Rhapsody On Me and a Sewing Room Preview

Here I am, after work, and with a mirror shot. Proof I am actually still alive. (And chubbier and grayer.) I currently work from home MWF and in the office TT. Today was an office day. We're moving buildings in ~2 weeks so my in-office time for the last month has been mostly spent packing up files into boxes or the shredding bins. It's approximately 400 degrees outside this month (with humidity levels to match) and it doesn't matter how much AC is blowing, my body still knows. Which is to say I was a little drippy today while moving all those files and boxes. Ugh. The new shirt held up well, though it's much more wrinkled after a full day and 2 car rides than what shows in this pic. I also see that part of the back of the top is hung up on my hip. Oh well. This is real life here.   

Behind me you can sorta kinda see the table where my sewing machines used to live. Over the weekend, I bought a new table and moved the machines into what will now be my dedicated sewing (and miscellaneous dog stuff and other junk) room. 

Below is their new home. Along with the ironing board and cracked iron (see previous post). 

My cutting table is on the other side of the room. 

Coming around full circle, there's Zillie and a shelf full of mostly non-sewing stuff. Weird fact — my ex's ashes are in the red urn in the top left cube. I'm not completely sure exactly why he is "living" with me again. The irony cracks me up regularly. If he were in a grave, he might be rolling over in it. I have a very dark sense of humor. Please disregard. 

Back to the cutting table, where you can see there is absolutely nothing on the walls in here yet. And there's a stash of big bags of dog food under the table and dog crates to the right of it. Since Alex moved out almost 2 years ago and Tyler moved in "temporarily" about 9 months ago, I've been using this room as a catch-all. Now that I'm reclaiming it for sewing, I'll need to figure out new homes for a lot of this stuff. 

That's the tour at the moment. It's definitely a work in progress. But I think the sewjo is back and I'm excited to get things going in here.

Also, a note about comments. I can't reply to them on my computer, only on my phone, and I haven't figured out why yet. Blogger has changed some things in the last couple of years and it's making me a little nuts. Since I'm not a big fan of "typing" on my phone, until I figure out what's going on I probably won't be replying individually until I get it fixed. And since my HTML skills are rusty and my patience for troubleshooting is low, it's going to take some time. But I am reading and very much appreciating that you're still out there, helping me knock down the cobwebs off this thing, and saying hi! 

Guess Your Best (Giveaway), a Tip, and a Peek at the Sewing Room

Above is currently what's up in the sewing room. I expect to finish it tonight, or mostly finish, but I need to take a break and get to the grocery store. I thought I'd post a sneak peak while I'm out and make a little "contest"/giveaway. I have a duplicate all-sizes (different) dress pattern from the same indie company as I'm currently sewing. So, if you guess what dress pattern (yes, dress) the above is, your name will be entered into the giveaway draw, winner to be announced next Saturday. I'll mail the pattern anywhere, so this is open to everyone. Once I post the finished dress and identify the pattern (tomorrow evening at the earliest), the contest will close.

I spent some time yesterday organizing the sewing room a little more. I still have a LONG way to go! One of the things that was bugging me the most was not having my thread organized and handy so I got my thread racks hung and loaded. This reminded me of a little tip I picked up somewhere years and years ago, and I thought I'd share it here for anyone who hasn't heard it before.

You'd think with FOUR thread racks, I wouldn't run out of space. Hah! While there are some empty spots at the moment, that's only because I haven't replaced some used up spools yet. Usually, it's bursting with spools.

To make more space, get thee some plastic straws. Cut them about 4" long and slice/cut them lengthwise. This slice lets the straw curl tighter to fit into the spool hole easier. Slide the straw onto a spoke on your rack and double or triple your storage-per-spoke, depending on spool height. Obviously, there are no strict rules here and you cut your straws to whatever length works best for you.

