I think this is the time of year when lots of people look at spaces in their homes and get the urge to reorganize. For me, that overwhelming desire to go out and acquire coordinating boxes and new organization system always seems to hit home the hardest in my studio. When my studio is clutter and messy, I have NO desire to go in there and work on projects. This is compounded by feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of UFOs (Unfinished Fabric Objects) and WIPs (Works in Progress) that I have sitting up there.
When the parentals were here over Christmas, we stopped at Ikea after I took the N-Boy to the airport for his flight back to Siberia. I wish I could live in one of the little displays at Ikea. Seriously. I could spend hours there. I have on occasion, been there so long I have to eat multiple meals. And when the Momcat and I are together...well I wish I'd gotten pictures but Daddo would just take his kindle, find a nice couch or chair in one of the displays and wait for us. When we'd catch up, he'd just go on ahead a few and do it again. He knows what this process is like when the two of us get together. I think the N-boy was VERY happy to be on an international flight during this latest Ikea excursion.
And again I digress.
ANYWAY one of the items I was looking for at Ikea was some kind of cupboard or storage unit to store my fabric. During our annual pilgrimage to the American Quilter's Society Paducah Show a few years ago the Momcat and I discovered
Polar Notions. They are these plastic inserts that you use to make mini bolts with your fabric. They are super easy to use, and make it so much easier to store and see your fabric. Previously, I'd put a lot of my fabric onto these bolts, but they were begin stored on their sides in big canvas under-the-bed style boxes. So while they were protected from the sun and from the Helper Cats, the setup was less than ideal.
When I was home in October, the Momcat showed me how she'd started putting her fabric onto Polar Notion bolts, but was putting them into bookcases with doors on them. I liked the new system an awful lot, and so wanted to get something similar for my studio. After looking at every possible bookcase/shelving unit/storage case on all three floors, the Momcat spotted this beauty in the "As Is" section.
It was a floor model and was still in great condition. And the doors! Look at those doors! It was perfect and so I bought it and loaded it into the car. It was a VERY tight ride home, but at least it fit and we didn't have to assemble it.
Then it was time to load it up with the goods!
The bottom shelf has holiday fabrics and fabrics that I have already planned for projects. The next shelf up has backing fabrics, panels and Jinny Beyer border prints.
Third shelf up has the majority of my fabric cuts that are at least one half yard, but most are a yard. Fourth shelf up has some solids and some I just purchased that coordinate with each other. There's also a very small pile of precuts.
Next shelf up hold fat quarters. I'm not happy with this shelf yet, but it's better then it was before. And then the top shelf is a bit random. Up there right now are some odds and ends for a specific project, and some larger pieces that have already been cut into in weird ways.
In the three months since we set this new system up, I've managed to keep it fairly tidy! Fabric has more or less ended up on bolts and on as shelf, even if it sometimes takes a few days for that to happen. I'm exited to pick up more of the bolts at the Paducah show at the end of this month, which I will then have to load with all of the fabric that I'll also buy there!
