I did it!

 I started cleaning the studio a week ago, on Saturday June 6. I worked my way around the room and left the bins for last. This photo was taken on Wednesday June 10. I was done everything else, and the bins were left.

On Thursday I started with the bin for Light fabrics. I had already made several quilts with fabrics from this bin and I felt it was pretty well picked over. I was ruthless, applying the rules I listed in yesterday's post to determine what I kept and what I tossed.

By the end of the day on Thursday this is what I had left. I put the "Maybe" stuff or things I knew I wanted to keep in the bin on the far left.

By Friday morning I had got the fabrics I would keep down to one large bin. A friend had come by to take the quilt batting and the bag of notions and trims. I had packed some orphan blocks to send to Julie.

I had set aside some things to donate. so Friday morning I loaded up the car and did errands, dropping the donated items to Savers. I had a lot of errands to run, so I did them all, and then paid all the bills and did the usual housework.

I had two other smaller, sweater box sized bins that stored orphaned blocks and extra pieces that I didn't use in quilts. Not shown here are dozens of purple HST's from the Amethyst quilt and blue long rectangles from Needle in a Haystack as well as leftover blocks from Pizzazz. 

Orphaned blocks were everywhere, not just in the Orphan bin. Getting them out of that bin required a lot of hard thinking. WHY was I keeping them? If I was willing to discard fabric I knew I would never use why was I keeping tumbler blocks from the Easter Basket quilt I made in 2017?

In the end I applied the same rules to the orphan blocks as I did to the fabric bits. But some seemed so basic I bagged them and will bring them to my class next week and as if there are any takers. If not, they'll go in the trash or to the recycling center that accepts craft supplies.

It took all day to sort through the very last big bin, and I pressed and put fabrics in the stash, the little bins and the medium bins, sorting all by color and size. What I had left is shown above, one deep sweater bin, and it's in this bin because I simply couldn't jam any more fabric into the other bins.

So this is the way that side of the studio looks now, and remember, the bookshelves and the bottom two shelves of the stash have been blocked by the giant bins for the last four years, so you can imagine my delight that the task is done.

The UPS guy brought this on Friday. It's the backing for the Field of Dreams quilt. I have three weeks before they come to replace the floor in the studio, and that's plenty of time for me to complete this quilt

So that's a really big job done. I will have to remember to "complete the task" when I finish a quilt, and put the excess fabrics away instead of throwing them in a pile to be dealt with "later." I have learned that

"For Now" becomes "Forever," and like the dishes, they are much easier to do if I do them right after dinner than if I let them sit until the next day.

The Bins

 

I don't know how long these big bins have been taking up prime real estate in my studio, but I know it's at least a couple of years. As I am cleaning the room with an eye to the floor install (now scheduled to start on July 6), I knew I wanted to clear these out. I've been digging through several of them and made a few quilts already (Nonchalant, Big Red, Yellow and Pastel Macnas, a couple of Scrap Slab Triangle quilts among others) and I'm sick of looking at the bins.

I knew I was going to have to get ruthless.

Ruthless I did get. The smaller bin now has all the leftover Macnas blocks and the larger one has bits of stuff I think I want to keep. That bin does need to be sorted, but I have time to do that.

How did I go through the bins and decide if something stayed or not? I had a series of questions.

1. Is the piece of a useable size? Yes, keep; No, toss.

2. Do I like it? Yes, keep; No, toss.

3. Do I have more of it in yardage? Yes, toss; No, keep.

4. Is it easy to work with? Yes, keep; No, toss.

5. Have I had it forever? Yes, toss; No, keep.

6. Have I got six thousand pieces of this already? Yes, toss; No, keep.

7. Am I likely to use this in the future? Yes, keep; No, toss.

8. Is this fabric in several quilts? In other words, has it paid for itself already? Yes, toss; No, keep.

I filled two garbage bags full of bits and threw them away. I filled another bag full of reasonably sized pieces and donated it.

When I was talking about getting rid of some stuff to the gals in my swim class, one lady came over and told me about her daughter who makes "stuff." A couple of days later I gave her my business card (kind of tricky when you're already in a swimming pool.) A day or so after that the daughter came over and happily took all the leftover batting pieces and the big bag of notions and trimmings. I was SO happy.

I have two smaller bins that need sorting. One of "orphaned" blocks and another of things I once thought I would take the time to cut up to reuse. That probably won't happen (the cutting up and re-using; not the sorting.)

Lastly will be the stash itself. Mostly it just needs refolding and restocking, but since I will have to remove all fabric from the bookshelf (because the work will be dusty and I want to keep the fabric clean), I will do that only when putting the studio back together after the new floor is installed.

The guys are replacing floors in three rooms, my studio, my office and the master bathroom, so it's going to be a logistical challenge moving things OUT of one room and then putting them back IN and then emptying our the next room and doing it all over again. We'll see how it goes. We think we have a plan.

Red First

 

While waiting for the orange fabric to arrive, I had time to make more slabs, so I decided to go through the bins and bring out Red fabric pieces.

Before I could make slabs, I had to sort and press the pieces.

Then I sewed the pieces into pairs.

Then I was able to cut the slabs into triangles.

I was able to cut over 90 red triangles. I didn't get through ALL the red fabric, but that's OK. I can do this kind of work any time.

I have a LOT of fabric to sort through, and it will take a while, so I will work on it in "little bites."

What's really nice is that I have a big collection of scrap slab triangles from which I can pull when I want to make the next scrap slab triangle quilt. And there will be at least one other. The average scrap slab triangle quilt needs 120 triangles. As you can see in the photo above, I have enough for at least three quilts already.

Reaching Critical Mess

 

My pal Julie asked if I sorted my Orphan blocks by group. Um. No. But it was such a good idea I grabbed some bins and started sorting.

I set aside one big bin for scrap bits I could cut up to use to make slabs.

As you can see, I made labels for the bins.

But it was still messy. So I decided to sort the stuff in the bins by color. But that means only one thing...

There is really only one way to organize the scraps in the big bins. Dump them all out and put them where they belong.

Game On.

Curtains! Bins! Floors! WFH! Oh My!

I think I have two curtains in my whole house, and one of them covers the door in the studio. I don't need folks peeking into my house, so I put a curtain there.

Those red things are tomato pincushions. The fabric is appropriate, except when I take a picture of anything on my design wall the curtain is distracting, so I have to crop it out. I thought I would make a curtain that was light, creamy and would disappear. I actually did some shopping online, but never got very far. 

In my cleaning I found this, a curtain I had used in the last place I lived. I thought it might work, so I hung it up, and OMG I thought it was the ugliest, plainest, most boring thing I had ever seen. So I took it down and looked over at my stash. CLEARLY I didn't want beige or cream, but I also didn't want anything really really busy.

This is part of a line of fabric I fell in love with, and bought lots of. This is why I generally do not buy fabric I fall in love with. Because I never cut into it and it ends up being a waste of money. I might have had some vague plans for this but they never came to fruition. I think this will make a perfect curtain for the door. It will give me some privacy and it isn't too busy.  Over the next few days or so, I will make the curtain. You know, eventually.


In yesterday's post, you may have noticed that the floor in front of the fabric bookshelf was clear of piles of fabric.

That is because I made an Executive Decision. I decided that it would take me WAY TOO LONG to sort through all that stuff and that I would lose my mind and my patience before I got to the end of it. Most of it is too big for the scrap bins, and too small to fold properly and store in the shelves above.

The bin on the top is full of all the leftover striped triangles from the Zebra quilts, along with all the scraps and strips from making them. The bin in the bottom is full of all the bits that were lying on the floor and cluttering up my cutting table. Now that it has been confined to one bin, I can sit down some day and sort through it and decide if it is worth keeping or not.

The big bin on the top of the bookshelf is all the leftover backing fabric from the quilts I have had quilted. (Yes, I am well aware that is not the best place for it, but storage is at a premium in this house, so this is where it will stay.) That stuff is long pieces of odd sizes that are hard to fold. There's all kinds of good stuff up there.

I got home last night and washed the last two windows, and the shelf, and then cleared the room of everything I could. I even moved the kitty condo. I got everything up off the floor, and let the Roomba (the REAL Roomba) do its thing. Then I put everything back.

NOW, it's clean. I have some backing fabrics I have to iron and get ready for their quilts. I have some other fabric that was draped over an armchair in my living room that needs to get ironed and put away properly. I have to organize the fabric in the bookshelf stash. I have a few other smallish things to do, but now I have room to do them and I won't feel angry or irritated every time I walk into the studio.

In other words, I can relax. I will give you the full tour tomorrow.

Thank you JustGail for complimenting me on showing my messy studio. Except I didn't. I did a lot of picking up and putting away before I took that before picture. It was much worse, and I was very embarrassed.