Finally, here's a little peek into the "new" space. It's pretty tight in here even if it looks roomier than it is. The fabric is mess. Some rolled, some flat. All just stuck willy-nilly wherever in the cubbies. I thought I wanted it rolled, but have decided against that. The thought of getting it all organized makes my head hurt so I'm just dealing with it as is for now. There's also still more fabric in bins/boxes in various places throughout the house. It's a mess.

Speaking of hanging stuff, have any of you used the Command hooks and/or Velcro-ish hanger thingies? Those things ROCK ... as long as everything doesn't come crashing down in a couple of months. ;-)

The threadracks were hung by the chimney with care …

… in the hopes that St. Butterick soon would be there.

But what to my wondering eyes should appear, but TWO MORE BOXES OF FABRIC … oh dear!

(Apologies to Clement Moore.) Where in the world did these come from and, more importantly, how am I ever going to squeeze them into the stash closet?? Will the boxes NEVER END?? ;-)

Looks like I'm going to have to sew them away. First up tomorrow, Vogue 1224. Should be a good fast and easy project to get me back into the groove.I hope I don't eat those words.

Tonight, I'm sipping a chocolate martini and luxuriating in the knowledge that I'm officially ON VACATION for the next 5 days, and I'll hang one picture in my bedroom and unpack the sewing books into the bookcase. And then tomorrow I'll get up early and hit the cutting table. It won't be all-sewing-all-the-time for the next 5 days, especially since I have to go to the dentist tomorrow for an unscheduled appointment due to part of my filling breaking off during lunch today and while I'm there I'm going to have the other two small fillings done that I've put off too long. It will be my first time using my dental insurance. Yay dental insurance and yay flexible spending account deductions! But at the end of my 5 days, I do intend for there to be new clothes to wear next week come hook or crook. Stay tuned.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like …

… my sewing room!!

It's done, it's done!! Well, except for  hanging up my 3 thread racks. 

The room is set up pretty much like my former sewing room, although this one is a skootch smaller so my ironing board is proving to be a PITA. But I'll get used to it. And it certainly could be a lot worse, like not having one at all. Sheesh, I have a LOT of stuff. ;-)

I brought my really big mirror from my former bedroom, which I know I will enjoy having in my sewing room, once I take some Windex to that sucker. You can actually sorta see me in the mirror but the flash is obscuring most of me.

One thing I did, which I'd been wanting to do for years, was to spray paint my pattern cabinet white. While it was empty and in the garage, I took advantage. So glad to be rid of that ugly commericial beige.

And, as you can see, we were able to wrestle my cutting table inside after all. Didn't even need to take it apart, but I do have to replace the casters since they bit the dust in the move. As you can also see, my fabric closet is door-less. Oops. Don't tell my landlord. There's a few possible solutions, but none of them are high on my list at the moment. Frankly, I'm enjoying the view of the stash again.

I still have some other boxes in other rooms calling my name, so I don't think I'll actually start sewing anything until mid-week but it's nice to know I can if I want to.

Slow But Steady

It still looks like a mess, but I'm making progress in here. I expect I'll have it 99.99% finished by the end of the day. Which means I might even be able to sew something soon. But that's putting the cart before the horse.

The Ikea shelves are back together, in place, and halfway loaded. The good news is the bins still to be unpacked take up a lot of room in a box so the remainder of the boxes should go fairly quickly.

Machines still in their boxes, but on my sewing table waiting their turn.

Fabric closet coming along. Here's a tip – if you're going to be moving your fabric closet, take a pic or two before you pack it up. That way you know approximately where the piles should go back to and, more importantly, what's still missing. All I had to do was look back in my blog and I had a road map to start from.

Unfortunately, what you can't see from these few pics is that there is still plenty of sewing room stuff still outside of the sewing room. Oops. My cup overfloweth. ;-)

My biggest concern is my cutting table. It's still on the front porch (yes, really), where it was parked on moving day because it's too big to fit through the door easily. We already had to take one shelf out of it to get it out of the old sewing room. It wouldn't be a huge deal to take it apart outside and put it back together inside, but I'm not sure yet if that will actually work. Since STBExH made it, who knows how it's really put together, and I already know for sure he painted over the screws. I don't know how much time/effort I'm willing to spend on it vs. just replacing it. I'll let you know.

