More organising

A few days back, I showed a sort out of some paper drawers - well, I have now really completed the job and gone through all my drawers which hold paper and card, very thoroughly.   They are now sorted to within an inch of their lives - hopefully I can keep them this way!

The drawer at the top has card and greeting cards and playing cards in it; also some ATC sized backgrounds I have either cut, made or swapped.   This drawer has thinggs like postage stamps, words & phrases, etc., each in an appropriate envelope. 

Here I have a drawer with stickers, stick-on gems, transparencies, transfers, and anything else which isn't strictly paper but still falls under the general "paper" umbrella.

This one has printed pictures and cut outs, image sheets, etc.

And this one now has paper and card in all sizes, not just the larger pieces, which is what it had before. The smaller pieces and off-cuts are in envelopes to the side.  

This really does make it much faster to find what you need for making ATCs and other things, but keeping it organised can be a real pain. 

Some paper stash

As you might guess from the photo, this is a before & after combo of some more of my storage space - this is mainly paper (although it's not all the paper bits I have, mind you).  The large drawer (top left) has all the scrap book papers in it - there aren't tons of them, but they are an awkward size (12" square) so they don't fit in the other drawers, which would be more convenient. I didn't get rid of much in the way of paper, just tidied it up. I have a drawer of tissue and wrapping paper, a drawer of pads of papers of various kinds and a drawer of newspapers, fliers, magazine pages, maps, programmes and other largeish ephemera. I also have, not pictured, a drawer of alphabets (most of them incomplete, mind you).  I know I have a couple of other, smaller drawers, with paper stuff in them as well - I made add to these once I get those sorted out. But there's plenty of time for that, I'm sure.

Another drawer tidied up

I forgot to take a "before" photo of this drawer, at least while it was still in the drawer, but here are the contents, tipped onto the floor, before I sorted them. As you may have guessed from the photo, this is the ribbon and trim drawer.   A lot of the pieces in this drawer I have been given by others, which means that they aren't all to my taste. I've also bought quite a few bin ends (as it were) and bits in jumble sales - you can pick up trimmmings quite cheaply if you know where to look.

After some sorting, here's what I decided I am less likely to use in future - this stuff has all actually already been given away, as I added the ribbony bits and pieces to my giveaway of sheers and shinies...

And here's the tidy drawer in the end - again, lots of space in this drawer, which is good, as the stuff will almost certainly have to move to smaller quarters eventually.

More tidying...

When I'm showing photos of my tidying up, I'm never sure whether to start with the end result (a nice tidy drawer, like the one above and a windowsill with a big empty space like the one below)

or whether to start with the "before" pictures - here's the drawer when I started

and here are the three plastic containers which were in that space in the windowsill, and which have since been emptied (one was empty already) and put away in the cupboard in the loft which has storage boxes in it. 

Several things were got rid of -  this tea box had all the bits from the sides of pieces of hand-dyed fabrics I've made  - I had been saving them because I might do something with them someday. We know how that goes!  I emptied out these bits and instead used the box for the ultra-fine glitter which was in the top of the three storage boxes above.

Not sure what this stuff was doing in that drawer in the first place - a little bag of memorabilia. I've moved it to a more appropriate place (that's my tassle from my college graduation cap - it used to be black).

These three boxes are now empty - I've put them for the time being in a boxes of storage pots which I have set aside - they may not stay there forever in the grand scheme of things, but at least there will be some small containers if I need one during the rest of my clear out.

Obviously the drawer in the top photo is nearly empty and could hold a lot more, but as the storage unit that those drawers are in will be something which goes in my grand reorganisation (it will probably be given to Alex for his stuff), the less that's in the drawers which needs to be stored elsewhere, the better.

Another drawer tidy

This weekend I tackled another drawer - this one, I kept most of the things in it, though I did tidy it quite a bit. There's lots more room in this drawer (though I probably won't keep this storage unit for sewing stuff, so that's irrelevant). 

Here's what it looked like before I tidied it up. 

And here are the things I decided I don't need any more (not the ruler, that just happened to be on the table!).  This time, no giveaway, as I am going to send the paper punches to a friend who does lots of paper crafting and who has a birthday coming up soon - and who is as keen as I am on recycling, reusing and passing things on.  The string is going to school.   Only another hundred drawers, boxes, shelves, and so on to go (well, maybe not quite that many, but many will take a lot longer to sort through!)

Clearing out, part 1 (with giveaway)

As I mentioned before, I will eventually have to downsize my sewing room - or at least, store all the stuff I want to keep elsewhere. This move is a long way off, but it doesn't hurt to start going through drawers and getting rid of things now - I figure if I do one or two small storage sections a week, I might actually be done by the time we move stuff around a year or two from now.  Maybe!

So I started with two drawers full of misc, non-quilting fabrics. Mostly sheers and other funky textures.  These are fabrics I use in small bits when making ATCs and occasionally the small art quilt.  Some of them were bought by me, some were given, but most of them are quite big pieces, especially the sheers.  Frankly, I will not use a metre of any sheer fabric, probably in my lifetime, and certainly not in the next 10-20 years. So a lot of the bigger pieces, I cut down, put part in the save pile and part in the giveaway pile. I didn't get rid of ALL of anything, just parts of the larger pieces...

A few really oddly shaped bits went in the bin - including the offcuts of a scarf which I bought in a charity shop for next to nothing and used in an art quilt for round 4 of Another Little Quilt Swap. 

A few sheer bags will go in a pile of stuff to go to a friend who sells at markets and can probably use them for something. 

And this scarf will go in my closet with my scarves, to be worn.  I don't remember this at all - wonder how it got in my stash?

All this clearing out left me with one empty drawer, 

one tidy drawer full of interestingly texture fabric in amounts that will still keep me going until the end of time, but which are reasonable rather than stupid, 

and one pile of mostly sheer and slippy, shiny fabrics which I am offering to a good home. Although a lot of these are sheer and not heavy, I am going to limit this drawing to those in the UK or in the US (because my mother is visiting in a few weeks' time and can take it back with her to post there) unless of course you'd be happy to reimburse postage by paypal if you win, in which case, you can be from anywhere.   If you are interested in having this stack of miscellaneous goodies, leave a comment by the end of March, and I'll do a drawing at that point...