WMUTeach

I thought I would pop in and offer one little organizing tip. I have done the deep dive AKA organizing the whole quilt room thing in the past. Don't want to do that again. I am reasonably organized but just messy enough to lose things I was using yesterday. So, earlier this week I opened the cupboard where I store my "keeper" quilts and took them all out, refolded and stacked by completion date. They look so nice all folded neatly. Then I closed the doors and went about my other business for the day. I feel as accomplished as when I cleaned up the whole room. Ta-Da!

I am thinking that for me, at this moment, cleaning up in small chunks, is a better option. For instance, this morning I found two spools of ribbon I bought at JoAnn's a couple of weeks ago. When I opened my ribbon box, it was messy and seemed too full to add more spools. So, I emptied the box, added the spools back to the box by ribbon size and what do you know, they all fit, the ends are all tucked in and at a glance I can see if I have what I need for my next project. Just a tiny bit of organization, but again, it felt good. I will keep at it as little messes show up and demand 5 minutes of straightening up. Good enough for now, for me. Just wish I would not make the little messes in the first place. Tee-Hee-Hee.

cat2quilt

You have a lot of natural light. I think that is fabulous.

tropit

Yeah! I agree! I'm at that age where I will never make quilts, or other projects, with all of the fabric that I've accumulated. Some of it just has to go. Still, I procrastinate...Why? Just gitter done! Now, I keep a couple of boxes sitting in the room, waiting for me to throw some fabric, books, etc in them and send them on to the Goodwill. Have I done that yet? NO, but today's the day. You've inspired me. I don't need to clean out the entire room, just fill a couple of boxes.

Thanks!

WMUTeach

Good for you, Topit! Meet the challenge in what ever way fits you. It always feels so good to clean up a space.

KalamaQuilts

I have a Lime Tutto bag I take to quilt group twice a month.
I re-organize it every time I go. Why? Once I got there with a broken needle from the time before and no replacement.
Once I got there with no thread, ran out the week before, didn't check or remember.

I love being organized in this one small area. project kitted? yes. Something for show and tell? yes. Life is good.

Iceblossom

OK, I admit this is a bit obsessive even for me. I like to do my layout and number my quilt blocks, alpha across and numbers down. I've had a system that worked pretty well for me for the last 20 years -- I have a aqua green foil cigar box to hold my safety pins, both quilt and smaller sizes. I bundle my pins into groups of 10, that is one pin holding and the other 9 looped on. That way I can toss out the bundles across the quilt, or quickly count out the number I need. I know some people store their pins open, but I do prefer to crush my fingers by closing them. I make labels using regular typing paper, 8 sections across and 10-12 down, and write on each block. I also keep a low grade/dollar store pair of scissors in the box to cut the paper. When the top is assembled, I take off the labels (while doing a thread check), regroup the pins into 10s, and throw away the block markers.

But I really don't like doing things over and over that don't need to be done, especially with regular tasks. Too many years with engineers and flow charts and such. I don't mind too much front-loading effort so it takes a little bit more to automate the next dozen times. So one day (years before my move) I was thrift store shopping and got this big organizer of Letter beads for something like $0.50. Over the course of boredom/years, I sorted them out and found while I had plenty of alpha, no numbers so kept my thrift store eyes peeled for more numbers. I have enough slots for pretty much all projects, I know it is very rare for me to have a K9 block (in which case I must have dog fabric) and this goes up to O?? 10.

Jump forward to a couple of months ago, after I could see again and it was time to deal with these beads. I ordered numbers, rings, and consistent safety pins and have been putting them together. I'm not all done yet, but all are sorted. Fortunately this project is large blocks and I only needed three rows and three columns -- but it is my first time with the system. System itself is working well, maybe the rings are a size small but they are done now! I'm used to doing things with my safety pins after each project, this is only a tiny bit more thought and care.

Is hard to see in the pictures, the first is of the case. The second is the labels in use, you have to look a bit close to see it but is easy in real life. Plus the weight isn't an issue but helps you zero in on the location.

KalamaQuilts

I did something very similar with those beads, I love 'em.

today I am hopeful that I'm organizing stuff right out of here, put some free offers up on the board. Members here have been so generous with me over the years with my odd requests for scraps and selvedges Life is good.

aashley333

Iceblossom, you did it again! Made my life easier! Beads instead of bits of paper is ingenious! Thank you for sharing. Another thing I do is always place safety pin in upper left corner of the block, in case fabric direction is important.

Iceblossom

Yup! placement (for me) is always upper left corner. If you are ever dealing with nap, like on a velvet or corduroy project, you can also use a safety pin to mark the nap direction.

I know I am going to need more than just 10 units per letter, but one thing at a time. With small diagonal blocks I can go up to 20 in the longest row, but they go down rapidly from there. I do have some plastic colored numbers that I will make some additional sets, color based or I'll figure something out.

All the beads are sorted into snack sized baggies. Various boring times or when I'm light on things to do at group, I would sort the beads or whatever.

LGJARN52

Yesterday I had pre-recorded TV shows to watch, but also wanted to sort through all my paper downloaded quilt patterns and toss out some to reorganize them in binders. There were 7 binders full of patterns in plastic sleeves! Sat in the floor in my cross stitching TV room and analized each pattern to decide if I was ever going to make it, tossed away dulicate patterns, sorted patterns according to sizes they would make. Baby/toddler in one pile and larger quilt patterns in another. Managed to whittle everything down to two binders of usable patterns, one partial binder of just idea's, and one of empty plastic sleeves. Can't believe it took hours to complete! It did remind me of two things...I'm a pattern junkie and never sit in the floor that long again. Can't hardly walk this morning. But it's done and put away. Yippee!