My long weekend will be spent unpacking. I also only work on Tuesday next week and then I'm off again until the following Monday, by which point I'm DETERMINED that EVERYTHING will be put away. I may still have some pictures to hang, but I'm so tired of the boxes that I'm willing to spend "vacation" dealing with them once and for all.

Do you know what this is?

It's exciting, but …

I still have a LOT of work to do in here. Sigh.

Summer Flowers in the Field

It's done! Now all I have to do is hang it on the wall. I was calling this "my scrappy triangle flowery wallhanging thing," but then I thought I'd go a bit more hoity-toity, so "Summer Flowers in the Field" it is. I crack myself up.



I finished it last night, putting on the binding while watching Top Chef. Gawd, that show makes me want to EAT so I was glad to have something else to keep my hands busy. I'm not a hand sewer of bindings. Gimme my machine all the way, baby! ;-) I tossed it in the washer last night and the dryer this morning so I could have that puckery goodness. I love a puckery quilt. It looks less puckery in these photos than IRL but I think that's because shrinking the pics to more web-friendly size lost some of the contrast/definition. Trust me. It's plenty puckered.

This binding is one of my most successful to date, I think. Usually, I will wuss out and just use a small ZZ on the front so I'm sure the back of the binding is caught. I match thread to binding and you really can't even tell unless you're looking for it. I'm not entering quilt shows or anything.

But I decided I want to master binding a quilt by machine so I forced myself to do it the right way with no shortcuts. My tips: Lots of pins and a walking foot. And this YouTube video. Notice how she's constantly pushing the seam allowance more open as she stitches in the ditch? Do that.

I still had a couple of spots where I missed the back but that's because I joined some of the binding pieces straight instead of using bias seams and they made the binding more lumpy. But I was seriously eeking out the last scraps of these stripes and a bias seam would've eaten up too much of my smaller pieces. I know better, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It wasn't a big deal to do a second pass where I missed. It's going on the wall. Even I'll never see it.

The quilting itself is nothing special. Mostly just in the ditch, but I did echo the flowers and greenery. Also on my list to master is free motion. I'm OK. But I need more practice.



And, speaking of my sewing room … Oh? We weren't? Well, now we are. ;-) Here's yet ANOTHER photo of my IKEA shelves. I found some bins that work for me. They look basket-y but they're really plastic. I'll need to put labels on them or draw myself a map because with all this reorganization, I CAN'T FIND A THING! But I'm slowly getting used to where my stuff is. Oh, and those 4 bins on the bottom? Those are the ones that used to have blue/yellow lids. Krylon Fusion for plastic rocks!



I also got these smaller rattan baskets. There are 4 of them but you can't see the last one since it's blocked by my cutting table. I'm going to make liners for these — first, because the baskets are kind of rough and second, to keep the green thing going for the lower half of this unit.



While I'm still in quilt-mode, I'm going to try to knock out a quick table runner for my sister for Christmas. Yes, I'm in shock too. I usually never even think about Christmas until December. But I still have scraps I'm determined to use up and this will go fast. I might even make one for myself. I'm going to join in the August Create-With-Me sew-along on UCreate, here. UCreate is a great blog, BTW. Lots and LOTS of crafty ideas. Fill up your coffee cup before you click on that link. I'm just sayin'…

Last Night

This is what I worked on last night while Project Runway was on. Piecing on my Featherweight means I can face the TV. I used the scraps from the bins and binder covers. You're all probably getting a little sick of seeing these fabrics all the time. I promise — once this is done, these prints will be used up. Well, mostly. I'm not using any pattern. I just measured out a triangle that would fit on the triangle-shaped scraps from the bins. I'm going to add some more blocks from the fabrics you can see at the left for variety — even I'm getting a bit tired of those same ol' fabrics — but I won't make the finished quilt much bigger than what you see here. I'm going to hang it on the wall in the sewing room and hope to get it done this weekend while my garment sewing mojo is on hiatus.

