I'm Gonna Be RUTHLESS ... Sort Of!!!

I'm going to be REALLY RUTHLESS!!! Sort of! A bit! Maybe .... Awwwwww .... who am I kidding! I'm really not good at being ruthless!!! No, no ... I'm not thinking of attacking anyone or invading a small island nation ... just getting ready to attack a HUGE task ... Spring cleaning the sewing room!! EEP!

It's sort of a long story ... you see ... it all began when we bought and moved into this house. Previously, we'd been renting a HUGE old farm house ... the equivalent of a six bedroom, plus large dining room, plus sitting room, plus huge lounge room house. Which we very quickly filled with 'stuff'! So then we bought our current cute Federation cottage ... which has four bedrooms, a small lounge room, small dining room, and a kitchen we renovated a year and a half ago. You can imagine, then, just how much of a challenge it's been for two collectors (my Mother says hoarders, but that sounds so harsh!!!) to downsize enough to fit. Storage is ALWAYS a problem. And although we've cleared out a lot of 'stuff' as we've renovated each room, the two most challenging rooms have been left til last ... the office and ... MY SEWING ROOM!!! Each of these rooms contains the contents intended by their titles ... along with all the 'stuff' that didn't fit anywhere else. Are you getting a mental picture here?? Let me show you a few actually pictures of my sewing room. I know I've shown a few over the time, but this is what it looks like today.

These are the only built in cupboards in the house and not only are they fairly unattractive, they're incredibly badly designed and pretty hopeless at being useful storage space. There's actually two banks of these along the entire wall that has the entry door to the sewing room in it and because the sewing room also has windows on two walls, it severely limits how I can arrange furniture.

This is my current sewing table. Have you ever noticed that the bigger your sewing table, the more mess and clutter you store there? Is that a little-known law of physics or is that just ME!! :0) On the other side of the room ...

Two large bookshelves that used to be in the 'library' in the farm house. At the bottom of the picture, you can see that my stash is in complete disarray ... funny ... it USED to fit into that container! Tee! Hee! Hee!

With the projects I'm designing for my Tag Along Teddies range of patterns getting bigger ie. from teddies to quilts ... I really do need more useable room in my sewing room, so the decision was made that this would be the year of

"Project Sewing Room Makeover & De-Clutter".

Step one was the decision to pack my overlocker away, (I really don't use it as much as my sewing machine) dump the stereo on the end of the table that hasn't actually worked for about six years (don't ask why I've kept it this long, it is a mystery to me too!!) and get a smaller sewing table. That's not as odd as it may sound! :0) You see, that bank of built in cupboards is being ripped out and that is where my sewing desk will be ... a smaller space than my current table will fit into, plus, my current sewing table is only a cheap fold up one that gets a pretty decent vibration 'bounce' happening when it's pedal-to-the-metal on the ol' Husky! Tee! Hee! Hee! I'll also be testing out that peculiar law of physics I mentioned and see if the level of clutter drops ... stay tuned! :0)

Well ... I ordered a nice solid pine table to house my Husky ... and got a phone call this week to say it's ready ... two weeks earlier than expected! EEK! That of course means I actually have to stop procrastinating about spring cleaning my sewing room and DO it! EEK! Now, since it seems such an overwhelming task to this non-compulsive-cleaner (Mum was supposed to help me get started at Christmas time cos she is a champion de-clutterer but the floods cancelled their visit ... AND the assisted beginning of my cleaning!!), I decided to start with a relatively small task ... culling my vast magazine collection. Since it's a rainy, overcast day today, what better way to entertain myself AND dip my toes into the spring cleaning pool than ...

... flicking through the old magazines to tear out pictures, ideas and recipes that I want to keep, before the magazines go to a new home. I've actually already culled over 100 craft magazines ... Christina is having a lovely time with those! :0) I'm now tackling the old "House & Garden", "Home Beautiful", and "Better Homes & Gardens" issues. Some of these date back to the early 1990's and it's kind of fun (and sometimes a little scary!!) to see the trends and decorating fashions and how they've changed. Not to mention, noticing how much my own taste and style has changed. :0) I've gone from the natural timbers, pottery and dark dusty country colours and furniture styles to white painted furniture, softer colours and a sort of shabby-French-country-cottage-chic style all of my own! :0)

So ... you've probably guessed, there's not a lot of stitching going on at the Meares' Madhouse at the moment, apart from a little bit of hand stitching. I'll keep you updated on the progress of

"Project Sewing Room Makeover & De-clutter",

but right now, I think I'm going to make myself a cup of Peppermint tea and cull some more magazines. :0)

OPAMers ... Peg and I haven't forgotten the double-whammy combined January/February prize draw we promised. We decided to leave a few days grace for people to remember that they'd forgotten to email us their finishes ... if you see what I mean! Tee! Hee! Hee! We'll be announcing the SIX lucky random winners (3 from each of us) by the end of the weekend, so STAY TUNED! :0) Wish me luck with my de-cluttering campaign! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS