Organize & Declutter – Time to Quilt

Back to the future…

My first post – Time to Quilt

Reflecting on where I was 6 years ago and where I want to be next year.
Making decisions to improve the journey.

Today I finished quilting two Christmas wall hangings for my siblings. It feels incredibly good to know I’ll start binding them tomorrow and that they’ll be ready to ship well ahead of my Thanksgiving goal. ♥ When I agreed to make 6 quilts for a Veteran’s Day event, I had my doubts I’d be able to get to them.

I planned to make them last year but they kept getting pushed aside until it was too late. This year, I was determined to complete them on time. I can’t show the fronts yet in case my sister or brother sees this post! 🙂

As I mentioned before, I’m feeling burnt out. I’ve spent so much time on donation quilts that I haven’t had time for much of anything else.

Screenshot_20261017-155641 — ***This is not a random ad.***
***It’s a screenshot I sa***ved from a search to find out just how much a cute kid’s blanket might cost.

Making donation quilts gives me a sense of purpose, but I often wonder if the recipient truly appreciates my effort, especially with children’s quilts. Creating a quilt for a child can sometimes be more expensive than buying one they might enjoy just as much. If it were simply about giving a quilt or blanket, I could easily buy one from a big box store. I choose to make them because I enjoy the process.

I also love making beautiful quilts for family and friends, but I haven’t done much of that lately. Like the Christmas wall hangings, I don’t want to put it off until it’s too late. I dream that one of my quilts may someday become a cherished heirloom for my grandchild. Although I’ve made her quilts before, none are the beautiful ones that she’ll appreciate as an adult, remembering how much time and effort I put into them. Hopefully, she’ll feel how much I loved her when she’s wrapped up in it. I want to start making more of those special quilts.

You may be wondering where this post is going. We all have different journeys, and what works for one may not work for another. This is where I am and putting it into writing helps clarify things. So let’s get to it.

My challenge has two parts. First, I want to declutter my space to make my work area more pleasant. It’s organized, but I feel anxious surrounded by too much “stuff.” Second, I’m naturally frugal so I tend to quilt with fabric I already own and that mindset is restricting the types of quilts I create. I believe I can reduce the quantity but maintain the variety. I can clear some physical and psychological space to make the quilts I truly want to make rather than the ones I feel I “should” make.

I’ve given away fabric in the past, mostly Thimbleberries. Occasionally I’d miss having a piece I remembered but I still feel it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made when it comes to fabric. I’m not scared to try it again.

STASH REDUCTION

Donation quilts are enjoyable to make and usually quick to finish. Most of my fabric was bought with this goal in mind, especially during JoAnn’s liquidation sale where “end of bolt” fabrics were cheaper. In my excitement about being able to purchase fabric for a dollar – something per yard, I went a little overboard. Okay.. so I went a LOT overboard! 🙂 Three yards of fabric is plenty. Six yards means using the fabric for multiple quilts and begins to feel more like an obligation than a creative choice. I’ve started questioning if this is how I really want to spend my quilting time.

Looking back, I didn’t realize how much space my JoAnn fabrics occupied. I just read this post written after organizing it all last year. I was glad it fit neatly. At the time, I never dreamed that it would one day become a hindrance.

It wasn’t until I started the huggables project, which required storing both my own plus my friends’ small quilts and stuffed animals, that I realized my space limitation was quickly becoming an issue. It prompted me to begin decluttering rather than waiting for the new year like I’ve done in the past.

At the same time, my close friend sold her home and began downsizing. We’ve both probably been quilting about the same length of time. I’ve been thinking about all the difficult decisions she’s probably facing. As I continued to declutter, I began looking at my fabric from a different perspective. I started considering what I would take with me if I were the one moving.

The more I really looked at my fabrics I was able to see there were some I knew I’d never miss. There were also many that I knew without hesitation I’d want to keep. I asked myself, “if you wouldn’t miss it, why are you holding onto it?” This is especially true when I come across a 6 or 8 yard piece of fabric I’d bought at JoAnn’s. If I kept 3 yards, I sure wouldn’t miss the excess. I ask myself ” how many quilts do think you’ll want to make with this fabric?”

