Skhf

Funny. My first thought today was that I needed to straighten out my sewing room after work today before I begin sewing. Can't find anything!

sandy l

When we added on my sewing room, I had laminate flooring put down. That seemed to take care of threads getting wrapped up in the wheels. But I have been raising some great crops of dust bunnies

jmoore

Same here... my Janome lives on our dining room table so she gets moved into the laundry room on an evening we are entertaining guests. I am forced to keep my sewing paraphenalia to a limit since our dining room is right at the entrance of our home but I do get a lot of exercise up and down the stairs since my gadgets and fabric live in the spare bedroom.

Edie

I just spent the last four weeks cleaning everything up, labeling drawers, containers, refolding fabric, separating colors, tonal, batik, solids, tools, sticky notes, putting pins in the right containers, you name it and I did it. And I was so excited yesterday ---- beautiful little corner of the house, some of my mothers quilting hung on the wall and the wardrobe that I keep a lot of my stuff in covered with Command stickers to hang my Mom's hanging stuff, Sun catchers on the window, and I started cutting out fabric for a quilt and started sewing - I managed to get six-12" blocks done (double pin wheel), 18 to go, and I was so tired last night and I looked down - PUZELS (pronounced like the word put only puzel. Puzels are the threads that you cut off of your sewing. Who has time to put all of them into the waste basket. Besides which, when I throw a thread into the waste basket, it flies away!!!!!! So I just let them sit there til I am done for the evening and then vacuum them up - Got a new Shark - whoo-hoo, is that a charmer!!!! picks up puzels from 20 years ago!!!
So, in another six months I'll be doing the same thing I did for the past four weeks. But I will vacuum up yesterday this morning!!!!! Oh, yah, several years ago, I had my brother in law, the potter, make my mother a little jar with the word PUZEL written on it. It has a little cover and everything. She had the same problem as the rest of us - puzels. I thought it was a good idea. She quilted til she was around 95 and I thought this would be easier for her to not have to bend over and pick up threads. Well, two years ago, this coming July, Mom went to that great Quilting Retreat in the sky and I took the puzel jar. Guess what? I don't use it either. Mom was right. It takes more time to put a thread in a container than it does to let it fall where it may and vacuum it up later. Lots of memories in my little corner of the house. Edie

Barb in Louisiana

I'm not good at keeping my fabric tidy & neat, so do try to control my threads. I typically vacuum at the end of a project right before I have to try to iron my pieced top before I quilt it. I hate having to pick all the threads off the quilt top again. I keep my tops thread free as I go. I really detest all those little smidgeons of thread staring up at me from the seams. I don't get the thread build up in my rollers of my chair, because most of it goes in the trash can which sits beside me. I have 5 trash cans in a two room area. There is always one near me, whether I am cutting or sewing.

Just an FYI...about the threads for the nests. Years ago, we raised parrots and had read that the thread was a good idea. One of our African Grey babies got a thread around a toe and had we not seen it and cut it off, would have lost the toe. I don't know if the same thing could happen to much smaller outside birds, but thought I would share our experience.

Aurora

I have a trash can sitting by my machine table and every thread makes its way into the can. My room isn't large enough for a chair with wheels -- no problem there. Since cleaning is not my forte, I make a point of never throwing anything on the floor -- it makes life much easier.

twinkie

I have got to be the messiest person in the world when it comes to my sewing room. I find projects occasionally that I don't even remember starting.

Sewnoma

My sewing room is the living room so I try to keep it clean but lately it's become a bit of a mess. I haven't had the thread problem, but I'm also really paranoid about my nutty cat eating thread - I've caught him at it before and had to pull a big long strand out of his mouth/throat and that wasn't pleasant for anybody. So I make sure to throw away threads as I snip them and when I leave my sewing area I'm now in the habit of giving the floor a look-over and picking up any thread longer than an inch or so. (Although there usually aren't any...I don't seem to drop thread that much.)

My room is the worst for clutter, though. I have vintage sewing machines lined up under one table but ran out of room and now they're lining up on top of the table too and perched in other odd spots. (And I don't really have that many, just no room.) I pre-wash before I stash my fabric but I'm also really lazy about it, so that means there's probably 20+ yards worth of new fabric folded and piled up on the table, waiting to go through the wash....all the fabric I've bought since August or so and didn't need for an immediate project. (Lazy, lazy, lazy) My cutting table is only half-useable; the other half is piles of fabric I had pulled to audition and never put back, piles of paperwork (receipts, drawings, patterns, instructions...), and just random "stuff" I haven't found a home for. It's sort of neat (in neat piles anyway) but it's been nagging me so I need to get that cleaned up.

I don't eat in there or drink anything other than water; and the animals are mostly kept out of there, so it stays clean in that respect. And I'm constantly bustling around and fussing with things in there so nothing ever gets dusty...it's just way too cluttered. I really need to sort some stuff and move some of those older machines out of there...it's a sewing room, not a sewing machine repair room!

lindaschipper

I have a lot of different sewing items and craft items in my sewing room...that sometimes looks a little messy. But I'm careful about threads all over the floor because of a new puppy. Currently cutting up all scraps into 2 1/2" and 2" blocks and trying to keep everything ON the table. Guess I'm a little OCD in my older years.

w1613s

I have three sets of wheels in my "office" aka the old kitchen or the sewing room. I have 2 sewing machines and 2 sergers up and running. All of the flat surfces in my sewing room are either formica or kitchen counter top tile. Each of the machines has a thread/bits and pieces catcher that came with the machine OR was fabricated with my two little hands from a plastic bag and tape. (This is when the tile and formica get important.) I open the top of the bag and stick down just under 1/2 of the edge on the top of whatever the machine is sitting on. Threads and bits fall or are dropped onto the bag.

Ta Ta! One downside, though. Until you get into the habit of dropping/scooting threads, etc.,one still gets thread/bits build up in rollers. It does get less with time. I promise.

Any "excavations" around here are facilitated by long, really pointed tweezers from a "hard to find tool" place and an oldish but not quite dead seam ripper. We needent discuss what to do with those because all my sister and brother sewers already know what to do with them regarding clogged wheels.

Please enjoy your day. Thank you for being there. You make my days much nicer.

Pat