Speaking of sick of looking at, here's yet ANOTHER photo of my shelves and bins, but what I'm really showing is the cool little blue dress form up top. I was out still looking for ready-made bins yesterday afternoon. I didn't find any bins that I wanted but I did find this instead at HomeGoods. Isn't it cute? I wanted something tall and sewing-related for the top of the shelves to off-set the straight row of machines and this is perfect.



Have a great weekend — I'm starting mine NOW! :-)

Four More

… or, How I Spent My Sunday.



I was ready to cave in and BUY some bins. I even went back to IKEA, and visited Target and Walmart and scouted around online. Zilch. Nada. Well, at least nothing I wanted to pay $10-25 each for and still not really be happy.

So I pulled out some more fat quarters, sheets and scraps and had at it. The four on the left in the photo are the latest.

I took photos along the way and will write up the tutorial as my next post.

There's still a lot more organizing to do in here, but I'm making progress. This will be it for me for the fabric bins, I think (never say never!). I like how the 8 across the top look, but any more probably will be Way Too Much. I do want to bring some green into some of the other cubbies, though, so I've still got my thinking (and shopping) cap on.

Hot Patterns 1111

I'm making the ruffly version of this (shown in red, but I'm not using red) and am almost done cutting it out. I have to do some creative cutting/piecing for the big neckline flounces and then I'll be ready to start sewing. This is my fault because I'm trying to squeeze everything onto a specific leftover piece of fabric that I found while digging through the stash yesterday. If I was using a new, proper-length piece, I'd be done cutting by now. I hope this goes together as fast as I think it will.

I'm not planning on leaving the sewing room much for the rest of the day/evening, except for food, drink and potty breaks (me and the dogs). Mad Men Season 4 starts tonight so I'll be watching that as I sew if I'm not done by then. Can't wait — love this show!

Speaking of the sewing room … here's the "After" shot of the stash closet.



The only Before I have is a shot taken while the sewing room was torn apart.



You can see there used to be 3 big bins + stacked up outside of the left closet doors, along with few newer pieces you can't see which were traveling between my ironing board and my pattern cabinet.

Every piece of fabric I own is now inside the closet, stacked on the shelves or sorted into the muslin and scrap bins on the floor below. Well, except for the 5-6 sitting on the corner of my pattern cabinet which I pulled out to pre-wash since I noticed they had never been. Yes, I know I have a lot. But I'm sure Carolyn has more. ;-) And I can stop anytime I want to. :coughcough:

More Sewing Room Progress

I've completed 4 bins, without a trip to Joann's or a purchase of any new supplies. Yay me. LOL!

Do you see that plaid on the second bin from the left? That came from Fabric.com years ago as a mistake that they told me to just keep. I had about 4 yards of it. So I used it for one front and all of the sides of the bins you don't see, and I still have enough leftovers for 2-3 more sides. I used the rest of my old pink King flat sheet for the inside linings, and pieces from the floral sheet from the prototype for the parts of the top cuff you don't see. I can get 1 face, 1 handle, and 1 cuff face from one fat quarter, which is what I used for the other 3 bins, with scraps to spare.

I'll show you the ugly sides another day. For now, I just want you to bask in the pretty. Mwah. ;-)

One could also make "turnable" bins with this scrappy method — with a different fabric combo on each side. And one can also be cheap like me and use old sheets, cheap muslin, or ugly what-was-I-thinking fabrics. (It was nice, though, to move out 3 large folds of ugly fabric from the stash. I'm actually getting to the point where I can move the overflow folds IN to the fabric closet, which is another project still to do in this makeover.)

The cardboard to make the boxes was cut from the IKEA boxes. That's five 12.75" squares per bin. The label holders are the bottoms of a big bunch of small ziplock baggies that are leftovers from my sparklies/crystal co-op days. (Anyone remember?) I just cut off the tops and stitched them on. I still have about a billion left. ;-)

Only one bin is actually labeled at the moment. I'm still deciding what will go where, which is obvious by the huge disarray in the other cubbies, and which means I can't find ANYTHING right now without looking in each cubbie.



