Reorganizing for the New Year

Sometimes things come up that you never would have expected. For years, we had a houseful of kids, and no space for a guest room. When guests came we just had to make do. As kids moved out, I not only gained a sewing room (or two), but I also have a guest room with a queen sized bed, and a grandkid room with two twin beds and all the grandkid toys. I would have thought that two guest rooms would be plenty, but we often end up having people in DH's office, or people in my sewing rooms too. When we have company, we often have a LOT of company. 

I had created a large cutting station in my fabric room, which was convenient when quilting, but made that room unusable for guests. The thing is, my cutting station was made of separate pieces, so if I reconfigured it and bought a countertop, I could have the center of the room available for an air mattress when needed. I decided that's what I wanted to do, so began the fabric room reorganization project.

The first thing I did was ditch my ironing station. In the past year, I've done most of my ironing upstairs while watching TV. I just wasn't using my ironing station very often, except as storage. By rearranging some things in the room with my sewing machines, I was able to relocate everything I had stored in my ironing station, and I gave the storage pieces under the big ironing board DH made to my sister. I can use the big board top on my regular ironing board, so I kept that. 

My ironing station had been right under the shelves on the wall. The kitchen cabinet bases I used to have back to back to make up my huge cutting station, are now next to each other against this western wall in my basement. I bought the kitchen cabinets a while ago, at a used building supply place. The countertop now on top was simply the cheapest option Home Depot had in stock. The cabinets on the left have the shelves removed, and all my tall Studio dies fit in there. My Studio cutter is right above those covered with some scraps I need to cut. On the far right, you can see a short set of shelves peeking out from under the end of the countertop. Those have small Studio dies, Go dies, Blue Wren dies, and Sizzix dies, all of which I can use on my Studio Cutter. My rulers are hanging on pegboard, and although there is a small cutting mat on the counter right now, I ordered one that is 59" x 22" and it will arrive tomorrow. 

I spent two days refolding fat quarters to all the same size, breaking up several fat quarter bundles I had, and mixing them with other fat quarters I had. I choose fabrics by color, not collection, so they'll be used faster this way. One of the top shallow drawers holds other precuts, the other is just a bunch of miscellaneous stuff for now. The bottom drawers hold bias tape and thread that didn't fit where I moved most of thread to. 

Now the opposite wall looks like this. I had some smaller plastic drawers which I emptied, and those will go to my sister too. The wide plastic drawers hold my scrap user system. The purple drawers hold mostly 1/2-1 yard pieces of fabric. If I get the projects done I have planned for 2020, those will take a huge hit and I'll be getting rid of the purple drawers as I empty them. The gray and white bins on the set of shelves hold projects, some just a collection of fabrics, others cut or partially cut. 

Now the center of this room can be a guest room when needed, and I feel pretty good about the fact I was able to consolidate so much, it gives me a good indication that I've used a LOT this year. My sister helped with that, she pretty much busted my Christmas fabric stash, and I wasn't sorry in the least to see it go. 

I'm working in my actual sewing room too. I had used up enough in the closet in there that I've moved all my batting into the sewing room closet instead of the upstairs guest room closet.

DH and I talk about downsizing someday, and I realized that although I want a healthy stash for retirement years, I don't want to move everything I have. In my head, I know what storage furniture I want to move, and what I don't want to move. Now my goal is to sew up enough that my stash fits in the furniture I would want to move. This was a big sewing year for me, and that gave me a great start towards my long term goal. 

I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas. DH had Christmas Day off for the first time in probably 20 years! We aren't having a family celebration until Saturday, so it was just DH and I all day. We thought about it, and it's only the second Christmas Day we've ever spent alone in our 35 year marriage. I've spent several Christmas Days by myself once our kids were grown, but DH is usually working, so this year was a treat. We slept in, made a nice breakfast, I put dinner in the crockpot while I was cooking breakfast, and we just had a really relaxing day. 

DH got me some quilty goodness as gifts. So many fun looking quilts in these books! I already put the fat quarters away in the cabinet drawers.

DD#2 wanted more microwavable bowl cozies, so I did snag some time to sew her up some! Another quick project, start to finish took a couple hours with several interruptions. I'll give them to her when I see her on Saturday. Sewing up a bunch of these is on my 2020 list! I bought a die to cut the size we use most and they were so fast to cut now! I've figured out how to chain sew them too, so it's a really quick project. 

I've got company now, so I'm not expecting any sewing time until next week. My first order of business will be dealing with the scraps all over my Studio cutter!