Tuesday, February 26, 2013

I'm Following the Leader

I've been watching a lot of you posting about cleaning through your sewing spaces lately. Tidying and re-configuring seems to have swept blogland like some kind of sewing room plague. Kudos to you all.  I did that last year and I'm pretty happy with the way everything is laid out. It's functional, everything is easy to get to and I know where everything is. That is...I thought it was functional, and easy to move around in and that I knew where everything was until I went looking for something on Saturday.

Not being able to find the repro triangles I cut on Thursday or the yellow sashing for Little P's Superhero blocks drove me over the edge. (I eventually found the yellow sashing stuffed in the scissor drawer) I also had no idea where the hexie flowers that had the paper so painstakingly removed were or where any of the blocks I'd completed for the recycled shirt quilt had got to. Let's not even talk about opening the wardrobe because that presented the very real risk of being crushed to death by falling debris. 

I showed Little Miss Sunshine the mess via Facetime and even she was shocked, gleefully informing me that my mess was far worse than hers. When you get to that point the only thing to do is catch a big old dose of the same illness everyone else has and get infected by the tidying bug.

So on Saturday night Mr. P whacked Pearl Harbor into the DVD and I set about re-organising all my fabric back into their respective boxes while watching Kate Beckinsale wait for missing Ben Affleck for three whole months before she decided his best mate was a better deal because at least he was alive before Josh Hartnett gets heroically killed and she goes back to Ben Affleck even though Josh Hartnett is her baby daddy. I figure everyone has seen Pearl Harbor by now so I hope that didn't spoil the movie for anyone who was possibly planning to catch up on movies they've never seen in the imminent future. If so, that's one you won't have to watch now. 

Cleaning up for some reason always seems to result in a whole load more mess being made. In fact I'm still cleaning up in there, but I'm happy to report that most of my fabric has been re-folded and stored back in it's respective hidey holes. And that as the result of all this activity all of my current projects have their own boxes instead of being left to live where I last got sick of them until I decide I want to work on them again. Hopefully  that will help me avoid another "I can't find a f****** thing " scenario like I had on Saturday. 



I've made a rule that I can only open and work on one project box at a time but we all know that wont last, and that within a fortnight my sewing room will probably look just as dire as it did before I did this monumental clean up. And I still haven't worked up the guts to open the wardrobe door yet.

In amongst all of this I managed to do bits and pieces on some of my projects as I was going along because it's apparently impossible for me to pick one task and not get distracted. 

All the triangles are cut out for my new quilting project. The big question is whether I can resist sewing them together until I've finished the quilting on Superheroes 1....



I cut up the rest of the old shirts I had laying around (literally-on the floor) ready to make the final hexie blocks and the backing for the quilt. Look ! Don't they look organised in their little box? 



I finished all the yellow blocks for Little P's superheroes quilt top and started the red ones. Yes I'm aware I haven't pressed them yet just as I'm well aware of the vow I made that I was going to finish the entire quilt top this month. There are still two days left - so I might do it , although that's looking very unlikely. 




And I fixed a 3 inch popped seam in the crutch of Mr. P's favourite shorts. He's been wearing them like that for weeks until I finally refused to be seen in public with him wearing them like that. You could see his undies when his shirt rode up. Try not to think about what it would look like if he didn't wear undies because that visual will give you nightmares. And he's actually incredibly lucky I didn't sew them directly to his crutch since he came to me as he was putting them on and asked if I could do them right that minute-right that minute being 10 minutes before we were due out the door for dinner at Sister Of Pyjamas house.  No pictures - be thankful I spared you that! 



24 comments:

  1. Tell Mr P we are very thankful indeed! After all that, did you find the recently-worked on hexies?

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  2. I bought clear tubs like the ones you have and they work great so far...except when I go to pull fabric for a project it all gets jumbled up again. At least it gets jumbled in a colourwise container, and is contained. ;-)
    Looks great!

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  3. Great job on the organization! I hate it when I can't find where I've put something. On the other hand,I have serious out of sight/out of mind issues. So we'll see how creative I actually am now that my stuff isn't lying about everywhere where I can see it at all times.

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  4. I would have sewed them to his crotch ;o)

    I have to embrace a huge upheaval moving all my shit around into levels of 'useableness' where least used will be in the loft, mid-used in my newly acquired spare room, and most used still in the living room. I know it will feel good at the end, but dear god I don't wanna!!!!!

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  5. I'm with Katy. Crotch sewing is a highly under utilised method of stopping from asking us to do mending.

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  6. Thank you Mister P for NOT going commando!

