Boxes, boxes everywhere!

We have been packing for the last week, and I am pleased to report that nearly all the packing is completed. We still have a few things in the master bedroom to pack, some dishes and glasses in the kitchen, and some knick knacks, but for the most part, we are in pretty good shape. And that’s a good thing, considering we’ll start moving in just over a week from today. We have a plan …

We figure we’ll get the keys on either Monday or Tuesday next week – Monday would be better, but some people are funny about giving them to you early. Once we do have them, though, we’ll start moving boxes and small furniture items to the new house and unpacking as we can. We would like to have all the boxes moved and mostly unpacked by the 15th, when we will be moving the furniture. We hope that by the time we move the big pieces of furniture, we will only have to put clothing in dresser drawers and unload the last bit of kitchen/bathroom stuff and voila! Unpacking finished in a couple of hours.

Well, that’s the plan anyway …

 

 

Packing for The Move

I am not an amateur when it comes to moving. I’ve had lots of practice at it over the last ten years, but if moving were an Olympic sport, I doubt I would bring home the gold medal for the USA. There’s a certain art to moving, one I’ve not fully mastered, even after so many moves. I think it’s my lack of organizational skills that drag me down, so I’ve been scouring the internet for tips on how to organize and pack, purge and prepare for moving. Yes, we are moving. No, we don’t particularly want to move. And no, we don’t have a target move date just yet. We do, however, have a 2600 square foot house full of items that will need to be either purged, stored or taken to a much smaller location (we don’t have a place nailed down yet where we’re moving, but we are definitely looking to downsize). I’ll be documenting our progress here on the blog as we prepare to move, and hopefully I’ll be able to share some tips for those who are just as organizationally challenged as I am.

All of the websites I’ve found recommend packing things you don’t use often, but don’t want to get rid of – things like books, china, crystal, pictures and trinkets. I have a lot of stuff that falls into this category, so I think it will be easy enough to start doing this tonight after work. We already have boxes and packing tape (we thought we would be moving this time last year and bought those things, but the move didn’t materialize) so I think we’re fairly well set for that to start with at least. On the way home tonight, we’ll stop for some colored markers, maybe some colored paper, and printer ink (I’m out).

My plan for tonight is to start in my closet – it NEEDS to be cleaned out anyway, and there’s a lot of things that can just be either thrown out or donated. I spotted a Kodak digital camera box on the top shelf last night … the camera was tossed out at least two years ago when it stopped working but the box and packaging survives! Yeah, it’s time for that to be gone. I still have boxes in that closet that weren’t unpacked when I moved in four years ago. I am betting most of that can hit the bricks as well. And there are MANY clothes on both mine and Chris’s side that can be donated to others who can and will get some use out of them. Alternative, we could have a yard sale prior to the move – I will see what we have and make a decision soon about that.

I have no illusions. I don’t think I’ll finish the closet tonight; it’s not in good shape right now, so I’m fairly certain it’s going to take more than a couple of hours to get it done. But it’s a start, and it will rehabilitate a problem area in my home. Win/win in my opinion!

 Because we don’t want to be tripping over boxes and crap – and because we don’t have a move date at this time – we’ll be renting a small storage space where we’ll store all the non-essential items until we’re ready to move. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal to most people, but to me it’s progress. And right now, I need to see progress.

 

Summer Begins!

Memorial Day has always signaled the beginning of summer to me, and this year really isn’t any different, even though my son still has two days of school left this week. It’s one of my favorite holidays because it means that from now till the end of the year, there is at least one three day weekend every other month, and who doesn’t like a little extra time away from the job?

I’ve spent this weekend hanging out with Chris, grocery shopping, watching movies and playing EverQuest 2. But what I’ve enjoyed the most is playing with my new Brother Innov-is 2500D sewing machine. I set out with the idea to buy the Innov-is 1250D, which is a very nice machine. It’s not as fancy as the 2500D but it’s nice and it would suit my needs just fine. What changed my mind? The 2500D was a refurbished machine, with the complete factory warranty, and it was only a few hundred more than the Innovis. It made buying the machine a no-brainer. I got the refurbished machine for about $1200 under sticker and about $800 under street price. Not too bad, I say.

And it’s very, very pretty.

