Sorted

My threads, that is.

As promised in my last post, I'm going to let you into the secret that has TRANSFORMED how I work in my studio.

It's so simple, but it's fantastic. No apologies for the shouty caps-lock - I'm excited about this one!

So when I'm stitching something, I use lots of different threads. I swap between them often. There is no point putting the threads away mid-project. And sometimes I'm stitching more than one project at a time. So that's a lot of threads.

Traditionally, these threads are scattered all over my work surface. Sometimes I corral them all into a rather marvelous fabric bowl that I made a few years ago (thanks Di for showing me how):

BUT. When I finished a project, did I put the threads away? No, of course I didn't.

For years I used these double-sided thread storage boxes*. Fantastic to be able to sort threads into colour families in the different compartments, and you can get SO MUCH into one box! Except they have one major drawback - they're only fantastic if you actually PUT THE THREADS BACK IN!

Which I didn't. Because, let's face it, tidying is boring. But I like tidy, and having a mess on my desk each day was depressing, and made it hard for me to get started on new things, resulting in massive amounts of procrastination. And I tried all sorts of systems for making myself tidy up at the end of the day, but nothing worked. When I moved into my room and had new shelves with different dimensions, I had to dump the double-sided boxes and started using these boxes - but still with the dividers, and still organised by colour. Here they are on their shelf:

(you've got to admit, this is a riveting post so far!)

So I was noodling around on the interwebs, avoiding the task of filing all my sewing threads away, and I came across this lady. I did the test and it turns out I'm a "LadyBug" sort of organiser: I like things to look tidy on the surface, but underneath and in drawers and cupboards - woah, disaster area.

I need systems, I like systems, but they must be QUICK and EASY. According to the test results, I need a MACRO organising system - whereas my tendency has always been to devise complicated MICRO systems - the antithesis of quick and easy!!

I need tidying up my threads to be EASY. And sorting into little storage compartments is DIFFICULT because you need to make the threads fit into the spaces - and what if you have too much of one colour???!! etc etc.

So I've come up with this - and it bloomin' WORKS! Tidy threads, tidy desk.

All the cops and cones (i.e. ones without tops) in one box:

All the reels (i.e. ones with tops and bottoms):

All the "everyday" metallic in a basket:

I have kept two boxes with compartments, but to be honest, I forget they're there. I mostly use the top two boxes and the metallics.

Then the miscellaneous...

One box (still with its compartments) has "special" threads that I just stroke from time to time, plus my Indian rayons that I forget about and they only really work in the bobbin (they shred easily):

And this last compartment box has the ends of some threads a friend was selling cheaply yonks ago that I forget I have, some really cheapo metallics that I should either use up in the bobbin or chuck out, and some "spare" duplicate metallics (sometimes I forget to take a list when I go shopping at the shows...):

It always tickles me when people say to me "Oh, you must have masses of different threads"! No, not really! I have one desk drawer that holds my all-purpose polyester threads, bobbinfil, invisible thread (I'm always losing that one....) and some cheapo threads from the charity shop that I use in the bobbin - but this really is it!

So try it! Do the test, see what works for you. It might just revolutionise how you tidy up!

Why the pink boxes? Well the shelves where my threads live are on the sunny side of my studio (on summer afternoons), and I'm paranoid about UV damage - yes, it's a thing for threads - and putting thread boxes in drawers falls back into the DIFFICULT zone of tidying; they'd be a mess again! The pink boxes were the only coloured ones I could find (at Hobbycraft, if you're interested). 



* this is an affiliate link - I earn a few pennies from purchases made through this link

Le grand nettoyage

Oh yes indeedy, hence the infrequent posting - I've been busy. 
We are now decluttered and superorganised and spring cleaned and I learnt a new phrase in French class today!

It all started with my frustration that our living room was not "cosy".  So I had to move the furniture around.  Again.  (This is something I have a habit of doing, so Mr Gonecycling is used to it, but still hates it when I do it, ever since he came home and found a wardrobe stuck across the landing).

Anyway.

I knew that if we emptied and removed the large bookcase, swapped it for the blanket box, budged up the sofa and moved the rug, we would (a) have a cosy place in the living room to sit together of an evening, and (b) I could move one of my megacupboards down from the office - and wouldn't have to keep running up and down the stairs to fetch my supplies (not to mention disturbing Mr G when he's trying to work...)

So!  Here is a "before" of one megacupboard in the office (I have two):

Here is the (newly-edited) contents of said megacupboard:

taken out and spread all over the floor, in readiness for the great furniture removal which took place after the Girl's bedtime on Friday. 

Here is a bad pic of the other megacupboard:

Unfortunately, the stuff all over the floor had to go into this cupboard, so the stuff in this cupboard could go in the cupboard that was destined for downstairs.... The stuff on the floor is stuff I need, but is boring, and the stuff in the other cupboard is "nice" stuff, like fabrics, threads and my hoard of unused sketchbooks, which I wanted downstairs...with me so far?!

 Even more unfortunately, the cupboard to be moved was too heavy even with the empty drawers, so I had to remove them all.  And they are all screwed onto runners.  And there are 15 drawers.  And they hadn't been taken apart for 10 years.

Eventually, we got it downstairs, and I had to start the reassembly - except the pressure of the overloaded drawers over the last ten years suddenly being released caused the whole thing to warp and twist and it wouldn't stand up straight.  It's at this point that Mr G's eyebrows reach the ceiling, and I begin to feel a bit sheepish.  Luckily, the application of some felt furniture pads (to the cupboard not the eyebrows), a couple of hours of sweat and toil reattaching the runners and a liberal dose of magic silicon drawer-glide stuff, and the whole thing was sitting pretty and all the drawer contents were reassigned and my knees were completely wrecked and it was 11.30pm on a Friday night!  Don't tell me we don't know how to have fun around here.

As well as the grand furniture removals, the grand clear up has also meant dealing with unfinished projects, like cutting up my collection of jumble sale and charity shop clothes and dyeing the pieces.  This killed two birds with one stone, as I used up the dye from my class which has been sitting in a crate in the office since we did dyeing last summer term...

And another crate of dyeing equipment has been sitting on top of the filing cabinet for about six years, waiting to be put in the loft.  But it couldn't go up the ladder and therefore at an angle, until I had done something with the jamjars of acid dye that were in it.  So this was my project yesterday evening:

It's come out a bit washed out, but then the dye is six years old...and at least the crate can go now!

So I have created space, order and room to work, if not Art!

The Girl, meanwhile, has been getting creative with her food and wanted me to take a photo: