Friday, February 24, 2012

Spring Cleaning

Like many crafters my workroom is usually a mess. I have been trying for years to organize it. At least a couple of times a year I clean, declutter and give away things that I do not need or haven't used. It stays "cleaned and organized" until my next project.

This year after I attended the annual craft festival I discovered some fabric organizers.

Previously my fabric was stored in Rubbermaid containers and plastic bags. Good for storage but bad if you ever want to find anything; the fabric was just stacked, I could never see the fabric on the bottom of the pile unless I wanted to empty the container. So mostly I just went out and purchased more fabric. My resolution for 2012 is to use more of my stored fabric to do that I have to see the fabric I have available.

Here's some before and after pictures, ( I have a lot more fabric, this is just some of it). I'm happy with the way the organization came out. I found types and themes of fabric I did not even remember buying. I will still have to purchase fabric to complete projects but hopefully I'll get to use more of my stash.

Before . . .


After, yea! Look how pretty (lol).Hopefully I can keep it this way and find what I'm looking for without destroying everything I just organized. When I was wrapping the fabric around the boards, I got a little frightened I had no idea just how much fabric I had. It was an eye opener, and so far for 2012 I have not purchased any fabric; of course before I get too excited, I haven't really started any new projects either.


The small containers hold "fat quarters" and fabric 1 yard or less - I had at least a hundred of them, in different places so I didn't realize how much I had; I filled 6 containers.

I still had to use one of the Rubbermaid containers for my fleece and some of the other really large pieces of fabric and I have more fabric stored in another room, but this is a start.

What I've been doing . . .

Been pretty busy lately with work, home, Life!, etc. But I have been sewing so here's a couple of the quilts I have been working on.



This a quilt I designed and quilted for my niece. She sleeps whenever she gets a chance. We have taken several road trips together and just like many little kids (she's not a little kid, lol) whenever she gets into the car she falls asleep no matter how hard she tried to stay awake and keep me company.

The quilt uses a premade center panel - the photo is called "Blue Monday." Appropriate don't you think?




This is a strip quilt, made up of strips of different African material no wider than 1-1/2 inches. Each block took me about 45 minutes to sew, I got impatient so I stopped after about 30 blocks. It really wasn't big enough for anything other than a wall hanging (which I don't do), so I added 18 inches of black fabric for the border which made it big enough for a throw; and yes I quilted it on the frame - it is still cool!