Friday 4 March 2011

I'm Gonna Be RUTHLESS ... Sort Of!!!

I'm going to be REALLY RUTHLESS!!! Sort of! A bit! Maybe .... Awwwwww .... who am I kidding! I'm really not good at being ruthless!!! No, no ... I'm not thinking of attacking anyone or invading a small island nation ... just getting ready to attack a HUGE task ... Spring cleaning the sewing room!! EEP!

It's sort of a long story ... you see ... it all began when we bought and moved into this house. Previously, we'd been renting a HUGE old farm house ... the equivalent of a six bedroom, plus large dining room, plus sitting room, plus huge lounge room house. Which we very quickly filled with 'stuff'! So then we bought our current cute Federation cottage ... which has four bedrooms, a small lounge room, small dining room, and a kitchen we renovated a year and a half ago. You can imagine, then, just how much of a challenge it's been for two collectors (my Mother says hoarders, but that sounds so harsh!!!) to downsize enough to fit. Storage is ALWAYS a problem. And although we've cleared out a lot of 'stuff' as we've renovated each room, the two most challenging rooms have been left til last ... the office and ... MY SEWING ROOM!!! Each of these rooms contains the contents intended by their titles ... along with all the 'stuff' that didn't fit anywhere else. Are you getting a mental picture here?? Let me show you a few actually pictures of my sewing room. I know I've shown a few over the time, but this is what it looks like today.

These are the only built in cupboards in the house and not only are they fairly unattractive, they're incredibly badly designed and pretty hopeless at being useful storage space. There's actually two banks of these along the entire wall that has the entry door to the sewing room in it and because the sewing room also has windows on two walls, it severely limits how I can arrange furniture.


This is my current sewing table. Have you ever noticed that the bigger your sewing table, the more mess and clutter you store there? Is that a little-known law of physics or is that just ME!! :0) On the other side of the room ...


Two large bookshelves that used to be in the 'library' in the farm house. At the bottom of the picture, you can see that my stash is in complete disarray ... funny ... it USED to fit into that container! Tee! Hee! Hee!

With the projects I'm designing for my Tag Along Teddies range of patterns getting bigger ie. from teddies to quilts ... I really do need more useable room in my sewing room, so the decision was made that this would be the year of

"Project Sewing Room Makeover & De-Clutter".

Step one was the decision to pack my overlocker away, (I really don't use it as much as my sewing machine) dump the stereo on the end of the table that hasn't actually worked for about six years (don't ask why I've kept it this long, it is a mystery to me too!!) and get a smaller sewing table. That's not as odd as it may sound! :0) You see, that bank of built in cupboards is being ripped out and that is where my sewing desk will be ... a smaller space than my current table will fit into, plus, my current sewing table is only a cheap fold up one that gets a pretty decent vibration 'bounce' happening when it's pedal-to-the-metal on the ol' Husky! Tee! Hee! Hee! I'll also be testing out that peculiar law of physics I mentioned and see if the level of clutter drops ... stay tuned! :0)

Well ... I ordered a nice solid pine table to house my Husky ... and got a phone call this week to say it's ready ... two weeks earlier than expected! EEK! That of course means I actually have to stop procrastinating about spring cleaning my sewing room and DO it! EEK! Now, since it seems such an overwhelming task to this non-compulsive-cleaner (Mum was supposed to help me get started at Christmas time cos she is a champion de-clutterer but the floods cancelled their visit ... AND the assisted beginning of my cleaning!!), I decided to start with a relatively small task ... culling my vast magazine collection. Since it's a rainy, overcast day today, what better way to entertain myself AND dip my toes into the spring cleaning pool than ...


... flicking through the old magazines to tear out pictures, ideas and recipes that I want to keep, before the magazines go to a new home. I've actually already culled over 100 craft magazines ... Christina is having a lovely time with those! :0) I'm now tackling the old "House & Garden", "Home Beautiful", and "Better Homes & Gardens" issues. Some of these date back to the early 1990's and it's kind of fun (and sometimes a little scary!!) to see the trends and decorating fashions and how they've changed. Not to mention, noticing how much my own taste and style has changed. :0) I've gone from the natural timbers, pottery and dark dusty country colours and furniture styles to white painted furniture, softer colours and a sort of shabby-French-country-cottage-chic style all of my own! :0)

So ... you've probably guessed, there's not a lot of stitching going on at the Meares' Madhouse at the moment, apart from a little bit of hand stitching. I'll keep you updated on the progress of

"Project Sewing Room Makeover & De-clutter",

but right now, I think I'm going to make myself a cup of Peppermint tea and cull some more magazines. :0)

OPAMers ... Peg and I haven't forgotten the double-whammy combined January/February prize draw we promised. We decided to leave a few days grace for people to remember that they'd forgotten to email us their finishes ... if you see what I mean! Tee! Hee! Hee! We'll be announcing the SIX lucky random winners (3 from each of us) by the end of the weekend, so STAY TUNED! :0) Wish me luck with my de-cluttering campaign! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

good luck Kris i can relate to everything you said,lol.
Have a great weekend.

By Hoki Quilts said...

Oh dear! Be brave, be very brave. I'm glad it's you and not me : ))
hugs, Miche'le

Narelle said...

There must be something in the air creating this 'sewing room tidy' bug ... I've just been cleaning out my craft cupboard from before I started quilting and given the room a once over as well.
Good luck and enjoy browsing your old magazines.

May Britt said...

It feels so good haveing a sewing room make over. Had one some years ago when I swapped bedroom and sewingroom. And I just love the space in my sewingroom, even though it can be very very messy.

