Cheri Chatter

Cheri Chatter

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Getting Organized - Part Two

Now that my storage closet has been reorganized, I decided that it was time to redo my Top 40 List.

I took all the lists I made of projects, UFOs, and fabric collections and discovered that I have 62. Yup, that's five dozen plus a couple more!

If I do one a month, it will take me five years to get through all of them. I would have to quit buying fabric altogether, and that's just not acceptable. So now what?

I've decided that I need to do an average of two quilt projects per month. I made a new list - actually, two lists. One is for projects I plan to complete by the end of the year. The other is for projects waiting in the wings.

I know that second list is going to grow, but hopefully, if I stay on track with the first list, I may be down to 50 or fewer by the end of the year!

Getting Organized for the New Year

I am so lucky to have an entire room in my house devoted to quilting. My quilting space even includes a walk-in closet for storing lots of stuff.

(No, that's not a picture of my closet.)

Unfortunately, the stuff took over to the point where my closet was a "fall-in" closet. I could not walk into it without moving boxes and bags out of the way.

The other day I had to move so much out of the way in order to find a particular fabric, that I decided to reorganize.

I culled out two boxes of fabric to donate. I repacked the rest more neatly and compactly. I made lists of contents. And I drew up a map of exactly where every project and fabric collection is.

The closet is still almost as full. You would not be able to tell much difference between the before and after. But now I can go straight to whatever I need, thanks to my map. As you can see, I left myself a space for walking in!

Diet Update

If you remember, I put myself on a fabric diet several months ago. I thought I was doing well, but according to my shelf space, my fabric is gaining weight.

I blame it on the half-price fabric at Glad Creations. The shelves there keep getting replenished with fabric I love. I've been able to resist a good deal of it, but some just had to come home with me.

My most recent acquisition is God's Will fabric. It's fabric I love but don't need.

I left this one alone until after the New Year's sale at Glad's. I figured if it survived the sale, it must be God's will for me to have it. It came home with me the next business day.

God's Will fabric is a modification of the second of my two diet rules - the one about I can buy half-price fabric if it's one I've had my eye on when it was full-priced. Now I realize I've had my eye on at least half the bolts in the store.

From now on when a favorite goes into the half-price area, I may need to let it "age" a bit.

Back in the Saddle

Christmas was extra hectic this year. My sewing/quilting projects slid by the wayside, so now I am playing catch up. It's great to be back in the saddle!

I just completed two sets of coordinating pillowcases.

The first set is for a couple of campers. They have an annual family camping trip each summer, so now they have pillowcases to take along with them.


The second pair is for a couple of Montana sailors. (Yes, Montana has lakes - big ones.)

Even though the pillowcases have nothing to do with sailing, they do depict fun topics, cowboys and their Harley.


Now I have to make a pillowcase for myself. Hmmm. Maybe guys in toolbelts?