Trying to Organize

We've been rearranging the house again. It's not a process I enjoy, although usually the outcome is worth the effort. This time, I'm less certain -- I'm losing my sewing room and moving into a bit of the living room -- but I suppose it'll be worth it in the end to have an actual space for the baby instead of just a bit of floor space in our room... I just need a few days to adjust, and mourn the loss of my own personal space. I love my husband very much, but we have some very different interests and being within three feet of his 'Walking Dead' marathon is pushing my patience -- even with his headphones on. I'm going to try though.

Rearranging the house usually calls for some reorganizing. I've refolded my stash of fabrics and changed things up a little -- though they are nowhere near as neat as the perfectly organized shelves I drool over on pinterest! It's not much of a change, but I think it looks slightly better, and hopefully it's a little easier to access.

The real change has been in my scrap storage areas. Yes plural. Because I am a scrap-a-holic and I keep every tiny little piece I can possibly imagine using. It's a problem, but one I'm not really taking an issue with yet.

I picked up some photo keeper cases from Target, a larger plastic bin with six photo sized plastic bins inside. Yes, I know, real quilters avoid plastic, but in this house I've got to do what I can to combat the dust and cat hair, so plastic it is. Three of the little bins have tint to them (blue, green, and orange) while three are perfectly clear. This seemed as good a sign as any on how to organize my scraps by color instead of size like I have been doing.

The little clasps on the small bins aren't perfect -- one out of the 12 is a little faulty -- but otherwise this seems like a perfect way to keep them sorted.

I wound up with two bins each for blues and greens, one very full of brown, one that is split between red/pink/purple, then one each for orange, yellow, white, black, grey, and anything so colorful it didn't fit anywhere else. This cleared up my previous storage system to become a home for orphaned blocks, flannel scraps, and itty bitty pieces that should probably be chucked (smaller than 1 inch in all directions). One large bin for big scraps, fat quarters, and leftover bits of binding, with a second large bin for abandoned projects I haven't figured out what to do with. Then one basket for selvages and a plastic-ware bin with a lid (liberated from the kitchen) for traveling -- bringing scraps to or from quilt group. It seems like a lot, but I could use one more of the large bins for scraps of minky/cuddle fabric. Either that or I need a bit of an intervention!

It's still a long ways from perfectly organized, but it is a step in the right direction. Organizing by color was inspiring and has my fingers itching for a new project -- even though I know I have things to do instead -- but most importantly, going through all but the littlest of my scraps forced me to think about whether something was likely to get used, a weird fabric, ugly, or any of a number of other flaws. I was surprised at how much fabric I parted with, but I am feeling the pressure to start using some of them -- especially blues, greens, and browns.

One of my initial quilting goals was to make a ticker tape quilt from my scraps -- probably in the raw edge quilt-as-you-go style -- and it seems like I may be approaching a time to start getting more serious about that. I'm both excited and nervous about the prospect.

But other projects first. Other projects first.

Probably.