Sunday, June 24, 2012

cleaning the sewing room

How long does it take you to clean your sewing room?  In actual time it takes about 30 minutes.  But those 30 minutes are spread over about 6 months.  Why does it take 6 months to do a 30 minute job?

I think part of my problem is there are just too many decisions when cleaning the sewing room.  I have so many partially started projects and each one needs a decision.  Should I continue this project, or dump it and break it apart?  Why did it stall?  Did I get distracted by something better?  What is too hard, boring, not the right fabrics?

Where do I put things?  Everything has a place right?  WRONG!  Everything doesn't have a home and when I go to put something away, I have to make a home for it.  If I knew where something went, putting it away would be easy, but since I have to make a decision about where to put something and that usually involves moving three other things, it is much easier to just leave the first thing on the floor.

And then how long will things stay neat and tidy?  30 minutes, 3 days, 3 weeks? What's the point in cleaning up when I'm just going to make a mess again?  When I clean, I usually just move things from one room to another and don't actually organize them.  Like I said, most of my things don't actually have a home, they are just on vacation for a while.  I am hoping to use them up before they have to find a permanent place to live.  That rarely happens because I get a phone call that someone has dropped off yet another box of fabric.  I need to sleep less to keep up with the amount of stuff that comes into my house.

This summer's goal is to make a plan.  Things come in and things go out.  There has to be a balance between the two.  If more things come in than go out, I will never get organized around here.  So, I either need to work harder, faster or smarter.

Two of my kids are still in high school and have both told me they want to work for Binky Patrol and help with the quilts.  I've got to teach them how to quilt the quilts so I can get them out faster so I can keep up with the fabric that is incoming.  That's working smarter.  Getting more people involved!  I'm loving this plan. Let's see if it will work.

2 comments:

Jo C. said...

Hmmm..heres what i do. As soon as something new comes in it gets put away. Sometimes i have to add new containers for fabric, but i keep the containers all in one corner. Each project in progress is in a bag. I use those plastic box picture frames for each projest i want to do but haven't started. They stack up nicely in a couple baskets.
As soon as i finish a project, i clean up everything associated with it. At the end of each day of sewing i take a minute to tidy up...pick up threads from the floor, put rulers all in one place etc. works for me...now the rest of my house is anither story!

SewCalGal said...

I'm all ears hoping you can share tips for cleaning & organizing a sewing room. Definitely one of my biggest challenges!

So happy to hear your kids want to help with the binky patrol. Way cool. And, a great way for them to learn to sew & quilt too!

SewCalGal
www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com