A Little Organization

As quilters, I think one of the biggest tasks we face is trying to stay organized. Projects are begun and set aside. Fabric's cut. Swap blocks are due, so everything else is put on hold. We come home from a monthly quilt club meeting and need a place to put our fabric, our blocks, our patterns until the next month. A binding is sewn on and the last length is set aside. Scraps pile up. New fabric purchases are brought home and need a place to reside. When we work, our sewing area is in a constant state of flux, the landscape of our space shifts from moment to moment.

I have never felt comfortable working in a crowded, cluttered space--not at work and not in my sewing room. Equally unsatisfactory is the realization that in order to maintain some kind of order, I have to periodically interrupt my quilting in order to put things away and get organized. Where are the quilt fairies when you need them?! I'm lucky to have my own sewing room, but it's a small one--about 9' by 9'--so everything has its place. I've found over the years that I'm more comfortable surrounded by "stuff" if it's nice to look at, so I've tried to find storage solutions that are decorative and useful. For instance, I've rolled up and tied all of my unfinished quilt tops and put them in a basket on a desk in the guest bedroom--they're kind of interesting to look at and they're out of my way. Not quite "out of sight, out of mind"--I can actually see what I have better than when I had them all draped over a quilt rack--but they aren't cluttering up space in my sewing room.

I think this weekend will be a good time to do a little more organizing. Life in general has been somewhat chaotic in the last few weeks, and my quilting "life" has been even more so. I was on vacation, sewing, for a week, took two classes, attended a monthly quilt club meeting, made swap blocks, cut strips for another swap, finished quilting and binding a table topper, ordered and received a couple quilt books, and am now engaged in quilting a large bed quilt. Bits and pieces reminding me of all these things remain scattered about, a fabric journal of my progress during that time. And, of course, having been in a quilt shop or two--or three--recently, I have a few fabric purchases that need to be folded and put away as well.

The other evening, after work, I stopped at Michael's, the craft store, to look for a picture frame. There I came across decorative storage boxes on sale. Round hat box shapes in several sizes, rectangular boxes in several sizes, and various other miscellaneous boxes. Great for storing fabric in a decorative way. I came home with a small suitcase-type box that I'll use to hold my fabrics for a BOM quilt. Perfect! Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the "stuff"! Unless the quilt fairies show up tonight while I sleep. If you happen to see any, give them my address!