Studio organizing - 2019 Plans

Warning pic heavy and long post....lol

Shelly Pagliani who blogs on Prairie Moon Quilts has been doing a studio organizing challenge for several years now (you can see it here) and someone recently posted on one of my quilt lists a link to an older post by her. 

I'm the sort of person that works best if everything has a place and needs to be in it for me to find it.   Yes, there's that much that I need it organized in order to be able to find what I want instead of buying more!  However, for the past few years because of frequent moves the organization of my stuff has suffered.  So the idea of an organizing challenge really touched a chord for me.

Sewing area and where my laptop is.  Design wall is to the right of everything.

 Long arm and living room area.....any wonder why I don't entertain?

Cutting table, second sewing machine and then kitchen.

Craft room with some of the many totes that are in there.  Big totes to the left are filled with FQ's.

 Other side & corner of the craft room.

 Fabric room, left hand side looking in from the doorway.

Right hand side of the room.







The plan for the rest of this year and next year my plan is to do what I've listed out below.   It won't happen all at once, but my plan is to make a spreadsheet to "map" out what needs to be done so that I can keep making progress and not get too sidetracked.

In the Fabric Room -

++ Make spreadsheet so that things can be kept track of
     Nov. 2018 - Done.
++ Number all the boxes and totes of fabric so that I can better keep track
      of what I have and what needs to be gone through
++ Replace the xerox boxes as needed as I go through them
     (bankers boxes or totes?  yet to be decided)
++ Replace totes that are broken or damaged as needed
++ Sort the fabric stuck hither and yon in boxes, totes and everywhere
      so that once again like colors/themes are together
++ Downsize the fabric that I have as I go through things.
++ Arrange the boxes and totes to where I can get to things as needed
++ Go through the contents of the drawers in the chest

In the Craft Room -

++ Rearrange the totes and other items on the shelving units for
     easier accessibility to what I use most often -
     Nov. 2018 - This has already been started........
++ Repeat above steps as appropriate for what is in the craft room
     (rearranging, sorting, downsizing, etc.)
++ Sort through and downsize totes of gift items (3 huge totes of "gifts"
     bought or made over the years)

Also included in this will be listing what I down size for sale, or otherwise disposing of it.  The idea is to free up room and space.  =)

Gratitudes:

1. A three day weekend thanks to a day of vacation on Friday

2. For a bed to sleep in, even when most nights that I wake up 2-3 times

A New Year of Sorting and Cleaning

Those that know me, know that I keep a spreadsheet of what I'm working on in my sewing and quilting.   I track stages of where things are, what's completed, what has been donated, UFO's, etc....  Haven't always been so organized tho about how I stored things.

One of the things I did this weekend was to get my completed tops all together in one tote (they were in two big ones).  And to make sure that my spreadsheet was up-to-date, I went through the listing of completed tops and checked off what was in the totes.  6 or so tops are headed off to Sunshine, and I have 4 tops ready to go to American Heroes.  Aiming to get all of those out in the mail this week.

Net result - 12 completed tops that weren't on the list, oops....and 10 or so tops that are on the list that I can't find.....argh.   I'm hoping some of those I had already donated to Sunshine Quilts where they were supposed to have gone in the past couple of  yrs.   If not, I'm wondering what I did with them and when they'll show up....lol.   And yes, not knowing what happened to them is driving me nuts.

Meanwhile, I was left with about 30 or so quilt tops that are finished and just need to be quilted.  Pulled the smallest one out, a table runner, to finish up next because I can manage to pin that one on my cutting station.  Nope, this wasn't on the list of what I wanted to accomplish this year, but it will be nice to have another UFO completed.  =)

Now the question is, should I leave the ones that I couldn't find on my spreadsheet for this year (some were there last year as missing) or just delete them off and re-add them later if they resurface.

All of this reinforces my need to go through the boxes and totes this coming year so that I can downsize some of it and get a handle on the rest of it.  I am slowly working through some of my tote fabrics and making up 1-2 a week.   I've got a 1 or 2 totes plus a box full of them that I still like and I really want to work through the box and empty it.  They only take an hr or two to make, so slow and steady will get me there.

Next up, going through a mangled box from the storage room outside and bring the tote full of cut scrub tops downstairs so that I will actually work on them!

Gratitudes:

1. Warm weather today - in the mid-70's!

2. Move is accomplished at work and I have an office with a window.   =)