Those among you who sew or quilt will appreciate this. The rest of you may think I have lost my mind for posting about and taking photos of a closet.
I don't know a single person who sews and/or quilts who doesn't have at least a small fabric stash that includes some scraps. My stash, I would guess, is on the smallish side, but I do have a lot of scraps from various projects and they got completely out of hand.
Y'all know how that can get away from you. One minute you have a couple ziplock bags of scraps piled into a tote and the next thing you know it looks like this:
The Pile...my scrap fabric nightmare. How in the world do you find something in the midst of that mess? You don't! You dig through The Pile in search of the perfect shade of blue for a project. You know it's there. You put it there yourself. But The Pile has eaten it, never to be seen or heard from again. So you completely give up, frustrated, hot, and grouchy without ever starting on the project at hand. And then you actually consider tossing every single scrap since all they do is make you mad.
At least that's been my experience.
Not too long after one of my rounds with The Pile, I came across the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amada Jean Nybergh and Cheryl Arkison. I quickly snagged a copy!
After reading the book and wiping the drool off the photos of these amazingly gorgeous scrappy quilts (seriously, I want to make them all), I got busy. I was inspired not only to make my scrap pile useful, but to organize my sewing closet as well. I don't have photos, but trust me, finding fabric in my stash wasn't much easier than digging through those scraps.
My budget for organizing my scraps and the sewing closet in general was about 15 bucks. I'm not kidding. SO I drug home a plastic shelf from my parent's garage, headed to my local Kmart and picked up some clear plastic shoebox sized totes and got busy sorting.
When I was finished, THE PILE had become this...
So. Much. Better. I was so happy with my little shoeboxes of color that I decided not to shut them up in the closet, but to leave the out in the open on a bookshelf in the sewing/computer room!
Once I had the scraps tackled, I was motivated to finish up the rest of the closet. My mother saw it and said "I don't think you need to buy anymore fabric". She's right, of course.
I know it's plastic shelving and nothing fancy, but this makes me soo happy. I know I can walk into the closet now and find anything I need within minutes with no cussin' or cryin'!
Even room for a little art on the walls. And yes, a Kona card qualifies as art!
FQs, mostly sorted by colors.
More FQs...my most favorites, so they're out in t he open for me to drool on look at.
...and more fun stuff...
1 comment:
I have many quilting books and I have to say this book is now in my top 5! I seriously love this book. The writing is wonderful and the authors have some very practical ideas for storing scraps. I hate to say this, but I was one of those quilters who tossed her scraps. But now oh, the possibilities! The quilts in this book are just beautiful. I cannot even pick a favorite. Thank you so much and I can't wait for the next book! (though I am not sure it can top this one!!!)
Al
Chestnut hill CH600
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