There is joy and even peace in organization. I also find joy in pretty fabric. Put those two things together and you have a fun summer day project when the thermometer inside my car says this:
Temp in my car when Jered and I were
running errands yesterday. A/C=Blessing!
I asked Jered to go to Boomerang Comic Book Store with me. He did the whole Bill Cosby rubber-face double-take. He LOVES comics and comic book stores and asks us to take him often. But me asking him...this was a first. It's fun freaking out my 15 y/o son. LOL! I was a woman on a mission to find comic book backing boards. Let me explain:
In my spare time I would rather look up quilting, sewing, embroidery, or crochet blogs than watch TV. Hands down...any day. Learning something new brings exuberance to life, and there are so many brilliant women out there who inspire me, teach me, and motivate me to do better, reach further, try new things, and to think outside the box. In my search on quilting blogs not long ago I came across a marvelous idea, this gal was showing off her organized sewing room. Huh...back up...do the Jered version of the Bill Cosby rubber-face double-take....what?!? Organize my sewing room? I thought mine was already doing pretty good. But, hold the phone...I was feeling inspired. :) Unfortunately, I tried to go back to this particular blog the next day so I could look at it again, but, I couldn't find her blog again, or her name. I also didn't add it to my favorites. Boo. I will keep trying to find her since I would like to give credit where credit is due. When I find her again, I'll post her name and blog address. Thank you, brilliant unknown lady. For now though, I'd like to show you what I've been up to.
At the Comic Book store I purchased 7 & 1/2x 10 and 1/2" comic book backing boards. These are used to put in the back of the plastic comic book sleeves to keep comic books in mint condition. She purchased hers online for $9. (100 pkg) + shipping. These are heavy, so it was great to find that our local comic book store sold me a package of 100 for $9.99 no shipping. Yeah! This is what they look like:
7 and 1/2 x 10and 1/2" acid-free heavy
card stock.
This is where I kept a lot of my fat quarters and quilting/piecing fabrics:
There are several more drawers like these
that were over-stuffed. But who can really
see what I have in there? It's a problem.
This is how her system works; Take any piece of fabric and lay it lengthwise on your table. Fold it in half again.
This piece was only 1 yard long. So I
folded it raw edge to raw edge. Then in
half again.
Lay one of the backing boards on your
fabric a few inches over from the right edge.
fold it over and begin to roll it.
Keep the fabric nice and tight.
You should have about 1/2" sticking out
of the bottom.
Secure the top and the bottom
with straight pins.
When I pinned the fabric I went ahead
and stuck the pointy tip back into the
fabric so it doesn't snag on the other
material as you store it. I also placed
all of my pins on the LEFT side so that
when pulling material in -or- out they
won't hang up on each other.
Then as you finish folding a fabric
go ahead and organize by placing
the newly folded piece from light to dark.
The more I worked the more encouraged I became.
Isn't the little 'bolt' effect great? It's like having my own little fabric shop. The cool thing about the 'bolts' also is that just like a store version you can lay out your bolt, un-pin and cut only a small piece off if you want to. The rest is still neatly folded on the bolt. Re-pin & voile. Also- Some of the fabric was longer and stuck out the top. That is ok...I still keep 1/2" inch at the bottom so the fabric doesn't squoosh. It was very easy to lay flat to carry back to put it away too. Very, as they say, 'user friendly'. :)
This is not a very good picture, sorry.
But you can get the idea.
Look at the top shelf only. LOL! This kind of gives you an idea how the rest of the shelves will look soon. BTW- to the right of my browns is some flannel and other misc. fabric I wanted to experiment with. This method works great with even several yards of material. I will definitely be storing some fabrics in their own sections. ie... Flannel, Christmas, Holloween, etc. It will be FUN to dig into my green fabric, reds (my favorite color), and blues. Can you tell that this has been an enjoyable project for me? :)
P.S. Sadly I ran OUT of backing boards tonight (Yup- all 100). You know, if I still had boards in my sewing room, I wouldn't be blogging...I'd be happily folding. Oh how I love to run my hands across pretty fabric. :) And...I will be running my hands through a LOT more material as soon as I can locate more boards. :) Happy joy!
I hope this has inspired you. Do you know what you have in your fabric stash? Hmmmm?
~Sandi
Look what I found today. Look on the right.
Today I was looking around for a particular pattern and I came across a random blog. The blog was actually about the little card you see in the top shelf there in front. She had made a quilt for someone & that person did a small water-color painting of the quilt on her Thank You card. The author of the blog just loves it and placed it in her 'sewing nook'. Then I saw that her sewing nook was organized like MINE (little cute tidy bolts). Fun to come across someone else who thought this idea was brilliant. :) Hey- she has more fabric than I do....she wins. LOL!
