State of My Stash

Em over at Sewing by Moonlight has put out a call for a Sewing Room Clean Up Along. You might recall my Messy Wednesday post from last week... well I did get that under control which contributed to my burst of energy in getting things done without distraction this week. Yay!

But, I have another area in need of a bit of TLC... my stash! I used to sew in the closet you can spy below (minus Tucker's litter box I might add!). Before we moved in my Mom and I came over to measure windows and closet shelves. She observed that this would make a nice sewing area and it did for 8 years. I loved having a little space of my own and I could easily wheel my sewing table out into the family room when I had a large project.

The person who designed our house did a great job in this laundry room with LOTS of storage. There are four kitchen pantry style slide out shelves behind those big doors.

And, this huge closet on the other side of the room. Looks tidy enough right?

Except that when you open those doors you see this. Enough said.

This side is looking pretty good... you know why? I refer to these shelves as "The Untouchables". They contain my precious shabby chic fabrics as well as my Fabric With a Project in Mind stash. You know, those fabrics that you bought once upon a time for a project that you may or may not have written down but don't want to use in case you come across it one day! Since I'm all about UFOs I try not to look at these too much... sigh.

Hey...not bad up top! I use file boxes to store my blue & yellow prints, Up North/Fall fabrics, Thimbleberries, flannels and Christmas fabrics (2 boxes). They are stored by color family or fabric line folded side up so I can quickly pull them down and shop the box. The bins in the top middle contain floral FQs sorted by value (I'm a wannabe Watercolor Artist!).

Those piles in the middle need a sort and fold and the dishes belong in my mosaic studio.

I need to make room for this stuff... some of which does have a home like those Valentine prints and my large bin of strings. The eQuilter box is full of yummy new fabric and the 6+ yards of cute B&W bird flannel (50% off at Joann.com) for Project Linus backings fresh from the dryer could use a temporary home.

Here is a peek inside the pantry... I store mostly UFOs and large lengths of fabric in here. Mailing supplies have crept in as well as other odds & ends. Some wasted space that I can better utilize!

Last stop is the walk in closet where I used to have my sewing table on wheels between the walls of shelves. Most of this stuff is sorted, labeled and stored in plastic bins. I have knitting UFOs and yarn in here as well as all of my cross stitch UFOs and fabrics. Can you tell I've never met a craft I didn't like?

I'm not going to get side tracked into these except to grab my embroidery hoops, inventory my needles and MAYBE start a list of UFOs. Or maybe not if that seems too discouraging on top of my quilting UFOs. I'll see... but again some organizing of the free floating stuff will create valuable space as these are nice deep shelves.

LOL! Look at that mess of backing fabrics up there! I see a session of ironing in my future along with some overflow fabrics that belong in the stash closet. Miscellaneous beading supplies are in the bins and my overflowing batting scraps need to be either tossed or made into practice FMQ sandwiches. I don't like to toss much - how small do you go with saved batting pieces?

Some of these supplies and tools like the Lazy Susans will be useful up in my quilting room and free up these shelves for bins. What would we do without plastic storage?

So there we have it! 10 days to create an organized stash and closet space... see you again on Monday, February 25th for the Big Reveal!  I'm linking up to Sewing Room Clean Up Along: The BEFORE@Sewing by Moonlight