I've also decided to invest in some spray paint instead of a new bin for every cubbie. First, I think it will just be "too-too" with all those fabric-covered bins. Second, I already have a lot of perfectly useful bins that just need a facelift to cover outdated colors and I think a mix of all types throughout the shelves will look better and be more me. Third, sometimes I do actually like to see inside the bin without taking it down. And Fourth — most importantly — I'm cheap and lazy. ;-) But I do still want to make 2 or 3 more of these fabric bins and then I will "scatter" them all throughout the shelves for a less uniform look.

My four canvas bins like the three shown above will be spray-painted too. They are very dingy right now, but still quite functional. I'm thinking they'll take spray paint in light doses OK and hopefully they won't turn into a soggy mess. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

I did take lots of notes while I was making these bins and I do plan on putting together a tutorial at some point in the near future, but I think I'm going to have to use mostly drawings so that the details are easier to see and understand. So, patience please. :-)

* * * * *

By the way … the Viking 2000 may have taken its sweet time getting here, but it was worth the wait. After oiling, it works perfectly!

Prototype

I still have a couple of construction tweaks to do and I want to add a handle to make pulling it out of the cubbie easier and maybe a label pocket for the front, but I'm calling the first prototype for storage boxes for the IKEA Expedit shelves a success. And no spray adhesive necessary. Channeling my inner Peter from Male Pattern Boldness, this one is covered with old bedsheets as a "muslin."

It fits into the cubbie perfectly, which means my measurements and the pattern are good. Whew, pretty good for a first go at it. If the contrast at the top isn't wanted, assembly can be reversed so that the flap is on the inside and in a matching print so it blends to the lining.



But … each bin needs 2 yards of 44" fabric, which means if you have your heart set on a particular print and it's not on sale, there's really no savings over just buying something pre-made. Of course, if you do have your heart set on a particular print, you'd also never find it as a pre-made bin. And if you can shop the stash, they're free. Right? ;-) Looks like I'll need to shop the online sales or head to Joann's with coupons since the stash isn't holding a bunch of bin fabric at the moment.

You'd also have to figure in cardboard if you don't have any. But I saved all the boxes these shelves came in and that will be more than enough. (And since I won't have to put all of that into the trash/recycle bin, that's an added bonus.)

This bin can be completely dissembled, which means it can store flat and you can wash the covers if necessary. I don't know if those two qualities will mean anything to me, but since I'm thinking of making a downloadable pattern for these, I thought it might be a plus for someone else.

I think the whole thing, from cutting out fabric and cardboard to sewing seams and pressing seam allowances, took about an hour at the most. I was watching the tube as I was doing this (Deadliest Catch - RIP Phil Harris) so I'm being generous with the time estimate. The total time per box should go down if/when I'm in assembly-line mode because the cutting can be stacked when working on multiples.

Sewing Room Makeover - In Progress

I didn't take any real "Before" shots so all of these are going to show the room in "During" disaster mode.

In this photo, you can see there is a little table with a machine on it sitting at the end of my cutting table. What you can't see is that next to this little table, there was a Sterlite 3-drawer plastic bin thingie.



Both of those are now gone. You can also see the IKEA 4x2 shelf set up in the corner. DH repositioned my mirror, but I still need to re-hang the bulletin board.



This is the far wall where my ironing board was set up.



The ironing board is currently in limbo. But the two 4x4 units are set up and in position.



This corner was a complete mess before.



The bookcase holds all my sewing books, BWOFs, and some other magazines. There are also plastic bins and ugly shelves squished together.