But I just had to prioritize. I had had readers begging for the Zebra tutorial, and I had some nagging issues I had to resolve before I could write it.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of negative reviews my tutes have received, and those are mostly because they did not read the description that said "these are not paper pieced." It's very important to me that whoever buys one of my tutes has all the information they need to make whatever I am teaching successfully. It takes a TREMENDOUS amount of work, and I had to keep figuring out how to get those great big striped triangles to fit together perfectly no matter who made them. So it was work on figuring that out, and the hell with the way the studio looked. Now that the studio is clean I can move on.

Note I did not say "back to normal." "Normal" for my studio would be somewhat messy, indicating creative work is being done.


One final note. I have been WFH - working from home - since mid March. I learned today I will be continuing to do so for at least another couple of months. In the CEO's words to me in an email I received a few hours ago "...we are being super careful and cautious about looking at everyone individually - health risk wise, extended family situation, particular role you are playing - and creating very tailored solutions on how we run the business and attempt to keep everyone safe. Sounds simple, but clearly not easy. But well worth it, it is the only way to do it."

And folks ask me why I have stayed with this company more than 30 years.

It's Time...

When both work tables are covered in fabric to a depth of 18" it's time to clean. There's no room left to move anything over, and working becomes impossible. It's got to go.

Se the big bin on the far left? The one that's overflowing with fabric? Those scraps have to be sorted into the smaller bins on the table. As regular readers know, they are sorted by color.

The color blocks I have been making have come exclusively from fabrics in the little bins. I know there's a whole quilt in there, and I'm eager to see just how big a dent I can make in these bins.

I can see the red, orange, brown, teal and purple bins are overflowing. Guess which blocks I'll have to make next?

The Real Studio Tour, Week 2

 

Today's topic for the Real Studio Tour is my favorite storage method. That would be the clear plastic bins in which I store my small fabric scraps.

I have about twenty of these little bins, and my little scraps are sorted by color. Each bin is labelled.

 When I need to clean up, I line up the boxes and put the scrap bits where they belong. This way the scraps are stored relatively wrinkle-free. Since I use a lot of little pieces when I make my free-pieced letters, this keeps them organized, neat, clean, and easily accessible.

The little bins are labelled so it's easy to find what I need. They are Accessory Boxes from The Container Store.



What's really nice about them is they are stackable with other plastic storage bins from the Container Store.  Two accessory bins nest perfectly on one of the Container Store's Mens' Shoeboxes, and four of them fit perfectly on one of their "Sweater boxes." The boxes are inexpensive and always available.

Another really nice thing about them is whenever I need to order more, I know they will be the same size as the ones I already have.

Clean Sewing Studio!

I hate my sewing studio so much when it's messy, that I never take pictures of it. I really should, because clean sewing rooms are pretty boring.But I was bound and determined to clean the sewing studio before my trip to later this week. So here are two pictures of the process. I had a huge pile of bits and pieces and I got out all the little bins. It took me about two hours to sort through them.Now the room is nice and clean, and all the bits are sorted. Woo hoo!

Shuffle Along

For my birthday, I bought myself some more of the little bins I use to store my little scraps.

And last night I finally stapled some flannel to one of the walls in my sewing studio to use as a design wall.Of course, this necessitated a complete rearrangement of everything in there...I'm not done yet. You'll see.

Solution to a Quandary

I love to watch Tennis. This morning Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are playing in Madrid, and it's being televised on the Tennis Channel. I only get the Tennis Channel on the TV in the living room. So how can I watch and get something constructive done?Set up the ironing board in there, and use the time to press the scraps and bits I've stuffed in the little bins.
Yes, I'm crazy, I admit it.

Bins

My little bins arrived yesterday from the Container Store. These are their "Accessory Boxes" and they are 7-1/2" x 6-1/2" x 3-5/8" high. I ordered 12. I have sorted them by color, as you can see.This was a great idea. As I sorted through, I kept finding things that shouldn't be there. Usable 2-1/2" strips 42" wide, etc. Now when I want something, it will be easy to find.I knew I would need more than 12 boxes, but I wasn't sure just how many, so just ordered 12. These are Brown, Black, Black & White, White (need one for Creams), Yellow, Orange, Red, Pink, Purple (need one for Lavenders), Dark Blues, Light Blues (need one for Teals) and Green. I also need ones for "Acid" Greens, Golds, Novelty prints and what I call "Multis."

I am really happy.

Tomorrow... S is for Slither...