April 12, 2026
I did get the 2 thread drawers cleaned up. All the loose tails have been secured onto the spools. The one drawer of Glide thread is full and I will not be adding to it unless I use up a spool and need that colour again. I only use this thread for hand sewing and quilting.
The second drawer has way less in it. The silk and cotton threads are in a small basket. I need three more baskets for the rest of the thread. The thread rolls around the drawer and is annoying me. I am trying to use it up and will only buy more if I absolutely need it.
I did not touch the embroidery thread as I need to spend an afternoon going through it. I am not sure how I am going to sort it but do know I need to secure the thread ends into the spools. I am thinking on this one before I touch it.
I got rid of all the books I had in the book shelf. The box is ready to go to the thrift store. My next step is to go through all the paper and put what I don't need into recycling. When it is done, I am hoping I have lots of empty space on the shelves.
I am working on changing out the fabric containers I have yarn in. The ones I have are lime green and I have hated the colour for years. I was pressured into using that colour in my sewing room as the person loved that colour and thought it was perfect for my room. I have 4 black containers from the family room that are now housing some of my yarn. I will get more when I go back to Ikea. The lime green ones are being folded up and will be sold at our yard sale in May.
I have two little areas I need to work on next. One is a corner desk that I want to get rid of. I will give it away if I have to. I can move the lap top to the table I have in the room for that purpose. I want to put the yarn cube into that space and can put the knick knacks on top of it. Moving it there will give me more room for the book case. The other area is the comfy chair beside the book case. I want to remove the lime green and white stripe blanket and pillow case from it and replace it with a neutral coloured throw. I do sit in the chair at times.
The process of decluttering and cleaning this room is very slow but I am getting there one step at a time. Each time I tackle something I feel my stress level go down and I know that I will have a calm space to sew in.
April 8, 2026
I have been out of the sewing room for 2 days. I have been thinking about how I want my room to look and feel. I watched a video thinking it would help me but it left me feeling stressed. The person was keeping a lot of fabric and the room felt cluttered. I had to stop watching it.
I have decided to look at smaller sections of the room and the two areas I am targeting are the book case and the thread drawers.
The book case has been purged several times. I have a box of books in the sewing room that need to go to the thrift store. I also have more to add to the box. I have kept some books that I used a lot when I was sewing clothing. They were fabulous resources and three of them are very hard to get. They are old but have some of the best sewing information ever. The others are old Palmer Pletch books. I have knitting books I never look at. Most of what I want to know I can find through google or YouTube. I would love to get them gone so I can have a few items I want to display on the shelves.
The thread drawers are an interesting conversation for me to have with myself. I have way too many spools of thread. The Glide thread takes up one drawer and I have refrained from buying any more. I don't use it when I piece quilts together. It likes to unravel as it's polyester. I do love it for quilting and hand sewing. The other drawer of thread is a mixture of brands and types. Most are small spools of thread which I use up and don't replace. I do have some cotton and silk thread that I use on occasion. As I have been sewing more thread from that drawer lately I have discovered that I reach for white, black, navy, and 2 shades of grey. I plan on buying those in large spools. I will buy the small spools if I need a matching colour for machine sewing hems and some hand stitching. I can see my thread collection dwindling as time goes on.
The embroidery thread is a collection of its own. I have to go through it and make sure the loose ends are wound tight in the base. I am not getting rid of it until my embroidery machine dies. I use it when I do projects and I like having it available. When a spool is used up, I don't replace it I substitute it with colour that is close.
I do include bobbins in my thread collection. I use the odd colours for hand basting. I am learning to only half fill bobbins that use a colour I use occasionally. With the thread, I need to go through them and make sure the loose ends are secure. The bobbins with thread on them need to be used up with hand basting. I am going through them as fast as I can. I need to make sure that I have bobbins full of the 4 basic colours I seem to reach for. The bobbins I use for embroidery are kept separate and I usually only partly fill them when I am doing embroidery.
I will give you an update on these two sections when I have tackled them.
April 5, 2026
A week has passed and I have done a bit in the sewing room.
The cutting table has remained clean of items that do not need to be on it. I do have a small pile of left over fabric on it that I need to find out if the group making quilts needs it or not. If they don't I will toss it. I will confess that it is lovely to work on a table that has only current project on it.
I am working on putting things away that I am not using at the moment. Cutting tools are put back into their drawer at the end of each day. Quilting rulers are put into their space. Thread is put away when a project is done. These small jobs are making a huge difference to me mentally. Less clutter is so nice to have.
I started cleaning the cube where the dolls and their clothing are kept. The open spaces were emptied and cleaned. I dug out one of the tubs that has doll clothes in it. The clothes are for the Gotz dolls. I went through each item and put together what belonged together. There are some orphans that need some pieces sewn or knit to make outfits. I am going to add them to my monthly list and try to have it done my late summer. I still have 2 more tubs of doll clothes to go through. The last tub has shoes in it and they are in bags and I will not be touching it. It works for me.
