Reimaging my space - from the inside out.

Organization

Apr 5

You have to be able to appreciate the simplicity of a great pattern match…

Oh, when I wrote that last blog post, I was so naive about being done. February and March brought me some wonderful surprises to enjoy, and I’ve been relishing them. It also revealed I had so much more work to do than I had ever expected - the internal work, the hard stuff.

The photo above was taken in a hotel a week ago, as I relaxed with my coffee and reflected on the rejuvenation offered by an unexpected quilters retreat that weekend. I’ll have more on that later, including how out of practice with the whole ‘retreating’ I am, but just being able to actually ‘see’ the match on the cushions across from me told me that the retreat had done it’s job.

Most people (including myself) who have seen my workspace would have assumed it was pristine and well organized. I found out the hard way it was very much otherwise. I had cleaned and organized around the mess in many ways…but this time I had to clean/declutter/purge my way through it. Surprisingly, it all began with the pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic (and the beginning of the world’s biggest technology learning curve), a lot of non-quilting related equipment began arriving via Amazon as I navigated my way through this new world. A tripod here, a ring light there - and with each piece, I had to find a home for it. Things that I used in quiltmaking got shoved to the back of the storage closet, and stayed there. More stuff in, no stuff out…and you begin to understand how this can happen. I can see this being a bad decluttering video.

Things had to change because I wasn’t functioning in the room the way I wanted to. And the more I looked around, the more I craved change - and sewing. Looking at a long, cold, dark New England winter, I began to make lists. What wasn’t working? What did I want to change? How was I spending my time? Those lists helped me start to sort a path forward.

Granted, it’s spring now….but I had been sewing in a black hole.

This light is great, and it works for me. It’s too bad that it took 3 different attempts to find the right one.

Batting storage….this category had never really been addressed, and it showed. I don’t have enough space (remember that all rooms are finite spaces) to store it by the roll, and I was fine with that. I had packages stuffed here, there and everywhere…but I had no concept of how much I had, what types it was, or where it was. And can I talk about the toys - the really fun to work with, makes your quilting better, toys that I had accumulated along the way, but had no energy to dig out. Well, I had a shower inspiration one day…

Batting - and backing storage - convenient and accessible. Along with a my Martelli round that I use when piecing.

This hamper had been in the back of my closet, and it held my scraps in it. By moving it out, I could put both the closet space AND the hamper itself to much better use. The hamper now lives at the end of my cutting table, and it’s a perfect place for both my batting and my backing fabric. The backing fabric had been in a bin in my closet, and that’s now emptied and in the basement. I now have the batting tagged to the next 5 projects in my work queue - something else that’s on a roll! I’ll revisit the rest when those are done.

Another bin sorted and cleaned.
These are all patterns that I had accumulated along the way. These have all been donated to my guild’s fall sale…

MY pattern archive now lives - along with my sketch books - under my cutting table, and every pattern I’ve ever created has it’s own home.
Or it will… I’m still piecing that part together. This is one of my favorite things in the space.

I could write for days, but I have more writing to do tonight. I literally had to rethink everything in the space - and the work has paid off already. I just had made myself a promise that I was going to get back on the blog horse this week.

In next week’s blog, I’ll talk about the inner work I’m doing to master this whole left brain/right brain conundrum I’m dealing with.

In the meantime, how is your week going? Let me know in the comments.