My TV was sitting on top of a piece of plywood on top of a table missing its glass insert. I had plans to refinish this table, but I hadn't gotten to it yet. The best laid plans …



TV table and ugly shelves/bins gone! I've moved in a cabinet from the attic that used to be DH's grandfather's, which DH and I refinished about 20 years ago. I'm thinking of painting it and turning it into an ironing station. The TV has been moved to the top of the IKEA shelves, where I can actually see it now. The tall bookcase has been relocated to my bedroom and the sewing books will again be stored in it. My bedroom is where I read those books anyway so this will actually be more convenient and my bedroom is plenty big enough to take on the bookcase. In fact, I like it a lot in there and have decided that now (as in sometime later) I am going to make a little reading corner in front of its new home.



There's still a lot of stuff to put away, rehang, and/or remove, but I'm making progress. The hardest part is deciding on new homes for the stuff. And I will still either make or buy some bins for the cubbies to make some of the utility more decorative. And curtains, which are looooong overdue.

Actually, the hardest part will be when we put in new flooring someday. Also looooong overdue. Then I'll have to move everything out, which will mean emptying everything first – including the pattern cabinet. I don't look forward to that, but I'm not going to think about that until I have to.


* * * * *

Before I started this disaster makeover, I was digging through my pile of Stuff I Want To Do. I found these tapestry panels which I bought years ago (like before we moved into this house!) and had planned to make into deco pillows for my sister. Well, I decided it was finally time. Well, it was either that or admit defeat and toss them.

These were pretty simple. Trim the tapestry panel, cut some backing fabric to size, stuff and sew up the stuffing hole. But for this one, I decided to also add some welt cording around the edge. My welt cording foot made easy work of that. Love my presser feet!



Because I thought a single layer was going to be too thin, the backs are double-layered with khaki colored linen scraps.





This may be the only sewing to come out of this room for a while. You know how it is when you start a room re-do — a million other little "improvements" sneak in and take over, and boy do I have plans! We'll see how far I get.

Under Construction

We had a little family outing to IKEA tonight, all four of us. It was DH's first trip to this "new" IKEA, which has been open here in Tampa for just over a year now. I can't believe I hadn't dragged him there before now. Neither can he. But he actually enjoyed it. Or he's a very good actor. LOL! My sons (who are still aged 6 and 9 sometimes) wore their Heelies and zoomed all over the place, so they enjoyed it too.

First, we stopped in the restaurant for dinner. I'm always impressed by the combination of the goodness and cheapness of the food. I know it's a cafeteria, but it feels more than that. It was 2-for-1 Buffalo chicken wraps tonight so DS#2 chowed down on both. Plus fries. LOL! DH and I had the chicken fingers, and DS#1 had the pasta, meatballs and marinara plus almond cake for dessert. I split chocolate cake with DS#2. Yes, he still had room for cake after those wraps!

After dinner, we began our my mission for new shelving for the sewing room. I already knew I wanted Expedit shelving. I know everyone and their dog has these shelves, but there's a reason. They hold a lot of crap, look nice and don't cost a lot. Search "IKEA Expedit" on Flickr for some great combinations.

Until I saw the shelves in person again, I wasn't sure exactly how many I really wanted. I ended up with two of the 4x4 and one of the 4x2 (cube-y things, not measurements). I had checked the website before leaving and the 4x4's were priced at the "new lower price" of $99 each. Except they were marked $129 in the store. A quick conference with a manager and we learned that the new catalog had just come out yesterday and the prices were raised overnight, although still not on the website when I checked upon our return or even now that it's technically two days later. But they still honored the $99 price for me, which was great. I heart IKEA.

We also picked up a $7.99 floor lamp for DS#2's room, some 99¢ lint rollers and a bunch of foodstuff from the Bistro section. Yum! Cinnamon buns for breakfast and lox for lunch!

Total spent: $298. I heart IKEA.

So of course this means my sewing room is a HUGE disaster right now. DS#1 has built two of the units so far; one is moved into the sewing room and the other is in the hallway outside of it. The third is on the floor in my bedroom. I don't like clutter so I'll be very motivated to get this swapping done as soon as possible.

