Work space cleared. We aim to be productive.

A few weeks ago my sister came to town and took it upon herself to organize my craft room. Well, she offered and I took her up on it before she could change her mind. Here’s where I’d show you the evidence of the horrible, horrible mess at the beginning of the project in order for you to be amazed by the progress and the prettiness at the end. But those pictures have gone walk about (or maybe I burned them). So, instead I’m going to ask you to imagine a yarn/costume/fiber/bead/paper store had been attacked by terrible, terrible space monkeys*. 

Central to the problem of my craft room is storage. My great aunt gave me this fabulous wardrobe (sadly it does not lead to Narnia, but does have lots of yarn in it so a different sort of wonderland), but I couldn’t actually see where anything was. I also had clear plastic bins, clear plastic stackable drawers, and a wire frame elfa island – all of which were ugly and none of which were being used effectively. 

There's a lot of yarn here, but I can't find anything.  I should buy more yarn for my next project... wait.

My method up until now was pull all the bags out, pull all the yarn out of the bags, find that one ball I was looking for, then put all the yarn back in all the bags. This was also how I organized my art supplies, only they were in plastic bins. I didn’t always remember to put all the yarn, or paper, or pencils back… you see where the space monkeys come in. 

So after taking quite a few measurements of the wardrobe and a quick trip to the Container Store** we pulled everything out of the wardrobe and I started sorting.

 

Should I sort by fiber, color or thickness? Key question.

I decided that fiber/use was the way to organize. For example I’ve my hand-spun (for special TBD projects) in one place, the nice acrylics in a basket, the cotton of various colors and thicknesses in another, and wool in yet another. The blue denim yarn (too nice to toss, but what to do with 12 skeins?) goes in the basket on the top shelf, with the other random blue cotton I’ve acquired. When I find the project I need it for I’ll know where it is, but until then it won’t be in the way. 

Yarn organized so I can find what I'm looking for?! Brilliant!

Look, floor!

Look, more floor! And clothes on hangers, how novel!
My sister organized the closet, so I can't take credit for how awesome this looks.

For now, my craft room is done. There are still a few pieces that need cleaned up. My sister found a box full of paper and mementos not touched in probably five years. I want to finish organizing the closet so everything I regularly use is accessible. I'd like to get another bookcase. And I’ve still got a bag of yarn that’s ugly, scratchy acrylic that I’m having a hard time throwing away. 

I might need it. 

I mean, I don’t want to have to go out and BUY more construction-cone orange, dingy green, or eye-searing aqua. That would just be silly. Anyone need me to crochet a miniature life-preserver for them? Anyone? organization 

Next time: Steel and Steam, and Wildflowers. 

*Yes, I still miss Firefly. Just the other day I thought, “I’d love to see the second season of that… oh wait.” 

** After spending 6 hours online trying to figure out what would fit, the time spent at the Container Store was whittled down to a mere 3 hours.