It’s that time of year again, time for a good clean out. Every year I’m happy to do the spring clean your studio bloghop because my studio needs it. Now, my organisational strategies do help. I have places to put stuff. I do destash, I am working through projects. At the same time, it all gets a bit out of hand.

This is actually the tidy version, … moderately tidy.

This year the good things that happened was that I (finally) bought myself a new long arm and it takes pride of place in my sewing room. This means I did have to do a tidy and sort before it arrived and as a result I did a big destash. I gave a lot of the stretch fabrics to our local technical college, sold some fabric lengths as I considered my probable lifespan. I’ve managed to quilt 9 tops on the longarm in two months so I’m feeling like I am getting through a top a week which is helping with the ufo problem.

This was definitely before the tidy. I just needed to put stuff away after I got it out.

The bad thing that has happened this tear is the weather. We have had rain rain rain rain rain. And two major floods. For those in the flood zone this has been catastrophic and 6 weeks on many people are still homeless with no prospect of being able to get back in their houses. For those of us lucky enough to live in the hills above the flood plain it’s still been quite hard. The school I teach at was completely flooded and the textile students lost everything. As a result I’ve been collecting donations from quilters to help out the textiles teachers. Quilters are awesomely generous and the donations are wonderful. It made me really think about how much I keep for projects that may never eventuate.

Once again,most problems are due to doing things in a rush and not tidying up !

The effect of the weather on my studio has been mould, mosquitoes and spiders. The mould hasn’t been too bad, except that I’m a book person, so this has meant removing all books from shelves, cleaning the shelves with clove oil to retard mould, and furniture polish to protect the wood, checking all the books and returning them to the shelves. So in my studio, I took the opportunity to move a bookcase and make a bit more space for my design wall. This obviously took quite a lot of time.

The problem of the mosquitoes is ever present, and although the house is screened, the little flying disease factories still get in. I do keep mozzie zappers in every room and they do a sterling job, but I am at the point of resorting to spray. The spiders obviously enjoy the mozzie feast, they also enjoy being in the dry, so vacuuming the ceiling for daddy long legs is just routine. What has got out of hand is the huntsmen. These spiders are huge, they don’t spin webs, they just hide out behind picture frames and chase other insects. My sewing studio is basically a happy hunting ground. While I appreciate their finer insect eating qualities, they too are getting out of hand, and part of my spring clean has definitely involved an arachnid vendetta. I spray with lavender oil as I believe they don’t like it, but I’m not sure they hate it enough to leave.

so much better! Now I just need to put stuff away regularly.

So, once I had moved all the books and furniture, vacuumed very thoroughly and sprayed. I finally got around to the random piles of debris scattered on every flat surface.

I usually have way too many projects on the go at one time and this causes the buildup of fabric piles on my cutting table. Now a simple solution is to take on fewer projects, but that hasn’t happened yet. I have managed to sort the fabric piles and stash the WIPs in boxes. Next step is to write a priority list for finishing the wips.

I’ve left out the things I use, thread cutter, pins,accessories etc. They need to stay close.

My papers have sadly not reached the state of perfection of being filed. They are still in a pile on the dining room table waiting for a miracle to happen.
I have managed to sort and put away most debris, stationery items, sewing notions etc. I’ve also left out things that I know I will use regularly - if I tidy up too much, I find it hard to start work again.

A clear cutting mat…. I need to keep it like this.

So, studio tidying tips for messy people like me:

Tip 1: don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t really tidy, it’s not compulsory and not everyone works the same way.

Tip 2: set up systems that work for you. If you like having tools close to your sewing machine, that’s where you should keep them.

Tip 3: you don’t have to tidy everything all at once. You can just tidy your cutting table one day and tidy something different the next.

Tip 4: give yourself a big pat on the back for doing the jobs you loathe, or for setting up a cleaning and tidying routine and sticking to it. (I’ve never managed to stick to it).

Tip 5: be prepared to destash. It can be very liberating.

Check out the other studios by following the links. there are some great ideas!

4/15/2022Muppin Inchttp://blog.muppin.com

4/16/2022Duck Creek Mountain Quiltinghttps://www.duckcreekmountainquilting.com

4/17/2022Quiltblox http://quiltblox.com

4/18/2022by Hilary Jordan https://byhilaryjordan.com

4/19/2022Sarah Ruiz Quiltshttp://www.sarahruiz.com

4/20/2022Sugar Sand Quilt Co.https://sugarsandquilts.com/blog

4/21/2022Katie Mae QuiltsHttp://katiemaequilts.com/blog

4/22/2022The Geeky Bobbinhttps://geekybobbin.com

4/23/2022PhoebeMoon Designshttps://scrapdash.com

4/24/2022Sunflower Stitcheries and Quiltinghttps://sunflowerstitcheries.com