Sewing Room Situation

I’ve told you all that I am trying to clean my sewing room. It is going okay. The only problem, it doesn’t look like I’ve done a thing in the sewing room. It’s because I keep saying YES. I know in the current world we are supposed to practice saying NO…but I don’t want to. YES feels really good much of the time.

One of my main problems with cleaning the sewing room is that I refuse to jam everything into cabinets.

For example: A reader contacted me and asked me if I would like to finish her Old World Fantasy Mystery from Quilted Twins. I’ve made one already…

I made it in 2021. Becky from Quilted Twins gave the mystery out in two different colorways. I did the red version…of course. This blog reader did it in the blue version. She would send it to me if I wanted it. Um, yes. I remember it being a bit challenging to put together at the end, but obviously, I could do it so why not do it again? It would make a wonderful donation quilt. You can read about the original one I made HERE.

So end up with this…piles that were well organized…I just need to wrap my head around the pattern again.

Saying got me a BUNCH of quilt tops that need longarming. Again…I can do that. I actually got some from two different people.

I thought I would pass some on to other finishers…and I will, but I try to send out easy ones. It just happens that the one I grabbed and was going to send out was stained. I think it’s just dirt, but I don’t know for sure. I hate sending that out to a finisher. I don’t like others having to deal with a top that is challenging. The top is beautiful.

It came in a box that partially ripped open. I think it got dirty because of the box. Hmm. No. I don’t want to send that out to someone else. I’ll finish it and then wash it and see if I can get the stain out. I don’t plan on super fancy longarm work for it, as I don’t want to put a ton of work into it only to have it not come out.

Well…I don’t want to put it away because if I do…you know…it won’t come back out of the cabinet. HA!! Out of sight, out of mind is a real thing in my sewing room.

So with my mantra of not wanting to put anything in a cabinet, you can see it’s hard to make progress on the REAL cleaning part of things. UGH.

Last week my friend Doreen called me. She invited me over for a visit. She was sorting through her batiks. She really wanted to have less than she currently has and encouraged me to take whatever I thought I might use. Hmm. I haven’t sewn a batik quilt lately…I think that’s because no one has sent me batik UFOs. So I was hesitant. Then I thought I could take a few things for the upcoming mystery quilt if Bonnie Hunter does one this year. I could do it in batiks.

I have no idea what her colors will be if she is hosting one…I decided then and there, heck. I’ll just make up my own colors. Doreen had beautiful blue/teals with purples and greens. YEP. I went with it. I really plan on making the mystery with some combo of those colors. I might have to add a color or take one away. I just know I’m using as many of Doreen’s batiks as I can.

Thank you so much, Doreen.

But it’s not mystery time yet…and these batiks are likely going to find their way into a tote and the tote into the cabinet. Yep. I’m breaking my “don’t put anything in the cabinet rule.

So…for now…I’m more or less finishing projects rather than actual cleaning. That’s all good, though, as projects need to get finished.

If you ask me what I’m doing…Some people might say cleaning…others might say finishing projects. I’m saying YES to a lot of projects I didn’t start, but I’m having a whole lot of fun finishing them…and if the sewing room gets cleaned in the meantime, all the better.