I looked at the tower of drawers by the doll's cube. I had gone through it really well last fall and it even has an empty drawer. I did pull it out to clean it and vacuumed the floor and wiped down the baseboards.
I watched the 2 latest videos on Making Space to Make. The first one was for people who use a space like an office or dining room to sew in. It was a good video full of ideas if you sew like that. The second video was about furniture. Lots of items she recommended can be bought at Ikea. I do not need furniture as I have what I need. If I was going to swap anything out, it would be the sewing machine cabinet but at this time I am not going to do that.
I am also looking at how to decorate the sewing room. I am thinking of making a dresser scarf for the top of the doll's cube. I have fabric for that. I will take the old blanket and pillow case off the chair and get something new for it. I want to add curtains to the windows. I have some things in the stash but will need to buy some other things for the room. I can decorate slowly over the year.
I spent two days in the family room cleaning up the area I do crafts in. It was a lot of work but it is now calm and restful. I plan on keeping it that way. The other part of the family room will get done as I sit in there to do hand sewing. I not only need to clean it, I need to get a few items like a trash can for thread, bits of fabric, etc.
March 24, 2026
I have been working on the sewing room for almost a month now. I decided I wanted to do a deep purge and cleaning of the room. I also wanted to do some organization as I have not been happy with some of the organization I have.
I did not take part in Karen Brown's decluttering this year. The first two years I did her 21 day program, I was happy with what I accomplished. Last year I stalled as I wanted to clean as I went. When you do something every day you do not have time to clean your spaces. She wants you to declutter and clean later. I like to do both at the same time.
I started decluttering in late February when I was disgusted with my sewing room. I tackled the fabric stash shelf and did one shelf at a time. I was building decluttering muscles once again. I was dealing with my fantasy life with some of the fabric I had on the shelves. I was dealing with guilt over fabric I had bought. I was making myself look at the future and what it was I wanted to make. This was very hard for me as I had been ignoring these things for a long time.
Doing the shelving unit was mentally hard work for me. I found it easy to do the bottom two shelves and the very top of the unit. I was able to have the bottom shelf empty until I put 2 empty tubs on it. The next shelf up was patterns and I have my patterns down to 2 containers. The very top of the shelf had me sort out the embroidery stabilizers and get rid of half or more of them. There are two items left on it as the embroidery stabilizer is on the shelf with the patterns.
Emotions started to run high when handling the garment fabric. I was dealing with guilt, emotional attachment, and fantasy sewing. I walked away from it twice before I got it done. I took almost 50 meters to the thrift store. What is left may be donated next year if I don't sew it.
The quilting fabric was gone through and, once again, I was dealing with emotional attachment and fantasy sewing. I got rid of some fabrics but kept more than I should have. I haven't fully dealt with the fantasy sewing. This is where I need to look at what I want to sew in the future and get rid of what doesn't fit in with my plans. I was emotionally exhausted when I got finished with the shelving unit and can see it will not be removed from my sewing room in the near future. I am still working on what I want to sew in the future.
In my down time, I was scrolling through YouTube (bad habit) and found a series called Making Space to Make. I watched the first 5 videos over a short period of time. I made myself answer her questions and do what she had asked for homework. I had finished one UFO and cut out another one which I will make in April. I did sit in my room and think about what I had learned.
I hate clutter and a mess and I was working in what I hated the most.
Out of sight, out of mind. Having items in containers I can't see into is not for me.
I do not need to have a Pinterest ready sewing room.
I have not built good habits in the sewing room. I will stop sewing and not clean up before I leave the room. It is out of sight and out of mind when I leave it for the day.
What is it that I want to sew. I am hoping that will fall into place as time goes on.
Week 6 was the cutting table. I had done some clean up prior to week 6. I finished it after I watched the video. I can only have one project on the cutting table. I am following the lady's mantra "anything can visit, but nothing should stay". If I cut out some projects for a month, I have trays to put them into. They reside on the shelving unit. If I take out interfacing, I need to put it away when I finish using it. With the table cleaned off, I then scrubbed the top of the cutting table, wiped down the shelf underneath. I then scrubbed the cutting mat. This area was so dirty it was disgusting. The next day I sorted through the two drawers and organized what I had in them. One drawer is for the tools I use at the cutting table and the other houses boning for the doll's historical clothing.
I will confess that I have two things extra on the cutting table that I need to deal with before Friday. I will sit in the family room and do them one afternoon.
I have been forcing myself form good habits in the sewing room. I put away several spools of thread I had on the sewing cabinet. I dealt with the table and the desk. That area is cleaned. I vacuumed the floor which had a lot of fibre dust and threads on it. I am still at the stage where I have to tell myself what I need to do before I leave the room. It is hard when you just want to exit the room for the day.
As I work on the room, I am working on what I want to sew in the future. I have ideas mulling around in my head but I am still thinking them through. The one thing I do know is that I am not sewing for the sake of sewing. I want to sew meaningful projects. I have several items I want to make that are meaningful and I plan on making them this year.
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