Wednesday, January 28, 2015

15 Minute Studio Spiff Up #4

I've heard from a couple of people on various spiffing up success stories.  Long-time reader Nancy who blogs at Wyoming Breezes wrote, "Did you see my post today? Thanks to your sewing room cleaning challenge, I actually finished an old UFO."

And Melanie who blogs at "Mel's Quilting Blog"  wrote, "I don't really have a FQ collection, so I'm going to clean up an area that is bothering me." Excellent! Although every week I will give suggested areas to tackle, I'm tickled that folks are doing what is important to them.  Great job ladies.  Anyone else out there with a success story or two?  Please leave a comment and I might feature you and your blog (or just you if you don't have a blog) on an upcoming 15 Minute Studio Spiff Up post. 

Here's this week's assignment: 

Clean, put away and general make your sewing desk/table/area neat. 

I know I tolerate a lot of stuff out and about me.  Hubby is the exact opposite. So my dresser is loaded with stuff, his is clear.  My desk has notebooks on it, his is clear.  And, yes, I have lots of stuff I like at hand when I'm sewing at my machine.  But, honestly, it had gotten out of hand.  Heck, the dust bunnies were propagating more dust bunnies.  Enough already.


Left side. Ooh, look at all that junk out.  In my own defense I must say the desk is really wide so it's an open invitation to put things on it! 


And more stuff.  Wait, isn't that the Grim Reaper little quilt waiting to be quilted back there? This was taken in late December.  Prior to my spiff up it hadn't gotten much better.  I also took the time to DUST this area.  I probably hadn't done any dusting there since I moved into the studio in Aug 2013.  YIKES. 

TA DA!


You'll notice I do like a "glob" of stuff to the right of my sewing machine.  These are things I'd rather not have to stand up and go find - lint brush, my walking foot, small ruler, scissors, forceps, and all sorts of very important stuff -- to me. I've gone through and put away things I don't use often and left the items I really want close at hand. Hum, I wonder what happened to the yellow handled paint brush I use for cleaning the bobbin area of the machine? It's not there anymore. 


I am trying to avoid really time intense areas of my studio.  I'm trying to keep my "spiff up" time to only an hour or two for the week.  So far it's working, except for the cutting tables.  But it was so needed I didn't mind taking the time.  

Let me know how you are doing and what you are doing.  I still have several areas that need to be done.  I'm guessing I'll be adding areas each week for at least 6 weeks more.  I'm loving the changes in my studio.  And, for the most part I have been successful in keeping the space neat.  

I'm busily working on a quilt on Ruthie.  Hopefully it'll come off Ruthie today and I can get right to binding it as I want a finish this month.  

Happy Quilting All! 

5 comments:

  1. Look great! It's amazing how quickly they get messy, and how long it can take to straighten the mess.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The area to the right of my machine is cluttered, too. I use make-up brushes and pipe cleaners to clean my machine.

    Last week, I commented that I didn't have many FQs. Well, obviously I lied because I found more than I knew I had. ;o( They are now all neatly folded and in a tray.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Keeping this up will be the trick! I'm learning to limit flat surfaces because I tend cover them quickly with stuff I don't put away. I just repositioned my main sewing machine so that is now tidy. phew! From coming up from behind I am now on track. This is great.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My sewing desk area tends to stay fairly neat, probably because there is not much extra space once I get the sewing machine on it. I continue to work on my fabric closet, that's the worst area in my sewing space. Even just doing a little each week is starting to make a difference.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bonnie, I hope you keep this up all year. A few reminders would be wonderful. I know my place will not have all the drawers cleaned out in 6 weeks. LOL
    I need this one. Very much so. I am going to figure out how to handle the mess on top of the desk and see what I can do to keep it clean.
    My sewing area is probably not all that bad, but it could use some dusting and making sure I have only what I need there.
    Thanks again.
    Check out my blog http://melsquiltingblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/15-minute-spiff-up-challenge.html

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting. Let me know what you're thinking about.