I'm still in the decluttering, tidying up mode. Part of the reason my sewing areas got so out of hand is because of all the traveling we've done over the last few years. We've been gone a total of one year over the last four years, which is crazy! Every time we are getting ready to go away for an extended time, I try to tidy the house before we leave, so I don't come home to a mess. The thing is, a lot of those trips I had very little notice of, so it was more of a hide the mess situation, and pack for the trip. Several of those trips I had a sewing machine and projects with me. I haven't been brave enough to try actually quilting a quilt in hotel room, but I am great at piecing in a hotel room.
When I'm not home, I'm not finishing any quilts, but I may be creating more quilt tops. When I get home, the projects I was working on in the hotel get set aside, and I often go straight to deadline quilts because someone is getting married, having a baby, or one of the grands asked for a quilt for their birthday. Can you see where I'm going with this? The projects I was working on before I left got set aside, the projects I was working on in the hotel got set aside, and then I start something new. Now if I know about a deadline quilt before we leave, it will likely be one of the projects I take to the hotel, so sometimes it works out OK-ish, but overall, the last few years have only added to my UFO list.
The only way to evaluate what you have, is to dig it all out, which makes a massive mess. I showed a photo of my trashed fabric room in the last blog post. As I was digging down through the piles in my fabric room, I kept finding more and more plastic containers. Strings here, selvages there, sizes I pre-cut for my scrap user system that never got put away. LOTS of extra units from projects I either overcut for, or changed the layout on so I needed a different number of pieces. I found leftover fabric scraps from projects that I finished, leftover backing fabric, that piece of fabric I lost and rebought because I couldn't find it.
And I found projects, SOOOOOO many projects! I found projects I thought I had finished, projects I had forgotten about, projects that have been weighing on my mind because I wanted to finish them. I will give myself this much credit, most of the projects were in containers with my notes and usually with the fabric I needed to complete the project.
So what have I been doing this week? Putting the pre-cut scraps away, putting the strings and selvages with the other strings and selvages. Stacking up the project boxes so I can see them and work through them. As I empty plastic containers, I'm getting rid of them. If I don't have as many containers, I'll have to deal with things before it gets this bad.
DH hadn't wanted me to get rid of any fabric during my declutter, but I talked to him about it, and I got rid of any flannel scraps too small to make burp rags from. I got rid of any fleece scraps that weren't large enough for me to want to piece it into a backing. I also got rid of any nursery prints, because I really don't use them when making baby quilts. I like to make baby quilts a kid will like at least through age 5, so right there it eliminates using nursery stuff. I also got rid of any sports team fabrics that no one in our family routes for. The sports team fabric was leftover from the days I was making scrub tops on commision. I'm donating what I can, and tossing what I know the donation centers would toss. Yes, I try to keep things out of landfills, but keeping it in my house when I know deep down it's trash just makes my house a landfill. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a landfill.
My fabric room went from this
I'm still FMQ an hour per day, and exercising right after too! I finished quilt #3 for this year!
I turned Bonnie Hunter's Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt into two quilts, and changed the setting. This quilt is a large full sized, or a smaller queen.
I need to start basting some more quilts, since I'm almost out of basted quilts. For February my main project is going to be making Frankenbatting from all my batting scraps. I'll really need my cutting table downstairs free for basting and sorting batting scraps, so I brought all my scrap fabrics that need to be cut down to usable sizes up to my living room, and I'll work on that in the evenings while watching TV.
This stack of plastic containers I found in my sewing room, went straight to recycling. The plastic shoebox type of containers I'll be donating as I empty them. I'll always have some project boxes around, but having too many just enables me to have too many projects going at once. The more I declutter, the more I learn about myself. I can't change things that trip me up until I identify them, so it's a good thing!
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