For january and february OPAM I have 8 finishes. 5 in january and 3 in february.

Chookyblue...... said...

goodluck........been trying to sort some of mine out.......OMG........not fun......and as for the table.........I have a purpose built 8x4foot table...yes lots of clutter..........

Unknown said...

I'm in the middle of my big cleanup I can only wish you good luck and see you next year , lol !

Mistea said...

Sounds like the magazines were a good place to start.
I agree a big sewing table just encourages clutter, but I'm not changing anything other than to put some things away some time soon.

Good luck getting through that lot - hope there are some pleasant surprises in amongst it all.

Debbie Lane said...

Mine is in disarray...more shelving put into the built-ins, and painting walls (only ever got undercoat on, over the putrid greeny-brown, and that was last April when we tiled) and hall filled with lots of paraphernalia that we thread our way thru...it WILL be finished, THIS weekend, or I will go mad (no comments from you, Kris!!)

Annie said...

I have a granny flat that houses my waaaaay smaller stash than yours Kris, but if it's any consolation mine is just as messy. However I am under pressure - rellies from N.Z. arriving next Friday for 3 weeks and guess where they'll be based - yep, in the current mess. Maybe I had better post a 'before' and 'after' shot for you :)

De said...

Good Luck Kris - you can do it! The joy of it whens its finished! But its a challenge :)

Susan In Texas said...

I'm in the middle of a grand clean up in the sewing room too, but most of my problem is with drawers containing who knows what? On Wednesday I found some peacock blending filament that I had ransacked the house looking for a year ago. I eventually bounght more, so now I have 2 $5. spools of identical Krenik. Sigh.

If you ever do decide to become a full out fabric hoarder; here's how to do it right: http://stashmanicure.blogspot.com/2010/10/welcome-to-my-underwear-drawer.html

This lady could start a quilt store from her storage room and never miss the fabric. I've actually started to use her see-through bin method with a label tucked in the front like hers, though boxes are smaller (large shoebox size). I've found that sorting my fabric (mostly) by color and major categories like Christmas, novelty and patriotic has been very useful, though my stash is probably 1/50th her size. Now it's just storing the notions and patterns that gives me fits. lol

Happy sorting,
Susan in Texas

Sheila said...

I too can relate to the clutter that seems to appear from no where in the sewing room and I should be doing what you are doing , decluttering and reorganizing my space I am sure if I did it would make life easier in the end . Good luck and I'll be thinking about you ;-) hugs Sheila

Maria said...

Good luck Kris with the de cluttering. I have done it several times but the STUFF just seems to come back again. LOL. Must be the table. It just collects things.

Cath Ü said...

Oh Kris .. I know exactly where you are coming from re de cluttering... and I am with you... collector sounds much better then hoarder... LOL

Have fun

Cath Walker

BubzRugz said...

More like Autumn cleaning isn't it???? Good luck with that... I can't throw out magazines without going through them and pulling out all the necessary pages either!! Looking forward to seeing the NEW space... give a shout if you like... I can fold!!
Hugz

Anonymous said...

Oh Lordy.... that sounds scary! Love the very honest messy craft room photos though. I'd have to clean my mess before I took pictures! ;)

Bev C said...

Hello Kris,

Oh good luck with your clean out. I wonder how many projects you wanted to do in those magazines?
Thanks for baring your inner soul with these photo's. You are a very brave woman. Oh and how did you get a tradesman to have something ready two weeks before it was due, that in itself is a minor miracle.
Happy days.
Bev.xoxo

2ne said...

Good luck with your project. A great sewingroom with lot of great stuff - but even better when it get mor tidy :-)

Stina Blomgren said...

*smile*
Kris... I have to admit... your room is worse than mine.....lol
I wish you lots of funny and lovely hours decluttering in your nest... wonder what treasures you will find?
I actually did make a clean up yesterday in my sewingroom... believe me .. It feels great.. will continue later today ... just wish I had more great storage solutions for all the small things that are to pretty to just hide in drawers...:0) Good luck my friend.. Know you will need it!!!!:0)

Anonymous said...

Oh Kris, I am SO relieved to see that it's not only me who has a messy sewing space. I've spent the whole weekend just sitting and looking at the mess and not doing anything about it :o) It is sooo daunting that I don't know where to begin! You are officially my inspiration! I WILL clean up, I WILL declutter, I will, I will, I will! toni xxx

Roseanne said...

O Kris I do hope you can get it all sorted out. Yes I had a big miss in mine some new pantry and I am sorted. We should have a sewing room photo challenge. put up a phot of your sewing room mess or not that would help us all clean up. LOL.

Fee said...

I know the feeling Kris - My sewing room is just not big enough - although no matter how big it was it wouldn't be big enough !! Good luck with it all and I look forward to watching your progress.

Hugs - Fee XX

Judy S. said...

Yikes! Throwing out magazines is so hard, especially ones with patterns in them. Good Luck, Kris!

Joy said...

Oh Kris I can totally relate to your dilemma!!! I had the best of intentions of tidying my sewing room before the Nutters arrived. Well, I actually did that, but then I had to use it again and it's back to it's normal state of disarray.
I tell myself I work better in a mess LOL.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;o).
Hugs,
Joy :o)

Crowing Moon said...

OMG!! I could have written this entire post myself. The 'collecting' (not hoarding) the messy sewing room, NEVER enough space for everything even AFTER de cluttering. SO glad I'm not the only one lol Good luck with it all. I need to get into mine too :s

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