The fabric purchased for donation will be donated – just not in the same way it was originally intended. When I was explaining my decision to start downsizing my fabric stash to my husband a few days ago, without thinking I’d said “I’m not getting rid of anything. I just have so much I’m choosing to share some of it.” You might be surprised at how that simple shift in thinking changes everything.

My starting point:

Current stash	Approximately 1200 yards
Typical use	About 20 yards per month
New purchase allowance	Up to 10 yards a month (this is a ceiling, not a requirement)
First target	De-stash 20 yards per month (re-evaluate every 3 months)
Priority	Free up more physical space for equipment, fabric, and current project – keep reasonable amounts and share the excess

The amount of fabric that I think is reasonable for variety, and considering how long it would likely sit on a shelf, is 700 yards – equal to 3 years of quilting at the current rate (with no additional purchases.) That’s a hunch, and I really won’t know for sure until if get to the point where it feels “right”. My real goal is to own an amount of fabric that supports the quilting I want to do without making my room feel crowded. An amount that allows for choices, but also leaves room to occasionally enjoy purchasing new fabric for a quilt without triggering my frugal tendencies.

Here’s my plan; but I’ll be the first to admit it’s subject to change if it doesn’t feel like it’s working!

My weekly sharing goal: Share about 5 yards a week with friends at the quilting bee or with another group that makes adult comfort quilts. Some weeks may be more, some less. Again, this is a goal, not a rule.
At five yards per week, that would be about 20 yards every four weeks and up to 260 yards over a year. The actual amount will vary, and that’s okay. My friends will put the fabric to good use, so sharing it is a positive outcome—not a waste.
260 yards shared with friends, added to the approximate 240 yards used (20 per month), puts me on track to reach my stash reduction target of 700 yards in one year. The eventual amount that feels right could end up being 900 or even 600. Knowing that I’ll likely find my sweet spot within a year gives me something to look forward to achieving.
KEEP WITHOUT GUILT — Favorite prints, fabrics for quilts I genuinely want to make, useful basics, and a manageable selection of scraps I enjoy using.
SHARE WITH FRIENDS WITHOUT FEAR OF REGRET— Excess yardage, scraps, and precuts. Prints I probably wouldn’t choose today (without stopping to dream up ideas of how I could use them!)
Choose one shelf, drawer, bin, or category at a time.
Work for just 20–30 minutes per session, then stop.
Keep a designated outgoing bag for fabric to take to the quilting bee.
Prioritize the areas that bother me the most. The room’s comfort matters more than achieving an arbitrary number.

I plan to continue my June inventory tradition—done in my birthday month. It’s good to keep it current for insurance purposes but primarily, knowing what I have will help me make thoughtful purchases rather than impulsive ones.

A reminder for difficult decisions:
I am not depriving myself of fabric. I’m purposefully selecting the fabric, space, and projects that contribute to my overall well-being. I don’t need to finalize the size of my stash today. I can keep the fabric I love, share with my quilting friends, and progress steadily, step by step. It’s a journey.

There’s never been a situation where I couldn’t quilt due to a lack of fabric. But, there have been quilts I couldn’t make due to a lack of time.

With that in mind, I intend to be more intentional regarding the projects I commit my time to. I can repurchase fabric (or something similar) if I regret giving it away. The time I’ve given away because I felt compelled to utilize existing fabric is gone forever.

Conquering decision fatigue

I started sorting through my patterns today. There are a bunch I’m ready to get rid of, plus a stack I want to scan and ditch the physical copies. I kicked off that whole process a year or two back, got a bit sidetracked, and just never wrapped it up.

In the middle of all this supposed organizing and decluttering, one can’t help but wonder: does making choices and decisions ever get easier?

My focus has primarily been on donation quilts for far too long, delaying the quilts I truly want to make. In order to change that, I need to establish some boundaries and accept that “limited help” in a group setting truly means just that—limited… help.

I plan to embrace a “both, but not equal” approach that feels right for me. My bucket list of quilt projects represents the ones the future me would likely regret never having made if I don’t do it while I still can. The donation quilts tug at my heart because I find joy in playing with fabric and watching my ideas come to life, then giving it away to someone I hope will love the finished quilt as much I do.

🎯Bucket list = priority projects

🎨Donation Quilts = creative breaks

My quilting schedule is still a work in progress but, the plan is to alternate between the two types of projects. I’m not going to want to wait until I finish one of the more tedious quilts to work on a fun, quick project. But, as all quilters know, it’s dangerous to put a project aside for “later”. That’s how we create a UFO.

I’m leaning toward deciding in advance to use strategic places to stop the bucket list quilt, take a creative break, and then back to the priority project.

These would be my pre-determined places to pause.

Prep & cut out pattern
Piece blocks
Set blocks & add borders
Quilt
Bind

The three quilts that I most want to make have been chosen – patterns and fabric for all three are ready to go!

I’ll wait to start one of them until after the holidays. The storm at sea quilt will likely be first. Until then, I’m still very much hoping I can to squeeze in two Christmas projects.

With my top three projects selected, the decision fatigue I was beginning to feel has begun to fade away. Having a clear vision about what comes next makes the entire process feel much more manageable and that the hardest part is now behind me. 🙂

All the things…

Things in bins, bags, and piles are finally decluttered and organized. There is still a lot to go through – precuts, patterns, tools, and the “who knows what” stuff that hides in drawers but – I’ll get to it – eventually!

It’s a relief to get all my kits and projects out in the open and listed. Some have been started while others are either fabric groupings I put together with a specific pattern in mind or, store purchased kit. The small scraps and strips that I’m keeping (from the baskets pictured at the bottom of this post) are also stored in the same cabinet.

The cabinet is in my laundry room and I intend for it to be temporary, even if “temporary” translates to a year or two. I’m not going to pretend that I won’t chase a new squirrel but I really want to focus on things stored here.

The reason you’re seeing two photos is because I couldn’t capture the entire cabinet in one shot.

I still have a long way to go but I’ve started focusing on one task a day. Yesterday I moved some batting to the bar under my quilt frame. I’ve used quite a bit the last few months but that should begin to slow up. More tedious and/or larger quilts but I definitely won’t be quilting as many. I’ve had some of these projects on a bucket list for quite a while and it’s time to say “no” to some things so I can say “yes” to others. I also want to plan quilts around the scraps I’m keeping. I’ll still make quilts to donate but, I’m setting boundaries and not letting it consume my entire quilting life like it did this year.

Moving the batting yesterday allows me to store the stuffed animals in that spot. Easy access for quick delivery if needed but out of the way.

My friend Robin had the wonderful idea of using vacuum seal bags to store 40 stuffed animals. It’s a fantastic solution to a temporary problem! The puppy in the second photo was shipped vacuum sealed just like the red package behind it. There are 9 huggable stuffed animals inside that small package, and they fluff up beautifully, even after being stored away like that for a couple of months.

Tomorrow, I’m anxious to move the 6 quilts for a Veteran’s Day event, along with 50 little quilts for the December donation, plus a few extra quilts I plan to donate this year. The shelf under my long arm is a much better place to store them now that the stuffed animals have been moved. It will be such a relief to clear the quilts off the bed in my guest room/home office!

Next week, I’ll go through additional items in my guest room/home office. I was hanging onto a few things thinking our guild was going to have a “yard sale” that had been postponed until the fall but that never happened. I’ll decide what to keep & where to put it and, what to let go of & where to donate it. I really want to restore that room to its original purpose and not being used as an extension of my sewing room!

I’m also enjoying the process of piecing my pixel quilt top a tiny bit at a time and cutting scraps in the evenings. While I don’t have anything to show for those projects yet, I’m happy with my little but steady progress!

I can’t help but sing the last line of this commercial! LOL

Scraps & Strings

I managed to sort through my scrap and string storage. My focus was on how I use them, not on storage.

I emptied one cart of drawers and, surprisingly, half of the second cart. I knew that if I kept the empty cart, I’d just fill it up again rather than think about what I was keeping and why. Normally, these inexpensive carts are a bit wobbly. My husband riveted sheet metal to the back to stabilize them, so I like using them. I just had more storage than I actually needed. I asked a friend who likes to use scraps for her leaders/enders if she could use the empty cart, and she said yes so I dropped it off to her yesterday.

