Ah progress is being made on some fronts! I'm digging out of my sewing room as I piled tubs/projects in there while the Grands were here and shut the door. Finally opening the room back up!

My own organization is continuing... more slowly this week than the last couple.

Today I will be going to one of my friend's houses and helping her organize the quilting/craft stuff that has escaped out of the designated areas and into the rest of the house. Today will just be catching and collecting and putting the various things together. We don't expect great improvement but hope to have various loose piles of things consolidated into a neat stack of boxes so where you still might not be able to find anything, but you only have one place to look. I have boxes and signs ready -- things like Misc Fabric and Projects and Non-Crafting but we won't really know what we need until we get into what we have.

In some ways, it is so much easier to deal with someone else's stuff! I've told her (because it is true) that I am not judging or trying to make her get rid of anything, just that I understand how overwhelming things can be. If she wishes to reduce what she has, that is up to her but I'm there to have some fun playing with her fabric :) Once we have the things consolidated, I will continue to come over and we can work on other areas or in the boxes -- and if all she wants to do is tell me the stories attached to the objects, I will come and listen.

Iceblossom, I wish I had someone like you near me. That is what I need.

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

It can be so much easier to stay on task when you have someone to do it with. The first time we worked together, I brought my stuff that was "loose". Grabbed piles of stuff, bags and and other stuff and it looked like I was going to move in for the next month. But we went through it in about an hour, I had a couple of rules for my stuff, and one is that if it was under 6.5" it went into the crumb quilter box so had a box for that and that I expected we would fill the box (we did). The bigger things we just folded neatly and semi-sorted into color groups so that it could be dealt with easier once it was home.

We have about 2 hours scheduled for today, we could go longer but probably not. I'm thinking about an hour to gather things together and then an hour to sort and stack.

It could also go shorter. I've had quite a bit of both experience and therapy and dealing with stuff can be hard. Just the fact that you have stuff to deal with can be hard -- it helps her to know that I have a lot of stuff too and understand that some of us have an emotional side. She has a lot of things going on right now, most of which I can't do anything about but I can be supportive while playing with fabric and that's a win/win for all concerned.

Spent the past 4 days going thru my containers and deciding what to donate to the quilt guild on Saturday. Have a wheeled suitcase full of treasures to go to someone else's quilt room. Only kept neutrals for future projects. Decided if I haven't used or fondled it in the past year, not gonna store it any more. Down sizing can be difficult but I feel so much better.

Looked at my books for the second time and added more to the "out the door" pile.

I looked at my UFOs and decided which one to use as a back for my next quilt for Project Linus. Have to admit I see quilts during show and tell and their backs look rather boring. I get oohhhsss and aaaahhhhhs when they see my backs. Eventually I'll tell them these backs where made when we were caregivers for Mom. Shopping for fabric and sewing was my coping mechanism. They call my quilts twofers....quilts on both sides...lol

We had a good time yesterday and got a lot done (went for a full four hours!) and I got invited for a back-to-back session today. The downstairs "escaped" stuff wasn't too bad. We found one of the 3 projects we were looking for. Consolidated parts of the two on-going projects. Found a forgotten completed top that just needs it's binding put on!

Today will be a bit more work and more challenging, first we will need to make room to work in upstairs, so the escaped/loose piles and bags will be brought downstairs by me, while my friend sorts yesterday's initial consolidation from "miscellaneous fabric" to vintage, quilting, non-quilting, and small bits. Goal for today is simply to make enough space to work in next Wednesday.

oksewglad: Wahoo to opening your room up!

Juliemn1: Great ways to reduce the fabric stash.

Iceblossom: Way to go! I’m glad your friend was open to help.

Mission organization
 

Ice blossom: I bet you are having fun with your friend while you are getting things organized. Way to go

We were having fun for most of it. This sort of thing simply is not as easy for some people as it is for others, so every now and then various emotions come out and we pause and then move on...

Today I think she is having fun sending off a granddaughter to college. We have set Wednesday as our committed day, but that depending on things I have some availability Monday -- Tuesday is group, and after that my week is pretty free.

I'm somewhat fabric and craft mentally full... but today I'm going to work on organizing my CD collection. Isn't that hard except for my vision issues and that I keep the disks in alphabetical order. Yes, old tech but hey -- some of those disks were originally purchased as vinyl and then maybe cassette and then CD.

And then when I won the auction for the sewing table and since we were going out there anyway, for $12 we picked up a really nice (true, a few years old) HD flat screen to replace our no-def "fat" screen as apparently we have started calling them. I need to clear off the top of the entertainment center (about 20 CDs not in the cabinets) because flat screen will be hung above existing location. We'll replace the TV based center for something more vinyl album storage appropriate. Because yes -- I still play my vinyl and would more often but a new stylus is on the birthday list :)

"Reducing stash" has become more urgent. So now I'm kitting materials and giving the kits to comfort quilts at guild. Need to write the instructions.