Hi everyone,
Some people weed in their gardens so their tomatoes and cucumbers have the best chance at producing a wonderful bounty. Others weed in their flower beds, deadheading the flowers so new blooms can come forth. Some even have been known to weed out their sewing rooms; letting things go that aren’t used or needed anymore! That would be me!!! I am eventually going to get to the end of this, but so far, it’s been REALLY working since I made this list. I can’t quite figure out why it’s working so well, unless it’s just the overwhelming part is gone. You don’t have to get it ALL done, you only have to do what’s one one little line… just one little grouping, and some are really small…
Like my glues, for instance. I had glues on the sewing machine table, on a book shelf and in a cubby by my sewing machine. This plan I’m working with would say to me, “All glues need to be in ONE place…so when you need glue, you can see and find anything you need!” So I moved them all to one place. This was a simple task and yes, I got to CIRCLE it on the paper! Yay!
See how small that grouping was… but it’s done now and if “anything” needs to be glued, I know EXACTLY where to go!
Right next to the glues are my containers with my jewelry stuff… beads, findings, stretch cord, pearls, charms, fasteners, etc.
Underneath my jewelry items is a box filled with my paper flowers… and on top of it are some ones that didn’t fit in the box. (Sorry, it was a good buy and I had to take the whole lot.) Once I get back to making hats, the flowers will go down in number.
Beside the paper flowers, you can see a little round piece that looks like it has dowel rods sticking up all the way around. It was part of a bow making tool. I got it just because it’s close together and I can tie my tiny little bows on it and slip them up the rods and they are the exact same size no matter how many I make. I also found a little wooden dowel rod piece, that I believe was probably used to hold a place or a picture. It works the same way though… wrap your ribbon around the dowels, loop your thread around the middle, slide it off the top and you have a nice bow. I might have to do a video on how it’s done sometime!
Here is a drawer full of ribbons that got “organized” but not necessarily “weeded” out yet. It does look much better than it did. I keep forgetting to take before pictures.
I know you’ve seen my little white armoire in my sewing room, but I have something new to show you. A while back, I found this metal clock at the Goodwill and snatched it up! I just LOVE it! It looks better when you see it with all my fabrics showing… I’ll have to show that another time.
This cabinet has been used for lots of different things, but I especially like to have my laces in here. I can stack them in containers and they stay nice and neat and clean. I combined a few of the containers and eliminated some of the older laces I hadn’t touched and probably never would. Then I stacked everything neatly in there and it’s MUCH better!
Here’s the inside now!
Let’s see… I think we have baskets to finish out today… I have collected tiny little baskets for several years AND IT SHOWS from the looks of this drawer.
I had every kind imaginable and just about any size you needed for a doll. I got them all out and counted them… I think there were 62 besides the pails and watering can.
I eliminated 37 of them… and kept the rest, which fit MUCH nicer in the drawer. Then much to my dismay, I discovered another drawer with baskets in it. I eliminated all of those except 3.
Now ALL my baskets fit very nicely in the drawer! I guess I forgot to take a picture of my basket drawer, but let me tell you, they fit very well in ONE single drawer now! I didn’t have that on my list… “Baskets”… so I wrote it down and CIRCLED it! YAY for the win!
Well, that’s it for me today!
Hope to see you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Bit by bit, that to-do list is getting done, and things are looking very organized.
I have been doing a little of that, too, but for a different reason. My cousin messaged me and asked if I’d every participated in a [quilt] block exchange, and if so, could I share pictures? Well, yes, I’ve participated in at least two that I can recall, possibly more, and Surely they have to be in my sewing room Somewhere!! Right?! Well, I haven’t found them yet. BUT…I did discover so far FIVE quilt tops that have not been quilted or bound yet!! One of them (a “stack and whack”), I had completely forgotten about!! Three of them are “round robins” (the owner makes the center block or row, and it is passed to another person who adds a border/row, and so on until the decided-upon number has been reached. The row-by-row one has eight rows (meaning 7 other people added rows to my original row), one round robin has four borders, the other one has, I think, six (I forgot to look). And then there’s one other I pieced completely by myself, and was, I think, the first one I made, so I would guess early 1990s…. Looks like I have some projects to finish!
I would love to see the blocks, Charlotte.
This moving adventure has kind of rattled my “sew-jo” and would love some inspiration. I need to grab a quilt that is half way through the binding and sit and do a little hand sewing in the evening.
I would LOVE to see your UFOs (unfinished objects) and some of your collaborated projects! How fun!
Thank you, Rosemary; I’ve already taken pictures of some, but when I find the block exchange tops, etc., I’ll take pictures of those, too, and maybe I can send Jeanne some of them down the line a bit.
You really are making progress, Jeanne! Everything looks so nice and neat, and I LOVE your clock! Yes, if we could see it with the stacks of fabrics right there next to it better, it would look just perfect for a room like this!
My question is, what are you doing with all the things you are weeding out? Selling on your Etsy page, donating it? I’m sure you don’t have the time to list everything and then keep track of it!
As I was weeding through my small stash of patterns, I found one that I had bought long, long ago, thinking that when we moved to our future “dream house”, I would make them! They were these patterns of little dolls with full skirts that you would put on top of your toaster, blender, mixer, all the things in a kitchen that you would want to hide! Does anyone remember those? Good grief, and LOL! Why would I be hiding things that belonged in a kitchen, with dolls that didn’t? I was young and clueless, I guess!
haha I can relate so well, Linda. I did some weeding a few months ago, I am donating most of it, neatly boxed to Blue Ridge Hospice here in Northern Virginia they have 4 shops
I still saved a few patterns just because they were some pretty wild ideas.
Remember when Joanns used to have $1 patterns sale?
Bonjour. C’est fantastique,tout ce rangement.C’est dommage que vous soyez si loin ; mon atelier de couture aurait bien besoin de vous,” la spécialiste du rangement”..! Rien qu’avec mes boutons,il y en a pour tout l’été ! Pour moi,c’est une activité de jours de pluie;en ce moment,il fait beau et c’est dans le jardin,que j’essaie de mettre de l’ordre ! Je vous lit régulièrement, même si je n’écris pas beaucoup et je vous envoie mes amitiés à vous toutes . Georgina.
I always enjoy your chore of re-organizing your sewing room. You have good ideas and now a lot of of your things are organized in order for you to find them.
I like organizing my drawers as well and cupboards and closets. I don’t know what it is about knowing that everything is in its place, but I find that a wonderful thing.
I’ve also been downsizing a lot of the things in our house that we no longer use. We’re not getting any younger and we have so much sitting around we no longer use.
Good luck in finishing the rest of the room. These are always inspiring to watch.
Looks like another humid day around here. I’m staying inside the house. 😂
Good morning dear friends. I hope everyone is feeling good today
Jeanne, excellent progress on your work shop/office.
Very good decisive weeding, I am inspired! my upstairs sewing space is looking kind of dicey right now. Mainly because I do not have a ceiling light in that room and do not even see any prewire for one, so I will have to get some good lights.
Has it been hot in your neighborhoods? It has been mid 90’s here in Northern Virginia. Hot and kind of humid too. Certainly oppressive in the afternoon. I can not go out in the afternoon or evening because mosquitoes think I am a dessert buffet. Sprays and special clothing do not work. I think it is an immunity thing, but oh well. I got one mosquito bite yesterday standing outside blabbing with new neighbors.
One on our neighbors from our “old neighborhood” that I lost touch with, drove by my new house and said hello. They moved to a house a block away. To me this is a prayer answered. Moving is traumatic, and it is good to know God is always moving in my life.
I am grateful that David and Mary live close by.
Every day is moving endeavors, I hope to pull out a quilt and finish hand sewing the binding.
Love to all of you, dear ones
Good for Jeanne on her organization. Looking good. I did have a laugh when I saw her glue all together in one place. I too have the glue in one place, except for the strongest holding one that I couldn’t find recently. I have spent countless time trying to find that glue tube. I know where I had it last before it was moved in a cleaning frenzy. But, since then, it has completely disappeared. I searched the garage where the caulking lives, cabinets, drawers, and various other places to no avail. I suppose that I should never have removed it from the counter. Now, I guess I’ll have to buy some more. Woe is me.
I didn’t get a chance to comment on Susette’s relevant camp prices yesterday. Had no idea that they were such expensive ventures that certainly should have had warnings installed.
Callie Cat has become picky about the food we have been feeding her. Probably eating elsewhere as well, but I’m curious what everyone feeds their kitties? Dry, wet? Healthy brands?
We have fog this morning, but the rest of the week is going to be hot. It has been so nice with the comfortable weather we’ve been having. Not looking forward to the heat.
Hi Joy, my pet kitties are all on various Rx wet plus dry diets (urinary, kidney, pancreatic by Royal Canin and Hill’s), but for the porch kitties I feed Purina Cat Chow Naturals dry that is available all day. It’s a light olive green bag. I feed Fancy Feast wet. The Classic Chicken Feast pate and Savory Salmon Feast pate are the preferred flavors here. Of course, there is also water with ice cubes in the summer and on a heated mat in the winter.
I get all my supplies from Chewy because they have auto ship which saves money and they deliver to your door. I recently joined their Chewy + program and have already regained 4x the cost of yearly membership in just a few short months. Of course, Rx diets and multiple kitties make that very easy. 🥰😹
Thanks so much Laura. I’m going to check these out. Kind of clueless here. 🙂
Hey, y’all, went to the Y pool today. My back has been hurting in a different place but being in the pool has never hurt until now. I had to get out of the pool early and then had to leave the grocery store because walking hurt so bad. I am supposed to be getting another back shot tomorrow but this pain is really
different so I called the office to let him know before the shot. I never get to talk to him unless we are in his office. I hope the person I spoke to got through to him.
Anyway, hoping it will get better after tomorrow. I have never had it this bad before. I would love a little prayer.
Hi Sissy, so sorry to hear your back is acting up and in a different way. Prayers that the shot will help or the doctor has a better solution.
After receiving your e-mail I came back to see what you wrote. If I don’t refresh the page after I comment, I miss some that commented at the same time and don’t see them until later. I’m so sorry to hear your back is worse. I was wishing we had something like your water aerobics here. I figured you were good to go and never thought things could get worse in the water. We have a walk-in tub we put in when we did our addition and got the second bath. I haven’t even used it because I’ve never been a one for soaking in the tub and you have to wait for it to fill before you can turn it on and that takes time. But I think I’m going to have to get over that because my mobility issues aren’t getting any better and I’m hoping that might help. My issues are from my lower back to my feet and never the same two days in a row so I just keep trying things to remedy the problem. The chiropractor helps but he is so far away that if I have a bad day I can’t make the drive. I used to have a great one right around the corner, but he left during COVID and didn’t come back. I guess he just remained at his other office which is much further from me. Ours was a satellite. Hopefully you will have good news for us tomorrow. Sending prayers your way for healing.
Praying for you, Sissy!! That the doctor got the message, that you remember to tell him yourself, just in case, and that they can do something to help that intense pain. Hugs!
Making good progress, Jeanne. That’s a lot of little baskets. I’m fond of baskets also, human and doll size.
I’m glad the list system is working well. That’s the only way I organize. I also will add something to my list that wasn’t there at first just so I can cross it off.
Your continued reorganization is fun to watch but I sure wish I had your amount of storage. I have so little that I have stacked plastic boxes sitting on floor dollies in front of the closets/cabinets I do have. I’ll be able to move some of it to the new storage room so that should help a lot. What I really need is a room just for dolls and doll stuff.
Years ago I needed something to make bow making easier but there was nothing like I wanted at that time. So David made one for me. It’s a foot long block of wood with holes drilled in the top side at regular intervals. There are two metal “dowels” that I can space according to my needs, and he cut out a space in the end for me to store the dowels in and a way to close it. While there are now things like this on the market, I still use the one he made for me.
I’m afraid I can’t help Joy on the animal nutrition front. When we had a cat and a dog, the cat liked the dog food and the dog liked the cat food. We left them to it.
I just discovered that one of the girls missing from Camp Mystic is a nine-year-old from Bellville. While I personally don’t know the family I know people who do. We will be praying for strength for her family because at this stage things are not looking hopeful.