Fall is officially here, the season when our house turns into a quirky version of a theme park, where pumpkins and plastic snowmen seem to play hide-and-seek and taking turns coming out to strut their stuff. 🙂
I usually put my quilting ambitions on ice until the new year rolls around, but I’ll whip up a couple more Huggables – because my head might just explode with ideas if I don’t set some of them free. There’s also my burning desire to make the Prism Flight pixel quilt from the pre-cut kit by My Fabric Addiction . I’ll be happy to work on it at a snail’s pace or in the case…I suppose a caterpillar would be a better analogy.
I’ve got a ton of fabric and a bunch of other stuff all prepped up for sewing. But lately, I’ve been craving something totally different, a fresh start.
Aside from my denim jeans quilt, I can’t remember making one other quilt this year that wasn’t a pre-determined donation project. My bucket list quilts are patiently waiting in project bins but even those don’t particularly feel appealing. Time for a reset to just make something fun for no particular reason other than “why not?”.
Let me show you the thing weighing me down… as depressing as it is.
I took these pictures this afternoon, and honestly, it’s hard to believe the state of things. Messy fabric piles on shelves, and another pile needing to be put away if I could easily reach where it should go. The stuffed animals are counted and organized, but they hardly look staged for anything. As for my cutting table, it’s overflowing with more “stuff,” and I found myself once again wondering if I’ll ever figure out what to do with it all. Frankly, I’m tired of thinking about it.
On the long arm table, there are a few bags of scraps that, sure, I have ideas for, but do I really have a suitable place to put them or even the time to actually sew them up?
There’s hope! And after looking at the photos and wanting to cry, I suddenly felt a surge of enthusiasm to deal with all of it. Weird, right?
In this photo of my long arm frame, you can see I’ve cleared out the stuff that was on the shelf beneath it. It’s the pile you see on my cutting table and the bags of scraps on the long arm table in the photos above. The pile of stuffed animals on my sewing machine table and chair? Those are there because I felt the first step was to get EVERYTHING that could be relocated or maybe even purged off the floor! – Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.
First priority was deciding where the 50 stuffed animals I plan to deliver with the huggables are going to live for the next couple of months. The shelf below the longarm was the best, most out of the way place to put them.
Once they’re gone, I’ll be able to stage a few finished quilts on that shelf rather than stack them on our home office/guest room bed. It means a few bags of scraps will have to go and maybe even a few projects in bags. I’m not sure yet but it’s one of the things I’ll be deciding – sooner than later.
I’m not going to wait until January 1st to declutter. I plan to be finished by then.
I think I was more creative when I had only one set of string drawers. Why did I ever think I needed to expand storage rather than just give some away to another string lover?
There’s no hurry to downsize or haphazardly get rid of stuff. I’ll take my time tackling one stack of fabric, one drawer, and one piece at a time.
Yes, fabric prices are rising but hoarding from fear of scarcity isn’t the answer. Just as “how to do I organize all of this?” isn’t the question.
I decided my word for 2027 is going to be “Journey” and I don’t plan to begin it with excess baggage.
