UFO Sightings

Pile of UFOs on and beside the Singer table.
See the basket below? It may get filled....

This is the pile of UFOs (unfinished objects) I found yesterday while shovelling out my sewing room. <sigh> So many. So many!

How I loathe UFOs. There's usually a very good reason for abandoning a project. The Big 3 are: 1) fitting problem, 2) construction problem or 3) something more urgent/enticing came along. Often it's 1 or 2, and then 3 appears, so I tuck the offending garment away.

I'm determined to work my way through the stack. Either the garment will be finished or it will be tossed. None will be left half-done. The trick is to figure out how to clear the pile without  tossing them all out (bad) or losing my mind (worse).

Cleaning up my sewing sanctuary took all day yesterday. I went overboard and tackled the pattern storage problem too, culling a few.

Cutting table (as uncluttered as it gets)

Here's the end result.

Other sewing area. This Singer is the treadle
twin to the one with the stack of UFOs

Buzz Killer

For me, this is the worst sewing buzz killer:

Yep, that's my sewing table. Messy isn't it? And that's just the table! There is stuff piled on every surface. Mounds of it. I'm too embarrassed to show it all. Let's just say, that's the cleanest part of the room. I'll let you imagine the rest.

The problem is I love all things sewing. Fabric. Patterns. Thread, Trims. Elastics. Magazines. This much passion requires diligent organization. Or else the above happens.

In my defence, we've been doing a big kitchen renovation. (Yay!) Stuff was dumped in the sewing room that shouldn't have been. (Boo!) Worst of all, I didn't organize the things that did belong in there. (Double boo!)

Things piled up. Newly purchased stuff. Half-finished projects. Patterns under consideration and the fabrics that might go with them. 

In spite of the chaos, I really, really wanted to sew, so I decided to ignore it. I shifted stuff around, clearing whichever surface I needed at the moment. As you can imagine, mixing the piles like that added to the disorganization. If there'd been any order before, it was gone after the scoop-and-dump of quickly cleared surfaces.

Being creative in a messy space is difficult for me. It distracts me, kills my sewing mojo. Although it's a terrible waste of perfectly good sewing time, I have to conquer the chaos. I have to organize that mess.

Dang.