A Little Progress

I've only done a bit on my small mini-bolts. I love to use men's shirts for quilting, so I'm starting with the bottom couple of shelves, putting the backs of the cut-up shirts on the tiny bolts. The other pieces from the shirts are in a box, or already cut up in my precut scraps. I did go through my blacks/browns and got out the less than 1 yard pieces, and I've got some of those on these shelves too.

I finished refolding the last of my cotton bolts onto mini bolts while dinner was in the oven tonight. I can't believe how much space it saved me to get those cardboard bolts of of my way! My recycle bin is full of cardboard bolts, and now all of my fabric from the bolts fits on this smaller set of shelves I put in the closet. I still have a lot of work to do in the closet, but I'm getting there.

I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped, because I ended up babysitting again. I have a lot of babysitting days coming up, so I'll just do things as I can. I just found out my nephew is coming to town next week, so I'm sure there will be some big family dinners to prepare too. It will be so good to see him!

I am debating buying some new shelves for my fabric. I have some money put aside and it's almost enough to buy what I'm looking at. The cabinets I currently have are a bit too deep to work well with the mini bolts, but I'm not sure I want to spend any more money right now. I am loving the mini bolt idea, and I think this will be a great long term solution for me. I am an avid reader, so I think the idea of my fabric sitting on my shelves like books really works for me.

Day Four

I needed to get the old cutting table out of the room, so I had to clear it off and move everything. I'm trying to get my workbench (new cutting area) settled, but I just can't do everything at once. That is one of the reasons I have been posting everyday. Not that I get so much done, but to show the process. Eventually, I am hoping to have this area all neat and tidy.

The plastic containers under the workbench on the floor are new, and they are the perfect size for this space. I am trying something new for me, and putting a different project in each container, so these containers should always have new contents as things get finished. I always have multiple projects going at once, but I'm hoping having them in containers will help keep my surfaces a bit neater.

None of my old plastic drawers will fit under the workbench like they did under my other cutting table. I piled up most of my old plastic drawers between the workbench and cabinets. The top drawers may look precariously balanced, but they aren't. They are wedged between the workbench and cabinet and aren't going anywhere.


This area is the one giving me the most problems. I had considered moving my large sewing cabinet under the window, but this room is just not very big, and it didn't really help much. I was debating on setting up the Brother again, and for now, I decided against it. I bought the multimedia shelves, so I could put the small sized mini bolts on them, and I think at this stage it is a better use of space. I don't use the Brother that often, and I can always use the Bernina or Juki instead. If I really want to use the Brother, I can set it up elsewhere in the house.

I had originally wanted to take the small cabinet out of the sewing room, but for now I need the storage space. If I move that bucket, the drawers in the corner do open all the way, so it is all functional like this, just not my ideal. That's the thing about rearranging, I may have an idea of where I want things to go, but it doesn't always work. The great thing is, I can move things around later if it's not working for me.

Have you ever looked at before and after pictures, and just didn't consider the time it took to get from before to after? While you are rearranging, it can be so discouraging, and the domino effect always takes place. The whole "to move this you must first move these other three things" can drive us all crazy. I am hoping by showing the process, I might encourage someone who has been putting things off, because they couldn't get it done in a day. I can't get this done in a week, and I know it. I'm OK with the time table, even though I know a couple of projects will be rushed next month because of the delay.

I doubt I will post tomorrow. I'll be babysitting all day, and any time I have to work on the room, I will only be making mini-bolts, either the small size or the larger size. I moved all of my large bolts of fabric into the kitchen so I can work at the kitchen table. This is definitely not a situation that will work for long, so I'll be busily refolding fabric any chance I get tomorrow.

Musical Bookshelves

Here are my quilting and craft books and magazines on their new bookshelves. You know the dark brown bookshelves that were in the sewing room? Those are now in my bedroom with DVD's and such on them.

These shelves were in my bedroom, and now they are in the hallway. My quilting books were on a different set of bookshelves in the hallway, but that bookcase is shorter so it's going to be used in the sewing room closet.

It got even more complicated because this set of shelves wouldn't fit where the old ones were in the hallway, so I had to move yet a third set of shelves and swap their locations in the hall. That is all I got done today on the reorganizing, and I'm exhausted! Dusting everything on three sets of shelves got my allergies going, and it was a lot of stuff to go through. The real plus is I actually went through everything on all the shelves, and got rid of a bunch of stuff and organized things better. (I had more books on free motion quilting than I thought)

This was DH's project for me, and he's not quite finished. I decided to get a workbench to use as a cutting table. We went to Harbor Freight this morning, and I bought this workbench. I picked this one after looking at several places online. This one has a light under that top shelf, pegboard on the back, and extra outlets on the side. The best part- it was on sale for $99 which made it cheaper than almost everything else I looked at, including the tables made for cutting. DH says it's pretty sturdy, but as a warning, the directions were awful and he ran out nuts and bolts before it was finished. Tomorrow he'll make a trip to the hardware store and get it finished. All in all, it still looks like it will end up being a good buy.

While I was at Harbor Freight, I bought some rotary blades, called carpet cutting blades there. They are the equivalent of 45 mm blades, but they are only 2 blades for $1.49. On Stashbusters everyone has been raving about them, so I figured they were worth a try. I also got a pegboard hook assortment. The workbench came with some hooks, but I needed more hooks for the pegboard I already have up in my sewing room. I'm hoping with the different types of hooks, I can hang up some things I haven't been able to, like my Martelli rotary cutters.

