in my sewing desk (SD-1, etc.), some other cabinets I had, and all of my storage places and spent the couple of days going through all of them and listing those items on their corresponding alphabet page.

I rediscovered lots of missing items, found some duplicates which I gave to my niece who is starting to quilt, and felt so good about not just cleaning and organizing but also knowing where everything is because of THE NOTEBOOK. I finally figured out that I just can't trust my memory and the "of course I will remember where I put ____________ (fill in the blank).

I even listed all my rulers and since many are specialty rulers that I don't keep with my regular-use ones and so I keep them in other areas, specified where they are. This also helps when I look at a pattern and wonder if I have the ruler that the pattern calls for.

It was a lot of work to do but the payoff has been a much neater room AND I know where my "stuff" is.

I do the same thing.

Me too. I figure the small amount of time it takes me to write things down in a notebook will be worth it when it saves hours later. I hang the notebook on the dresser knot my ironing pad is on.

Some things have permanent places in my sewing room; places where they belong. When I clean, they get put back where they belong. Projects can get lost, though.

I just love the stringing beads part of your post! So true, so true!!

Organizing: I did it once each year since we moved here 4 yrs ago. And try to put things away. There are a few things that still don't have a home. And there's the new things I buy. When I can't find something, I call DH-he's a wiz at finding my things. We work as a team trying to keep me organized.

I'm this way about absolutely everything. The more necessary or important an item is, the more likely I am to put in some "special" or "safe" place where I will never remember to look! I just can't seem to shake loose of this problem. I need to put a sign on the wall in every room of the house: Before putting it away, ask "Where would I be most likely to look if I needed this?"

I know the feeling. I know exactly where it was but have no idea where it is. :)

Sort of --but I find that when I organize I can usually find what I want. It's all the little stuff, pouncer, paint sticks, graph paper--I have a place for my fabric, yarn etc. And the small stuff, keeps moving around, with labels. Also things that should have been put away in a specific place sometimes doesn't get put back!

WOW, WOW, AND WOW AGAIN. I don't feel so bad at all. I've been trying to get mine organized, set up and still looks like a catchall. Just gonna go to my friends house this afternoon and have a conversation with the Baileys and be done with it.

Believe me, you are definitely not alone! When I do organize, it seems that it only takes 10 minutes to destroy what I spent 2 days putting together. I have almost decided to leave it as is!

where's the "LIKE" button!?! I agree with all these remarks .....

No, I have the same problem. On top of it all I keep on opening up the same old cabinet looking for the items that used to be there. LOL