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  7. Good job on the clean up! Mine never lasts, either, it is futile!

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  8. Oooh, tidy! I don't have a sewing room so my crap, I mean sewing stash, is all over the house, mostly lately creeping out over the loungeroom like a cancer! One day I'll have a dedicated cupboard to shove it all in too! Well done on the shorts mending. I have a hole in the pocket in my handbag and despite me sitting on the bus with it on my lap everyday, with I might add my needle and thread ready to go as I'm piecing on the bus I still keep having to dig around in the lining of my bag to get my keys out! One day I'll get to it!

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  9. Quite impressive truly! Amazing organization skills you have. :)

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  10. lol - i cleaned up my room on sunday because i couldn't find anything - and it's all gone to crap again.....

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  11. I would have sewed them to his crotch too. BTW thanks for putting that picture into my head!
    Damn it, now your room is tidier than mine, that means I'll have to get stuck into cleaning my sewing room now.
    I need to buy some more of those boxes. I might get the world record for the most Samla boxes in one room.

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  12. I'll send you squid she is giving me the shits coming into my sewing room and telling me that I am making it messy. I keep telling her I will put it all away when I have finished cutting, it is just the creative process that is messy and i will tidy it before I move on.

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  13. The re-re-re-re-organizing of the sewing room is a bird call, no?

    Great visual of Pearl Harbor in the background of your sorting adventure. Thanks SO MUCH for the full crutch mend description.

    I don't really know if anyone is fully capable of not swearing when looking for something you've just had your hands on days ago. Glad everything was found eventually!

    Hope the dinner at Sister P's house made up for having to mend.

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  14. Did you clean up cos the sewing girls were coming for stitching? I do love your pigeon holes, that is a great storage space. I have shelves and the height of the box never seems to let me fit the optium amount of stuff in without cramming. I have "cleaned up" but I didnt "throw out", so really I mmoved excess stuff from one space to another....it would have helped if I had used the bin more!

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  15. I actually tried some tidying today and I have to say....mainly surface clean. I am sure there is a team of marauding scrap elves roaming my neighbourhood as I am sure I didn't' throw it all around my sewing room. I'll be on Hoarders TV show soon.

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  16. Me being the queen of excuses, I want to remind you that Feb. is the shortest month, and if Little P's quilt top isn't done by Mar. 1 well that is why.
    Sorry we infected you with the cleaning bug. I'm still working on my bins.
    Hugs

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  17. I love your organized space! My mom's been making me do all sorts of work around here - and we've just started. I'm much happier to hibernate during the winter, but it's nice to see the finished product.

    Well done!

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  18. I'm with you on so many things here..... Tidying up getting worse before it gets better, the better never lasts vey long! I promised myself this year I would finish off the 3 quilt tops I have waiting to be quilted before I stated anything new, ha ha! I've got fabric lined up for my next 3 or 4 quilts and a pile of books with post in notes sticking out for projects for the future! Tonight I discover that a fabric shop I love to go to is moving to bigger premises so will hold double the stock - guess where I'll be this weekend :D x

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  19. LOL, I think Mr. Pyjamas is really lucky to have a wife who will sew ripped seams instead of throwing away the shorts (as I would have done I'm sure).

    I LOVE your project boxes and cubbies. I saw your comment on Kate's blog about thread. I have a little sewing cabinet with shallow drawers with pegs in them for thread. They work really well but I could use a few more. I have too much thread too.

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  20. Your closet looks amazing, but with no before pictures I'll have to take little miss sunshine's word for how bad it looked. Good luck on the superhero finish. I'm sure you can do it -- too bad it's not leap year.

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  21. Ohhh so nice and tidy!! You just have to train the clean up fairies to keep it that tidy. I'm loving your triangles! Good on you for sewing up Mr P's shorts. Makes me feel like I should sew up Phil's holey shorts...

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  22. I think quilt space organization is a never-ending process. Your shelves of fabrics neatly organized in storage bins is beautiful!

    May the sewing muses be with you while you work on Little P's Super Hero quilt.

    xo -E

    P.S. I haven't seen Pearl Harbor even though we own the DVD. It never really interested me. Now I know why.

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  23. Do you think the power of suggestion may be driving all the sewing room reorgs? You project boxes look all neat and ready to go. Enjoy your organized space for as long as it lasts.

    Mr P does realize just how good you are to him doesn't he?

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  24. I regularly shout "I can't find a f-ing thing", in my mind at least, in my sewing room. I more often shout out loud "put your f-ing stuff away" to everyone else in this house. I find I give my sewing room a big clean and tidy up every year. Usually the week between Christmas and New Year!

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