Dinner for 7 tonight. I tried something new. I cooked a turkey in my Crock Pot (or slow cooker). After doing a bunch of internet research, I found directions for cooking a turkey on high in a Crock Pot. I read cooking a turkey on low is dangerous because the temperature doesn't get high enough to kill the bacteria, even though the meat will cook.

I had a 9.5 pound turkey, and a 7 qt. Crock Pot. The recipe I read said it would take about 5 hours for that size turkey on high, but my Crock Pot runs a bit hot, and it was done in 3 1/2 hours. I used a meat thermometer to make sure it was done. The skin did not brown, but the meat was moist and yummy. I just had DH discard the skin and carve it up before it made it to the table, so no one saw the pale skin but us.

I love using my Crock Pot when I'm busy, or anyday in the summer. It was well over 100 degrees today, and I cooked a turkey without heating up the house! How cool is that? Even cooler that that, tomorrow we're all going out to dinner to try a new restaurant so I won't have to cook dinner at all!

Reorganization Day 2

The artist portfolio I ordered last week got here today. I've collected several quilting stencils now, and storage was stumping me. I was keeping them in the box they came in, but they were hard to look through. I am very happy with how they fit in the artist portfolio, and now I don't have to worry about them getting bent.

Yesterday, these cabinets were on the other end of this wall. It seems an insignificant change to move cabinets down on the same wall. I did this so that my new cutting area can go over by the closet. These two cabinets are full of fabric, and I had to empty them to move them, then refill them when they were moved. I'm tired now ;-)

Eventually, I hope to refold all the fabric in these cabinets, putting them onto mini-bolts, but for now, I just needed things up and out of my way. When everything is rearranged, I can refold the fabrics one shelf at a time, and not be all stressed out trying to do everything at once.

I decided that reorganizing the closet first really won't work. With everything from the closet dumped into the room, I had no room to do anything else. So the first thing I did today is stick everything I could in the closet, so I had room to move those cabinets.

This is what is dumped on the floor today. If you look at yesterday's pics, you can see I had a set of brown shelves in the corner with all my bolts on it. Next to that were all the plastic drawers piled up. The brown shelves are in the hallway for now, and I'm not thinking they will be coming back in the sewing room. All the fabric on bolts will be refolded onto mini-bolts, and probably be stored in the closet when I get that done. The plastic drawers will stay in the room, but the location is iffy.

I came up with today's plan of attack last night. I knew I was babysitting for a while, and I had 8 people here for dinner, so I wasn't sure how much I would get done. I actually did more than I thought I would.

Tomorrow's plan? I'm not sure. I need to go shopping for my new cutting table. I picked it out online, but I don't know if the store has them in stock or if I'm going to have to order it online. That will have a huge influence on what I end up doing tomorrow. I think I'll spend at least part of my time taking the fabric off of the big bolts and putting them onto the mini-bolts. It takes longer to do one that I thought it would, but it takes up a lot less space once it's done. I would imagine I will get faster at making the mini-bolts.

That's the status of my mess today! It's a no holds barred "Yes, I have a lot of stuff" expose' on myself!

Before-ish Pics

Standing in the hallway, looking in my sewing room.

There's a floor?

The cutting center or sorts

Still no curtains on those windows?

The closet, which I've already started rearranging.

So has the heat gotten to me or what? My sewing room is normally pretty neat, and I rarely have to search for much in there, so what is the deal with the disaster?

I'm blaming it on changes of plans on many levels, and the domino effect. For months I have known that August was not going to be a good month for quilting. After all, I was supposed to be going to South Africa to see DD#1, DSIL, and DGS. I mentioned a while back that our trip was canceled due to DD#2 needing surgery. No one's fault, these things happen.

DD#2 is recovering nicely, and without the surgery nothing would have improved. The docs were wrong about her main problem, but when they got in there, what they did find was fixable, so we're happy! She has another issue they confirmed, so she'll be starting some new meds, but overall it was good news. I've been trying to baby her a bit, as she's recovering at our house. There is so much relief here though, it's all been a good thing.

Now, DH did not cancel his vacation time, so he has three weeks off. Today he cut all the corrugated plastic I bought to make those mini-bolts of fabric I wanted to do. I just made my first minibolt, but with my room such a mess, I don't really have anyplace to go put it :-)

Here's the thing; I had several issues I wanted to change in my sewing room.

1) I don't like my cutting table because it's bowed pretty badly.
2) I don't like storing my batting in another room.
3) I feel too crowded when I sew on the Brother.

Now, since I was already going to be rearranging all of my fabric, wouldn't this be the perfect time to fix the other problems? I just bought two new rolls of batting because I was out (one poly [yes, I know I don't like poly but I keep having people ask for it], one cotton). With two new rolls of batting to deal with, it was the perfect time to deal with issue number 2.

Issue number 1 is an ongoing irritant, and although I don't use the Brother (issue #3) that often, while I'm rearranging things, I may as well take it into consideration.

The batting thing only really had one solution. I read about someone who hung their batting from the ceiling, and that's an excellent idea. Unfortunately, that excellent idea is not an option in our house because of the slanted ceilings that are not high enough to hang batting from. Putting the batting in the closet was really the only way to bring it into my sewing room, it was the only place large enough.

The thing is the closet was already full! That is how the mess you see in the pics started, so this is really the beginning of the story. I was dumping stuff out of the closet, so I could rearrange and re-evaluate it all.

I have some ideas on how to fix the other problems, but I won't ruin it for you. I will just do a blow by blow, here is my mess, and here's what I'm doing about it series. Hope it doesn't bore everyone too much, and you never know, you might find an idea or two!