Little Things

You are all pretty funny. I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time Megan has invited me to Australia to help her clean and organize her studio. I keep telling her, "Send me an airplane ticket and I'll go!"

Wanda, the big sliding glass windows are a cinch to clean if you do it the way the professionals do - with a squeegee! But seriously, I try to wash all the windows in the house every other year and this was the year. I've already got another side of the house done, and I am working my way around.

Polly, the CD's are in a big bin on a chair in my living room. I'll figure out what to do with them when I have the energy. I'm pretty sure most of them are already in my iTunes library, but I do want to check to be sure.

Cherie, there are, in fact, TWO Traveling Millies. Tracey made the first one (with roses, reclining in this photo) and mailed it to my house before Violette's christening. Alas, it arrived after I left, and  while I was there, Tracey and I made the second one. One is stuffed a little firmer, so she sits up and is better when posed for photos, but each one has traveled across the country a few times.

In the 12 years I've had them, few people have noticed there are two of them. Of course YOU have met Miss Paisley Millie! (Miss Rose Millie traveled to California for my son's wedding.) Tracey also made the Monty sock kitty. Lucky guy!

An aside... When I spoke to Quintessential Quilts in 2013, a couple in the audience asked if they could have a picture with Miss Millie. And they didn't mean ME! The world is indeed a funny place.

The other night I managed to shove all the folded fabric somewhere on the bookshelf, but when I went in there the next morning, it made me a little angry.

After about ten minutes (while I drank my smoothie and ate my toast), I had moved the cream and white fabrics to the top shelf, and started moving the yellows and oranges together.

A few more minutes at lunchtime helped get the blues all in one spot.

After work I got the other colors in their spots. Now, this is by no means organized. I will stack the fabrics better so I can move them around without knocking stuff over.  Of course, the last time I did this I got started on the Zebra bender, and it's been a little over two years... You probably noticed the floor is a lot cleaner.

I'll get to that tomorrow. 

Clean Up, Clean Out (But No Quilts)

I've been cleaning my "office." It's been a kind of a catch-all or junk room for most of the last year. My desk is in there and I was really avoiding the room because it was so messy.

Over the last couple of weekends I've gone through the closet and trashed a lot of stuff and brought four bins of stuff to Goodwill. I've shredded eight bags of paperwork. In fact, I had to buy a new shredder because mine died. It was 10 years old, so I wasn't too broken up about it. The new one is much quieter.

So here is what the room looks like now.

It's a vast improvement. I've also sorted through all the bookcases and the drawers in the bureau (which you can't see in the photo.)

Which got me to going through the drawer in the nightstand.  See those wire bins on  the chair in the photo above?

Here's the Before:

Now for the After:

So how did I get from the Office to the Bedroom? It was the pens. I had almost a dozen pens in the drawer. For what?  As I sorted through various drawers in different rooms I realized I had pens in every room in the house except the bathroom. Now they are all in one place.

I mean, really, how many pens do I need in my nightstand?

Notes: The two-dollar bill is something of a good luck charm; I use the post-its for bookmarks, and the only charging cable in the drawer now is for my iPhone.  This is SO much easier.

When this room is done, I'll be moving into the sewing studio to give it the same kind of ruthless treatment.

Inspiration Wall Re-Do

Whenever I received a compliment about a quilt I made, I printed it out and hung it on this "inspiration wall" above my ironing table. It is always nice to look up and read lovely things about quilts I made. When I'm having doubts, it's good to read positive things.

But as you can see, the pages closest to the ironing table are warped and wrinkled because of the steam from the iron and the overspray from the water bottles. I really like having those emails above my work areas, but didn't want to lose those lovely notes.

On the adjacent wall, I've got photos of my word quilts for reference. I decided to swap them around. This way I could keep the lovely comments, and keep them from getting destroyed. It would also give me the opportunity to clean up the stuff I really didn't need.

Now the pictures of my word quilts are on the wall above the ironing table,

These notes, pictures and postcards look a lot better.

One side note. The fun little quilt in the second photo, "Daft Zebras," (the acid green one with black and white letters), got a new name when Julie unpacked it at her house last month.

"What new name?" I asked when she told me.


"MINE!"


Hahahahahahahaaha!!!  So it will be staying at Julie's house for a while, along with the Fox.

More Clutter-B-Gone

There's a small bookcase in my studio that is just full of stuff, and it always makes me crazy when I look at it.

I have more books that should be in there. Sigh!

In my anti-clutter mood, I worked on this bookcase yesterday.

This is much better, imho.

I'm not done, either. I have more clutter to clear!

Clutter B Gone!

I'm one of those for whom the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" was created. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist.

So I keep my fabrics and my tools where I can see them. The problem with this is, well, that after a while surfaces get cluttered. And after a while I get annoyed just looking at them.  I decided to move stuff around (and clear the useless stuff away).

Here's the board where I keep my cutting rulers and templates. It -looks- okay, but if you look closely you can see that several rulers are stacked one on top of another, which makes grabbing ONE a real PITA.

I have another, smaller board on the other side of the room, and it's covered with stuff that's really useless.  I decided to move the rulers I use less often to the other wall.

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That cleared enough room for me to rearrange the long straight rulers and templates I use most often.

I am quite happy with this arrangement.

But then, I had to do the other one...
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How did I know what would fit where?

Why, lay them out on the floor, of course! Naturally Millie had to snoopervise.

I like this a lot and my studio already feels better when I walk into it.