The carts were always intended to store strings by color, but I thought my future included making a lot of string blocks with friends so I was tossing larger scrap pieces in as well and those quickly filled the drawers.

Flattening the strings and stacking them neatly also helped reduce the amount of space they consumed. The fourth drawer was temporarily holding some possible quilt bindings but I decided to add them to my scrap bins and use with 2 1/2″ strips instead so that drawer is empty now too.

This cart contains scraps that are smaller than quarter yard but at least 5″ wide. I decided to only keep batiks or scraps that read as solid so the three bins that once held a lot of mixed prints are now empty.

These are the fabrics I removed from the scrap and string storage. I’ll go through them a little at a time. It’s going to take a few days because I need to be intentional and realistic about what I decide to keep.

I enjoy making coordinated scrap quilts with contemporary designs and I also love spectrum quilts, so the blue bin on the left are keepers.

It’s the bin on the right that will be tricky. Tomorrow I plan to go through my inspiration photos and choose four scrap quilts I’d like to make. I’ll print pictures of those to keep them in front of me with four of those drawers from the sting cart about. I ‘ll add fabrics that will work with each design and the drawer will limit how much of those I keep too. I know one drawer is more than enough for a quilt top!

It’s unrealistic to think I’ll make more than four scrap quilts next year. I have a “top 12” list of quilts I want to make, some ideas for precuts I own that I’d like to get to, and no doubt I’ll want to mix in a couple of string quilts. All those projects will generate even more scraps!

I have a couple of other bags of scraps that I need to go through at the same time. Wish me luck! &&

Progress

Still at it. Nothing very interesting happened today, but I’m sharing so I can look back in a week or two and remind myself of the tiny improvements that are adding up day by day.

I used to work with a friend named Sharon at the post office. She passed away suddenly in her early 50s, shortly after learning about her rare blood disorder. The world never felt the same without her in it.. We were complete opposites, and perhaps that’s why we bonded so well. She regularly reminded me that “something is better than nothing,” a perspective I often struggled with as I leaned towards “all or nothing”.

Today I found myself reflecting on a conversation where I had asked her if it frustrated her to see me charge headfirst into obstacles. She replied with a warm smile “absolutely not”. She said she’d always admired my passion for things I chose to pursue and wished she had the same determination. I remember being surprised she valued my approach to things just as much as I valued her patience. As I thought “gee, I didn’t get much done” I could almost hear her say “something is better than nothing” and I felt better.

I consolidated the fabrics from the first cart, purged a few short strings, and took out some that didn’t belong there in the first place – mostly 2 1/2″ strips. Tomorrow I’ll begin working on the second cart.

These fabric will go into a bin for now because I haven’t yet decided where I want to keep them. A few oddballs on the left and remnants of a UFO, Surf and Sand, that I finished last summer on the right.

I’m not at all a fan of storing fabric or scraps in bins but I need to keep my focus on deciding what to keep—yes, no, maybe. The “maybe” fabrics tend to cause distraction so they’ll have to live in a bin until I cycle back around to them at the end.

I’m not ready to go through tools yet but these two caught my eye. That pink thing is a binding wider. It’s handy to wind the binding on and then put it on the floor and let it unwind as I’m stitching it on to the quilt. There’s just never a good place to put it and, letting the binding twist up out of my lap is easier than digging this thing out.

The white thing on the right is a stand for using thread cones at your sewing machine. I never seem to feed the thread through the eye at the top properly and it’s annoying when it gets stuck there. I don’t want to keep either of these things so they’ll go on the de-stash table.

This is order I intend to follow as I go through everything in my sewing room… and I do mean EVERYTHING! It could change but it’s good to have a plan.

Strings
Scraps
Pre-cuts
Kits
Tools
Other “stuff” in my sewing machine cabinet and cutting table drawers
Books / Patterns

I organized the fabric on my shelves but didn’t check each piece to decide if I should keep it. I might do that later, but I want to first sort through the items that are harder to manage and easier to donate.