I also think I might have to have to spend as much as the cost of one shelf (or more) on some bins to put in the cubbies. But that seems kind of silly to me so before I drop the cash, I'm going to try to work out "refashioning" all the cardboard these shelves were packed in into some DIY fabric-covered bins. Box cutter, ruler, packing tape, spray adhesive, fabric — it shouldn't be too difficult. I'll ask DH to pick up the spray adhesive at Home Depot tomorrow when he's getting a quart of paint mixed to cover the holes I'll need to patch when we he moves the mirror and some pictures. A check of the leftover paint we had and we discovered it was dried out. Florida heat kills paint in the garage.

Pattern Organization

Sondra asked a couple of posts ago for me to expand on my pattern organization. Her wish is my command. ;-)

First, my "analog" version. All regular sized pattern envelopes are stored in loose leaf binders, sorted by general category such as tops, dresses, jackets, wardrobe patterns, men's, etc. I love having my "catalogs" to browse through while laying on my bed.

Until today, those binders were the typical blue plastic type. I don't know why I bought blue except maybe that I already had one and just bought the others to match. I used up more stash scraps by making covers for those binders this afternoon, using the instructions from here, minus the tab closure thingy. (The instructions/measurement guidelines worked out perfectly so I highly recommend them.)



Also on top of the cabinet is my basket of "on deck." I don't always make everything that's in this basket. It's more of a "what has caught my eye lately" collection and it changes regularly. I also throw new patterns in here until I get them into my system. (The basket was more than overflowing with un-systemized patterns until my organization frenzy last night, which tells you how behind I was.)

Finally in this mix, there's often a stack of stuff printed from the internet. Again, I don't always actually DO them, but I like to dream. ;-) The top of this cabinet is unusually clean today since I was taking photos. I stuck the Featherweight on top for more visual interest.



All of my actual pattern tissues and instructions are separated from the envelopes and stored in my pattern cabinet in Pattern Keeper ziplocks I buy from Nancy's Notions. I hope to paint this pattern cabinet one day soon. I'm really tired of the boring beige. (I'm also really tired of my sewing room non-decor/layout in general so look for me to be documenting changes over the next couple of months.)



I recycle the backs of papers to make pattern number sheets and file the patterns by company and then by number. There is a pocket on the outside of the pattern ziplock for this number sheet. I also stick the instructions behind the number sheet so I can quickly grab them when I want to check something.



The tissue is inside the ziplock section of the bag. It's a lot easier to put tissue and tracings back inside these bigger bags than inside a pattern envelope.



My oversized patterns, such as Jalie and HotPatterns, are stored flat in their own drawer in the cabinet. This part of the system needs an update, but right now it's working.



Burda magazine pattern inserts are in their own drawer. I haven't subscribed to Burda WOF/BS for a while now so this drawer hasn't changed much but there are at least 5 years worth of pattern inserts here with plenty of room for more. The actual magazines, along with others such as Ottobre and Knip Mode, are stored on a shelf on my bookcase.


I still have one empty drawer in the cabinet, but it's blocked anyway at the moment by the dog bed which you can sort of see below the drawer.

To prevent me from buying duplicates of patterns I already own, I also keep a digital list of my patterns and magazine issues. I use ListPro for this. It will sync with a Palm or other handheld device so you can carry your list to the store if needed. This is good for keeping a running Wish List too, since as long as you sync with the desktop, you'll always have your Wish List with you. Or, you can just print it too. I'm sure there are other apps available now, but I've been using this one for a number of years and haven't felt a need to change.

With ListPro, I created a custom list that separates patterns by company and then by pattern number. I can enter garment type, size info, notes, whether I've made it or not, and other info. Lately though, I really only enter the number but that and my loose leaf binders are enough for me to know what I have, and it works for me.

In addition to my pattern list and the usual lists such as grocery and to-do, I also have lists for things such as directions to far-away fabric stores that I don't frequent often, measurement conversions, Superbowl stats, state capitols and facts, Presidents, and all sorts of weird stuff like that. It's fun, in an OCD kind of way. ;-)