Sewing Room Thoughts

Yesterday was cool, sunny, cloudy and fairly calm. The high got to 3.3C. This morning it is cloudy, 1C, and periods of rain in the forecast. We could see the temperature rise to 14C tonight before falling to 2C. An interesting day of weather. 

Lifestyle

Yesterday I went to New Minas to do some shopping. I was into Michaels to get the yarn for grandson's socks and also bought a box for daughter's necklace and some fairy lights for my new Christmas decoration. I then headed to Walmart for a few things I needed. On the way home, I stopped at the quilting store for buttons, flannel, and interfacing. 

I stopped by to see how the new quilt store is progressing. The sign is up and the windows are covered with paper. I did read on Facebook later that they are unpacking everything and putting it on shelves, etc. Opening day is coming sooner rather than later. 

Once home and the food was put away, I left the rest as my knee was extremely sore. I went out right after lunch and covered the garlic with straw and a layer of burlap. I also covered the Spousal Unit's rose bush with burlap and weighted it down with bricks. Once back inside I had a quick look at my knee and saw it was swollen a bit. I sat with heat on it and had a nap. The knee was still swollen and sore. I'm moving from heat to cold to see if that will help. 

Dinner was out with family and I enjoyed it very much. We looked at a video taken last year on Christmas Eve in Japan. It was a tour of 3 different Christmas garden in Tokyo. It was amazing at how many people were out and to see how crowded the city is both building and people wise. 

Sewing Room Thoughts

    While knitting last night I thought about the sewing room and how I am cleaning it up area by area. I decided to do the design area next. It is cluttered and needs quite a bit of work organizing the course work I have for couture sewing and doll pattern designing. I need to put papers into page protectors and binders. I also need to decide what to do with some notebooks I have. One I am using to write down information I need when sewing a one off item that needs fussy cutting. Can I put some into the thrift store boxes and some into recycle. 

    As I look around the room, I have two areas that are annoying me and will annoy me until I reach my goal of having little to no stash. One is the shelving unit that holds the stash. I want it gone as I think it looks ugly. 

I would love to have that area either with a dresser or nothing. The shelving unit can go into the garage to hold tubs of decorations for Christmas and Halloween. When we bought it, it was needed as I had no where to put the stash. I did not want to add kitchen cupboards to the room. My goal when we moved here was to sew down the stash. 

    The second area that annoys me is the closet. Though I can close the doors on everything, it is just too full of notions, pillow forms, doll's fabric, etc. I have been good about using it but it never seems to have less in it. It is mainly because I store everything in tubs and baskets. I'm too embarrassed to take a picture of it until I start cleaning it out. 

    In the closet is all my embroidery thread. I have decided that I want to do more embroidery this coming year. I did start doing embroidery this year but stopped when the Spousal Unit's care became more time consuming. His care was always  came first which I don't regret for a minute. I have enough thread and stabilizer to embroider for a long time. Some projects will be small, others will be larger and I'm looking forward to doing it once again. 

    I have been writing down what projects I want to sew next year. I am realizing that I am a project person rather than a stash builder. When I look at the stash, I look at projects. I also realize that I can only make one project at a time. I cannot brain wise sew more than one project unless I am making several of them such as towel toppers. I have tried to assembly line sewing but........ I can have up to 5 small projects on the cutting table at one time but prefer to have only up to 3.  

    Last, but not least, I take a long time to clean up the sewing room. When I declutter, I organize and clean at the same time. My philosophy is why put items back into a dirty area only to organize and clean it later. Cleaning takes but a few minutes and organizing it allows me to try and keep it organized as I use it. 

Today

I am off shortly to help son until noon. I am taking my knitting with me. I will probably start cleaning the design area by putting course work into page protectors and binders. That is a big job and one I will be happy to have done. Tonight, I will knit on the doll's sweater. 

Until the next time.....................................................