I’ve also been working on the studio a bit over the last few weeks. I moved the closet organizers into the closet (isn’t that where they go, after all?) and put the baskets on the studio floor.

In fact, I put a LOT of the stuff I don’t use often in the closet.

It’s still far from perfect, but I finally feel like I’m moving in the right direction. I think another set of baskets would help a LOT … but those won’t happen for a while now …

I finished the quilt I was making for Chris but neither of us really love the colors. I’ve started a new quilt for him and the one that I made is destined to be a Christmas present for … someone. Once I have the new quilt finished I’m going to do a red, white & blue for July 4th … I’ve decided that I’m going to do a “holiday” quilt for each holiday. It may take me two years but that’s my goal. In fact, I would love to do a different quilt for each month for our game room. The one thing we never seem to have enough of is blankets, and the ones we do have are in serious need of the trash! I’ve never kept a quilt I made, so this might be a nice switch …

Today’s question … would you rather receive a handmade gift or something bought from a store? Most people will jump to say “handmade” but I wonder – how many of them are being truthful?

 

Wow, has it really been a month?

I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. Sorry about that! I’ve been so tired every evening, and so busy on the weekends, I hardly ever go near the computer when I’m not at work. But I’m back, for better or worse. Have you missed me?

Anyway, not only have I been crazy busy at work, there really hasn’t been much to share with anyone lately. I’ve been adjusting to the new job of course, and the loss of my Fridays off – which has pained me greatly. But most of my off time has been spent in studio, or thinking about the studio or quilting, or looking at fabrics. I don’t have a lot of pictures to share right now, but let’s start with my two newest additions to the studio, and my first true step forward in trying to get it organized.

Neither one is full, obviously, though Chris would tell you I’m making a valiant effort to do just that, but the third drawer of the second set is just about stuffed full of fat quarters. For those of you who don’t know what a fat quarter is – or FQ for short- it’s a cut of fabric that is 18×22 inches. It is taken from a half yard of fabric cut down the middle – a quarter of a yard of fabric. A standard quarter yard is only 9 inches in width, but about 44 inches long. That drawer is plumb full, as my mother would say, of FQs. Each set of drawers has one drawer at the top that is very shallow – perfect for things like threads, rotary cutters, scissors, thimbles and other sewing/quilting paraphernalia that can be difficult to store. I’ve been considering purchasing another set of drawers, this one with all shallow drawers to store just such items.

PLANNED …
Another thing I’ve been doing in the evening as Chris pulls me through every season of Smallville since it’s inception nine years ago is to put together a “project book”. This book is actually a binder I’ve been filling with pages torn from old quilting magazines and placed in sheet protectors. These are quilts I want to make but … I’m tired of storing the magazines. So far, I’ve rid myself of about 50 magazines and I have added about 50 quilts to my project book. Sadly I think I have at least 100 more magazines to go through …

I purchased some fabric that has I Love Lucy printed on it – you know, from the tv show of the … was it 1950s or 1960s? I can’t remember. Anyway, it’s adorable, and the quilt made from it is destined for our game room. I also have ordered – but not yet received – a quilt kit using the Gone With the Wind fabric, which will also go into the game room.

STARTED …
I’ve started a new quilt for my wonderful husband, who has complained more than once that HE doesn’t have a quilt made by me … it took me a long time and a lot of irritation before I found a quilt he likes being made in fabrics and colors of which he approves. What he doesn’t realize is, neither of the kids have quilts made by me either – yet. And they’ve known me MUCH longer than he has! More on his quilt once the top at least is done.

IN PROGRESS …
I’m hoping to post some photos of the latest of my quilts this weekend, which is just about finished. I have about three inches of binding left and it’s done. It’s a baby quilt – a decidedly feminine baby quilt, made for no one in particular, just because I liked the fabric. I think I’ll hang it on my wall in the studio … I completed the top using the fabric I posted a while back. I’m going to take it to my mother’s house this weekend and see what we can do with it on her quilting machine.

FINISHED …
One bottle of Crown Royal, a carton of Dreyer’s ice cream and a cake. Not all at once, and not all by myself. But that’s about all I’ve finished at home recently. LOL

 

I planned for today a little better

I made it through yesterday with the lettuce lunch and nothing after so I was quite proud of myself. It wasn’t easy though. I really wanted to go to the vending machine and get something, but I resisted. It didn’t hurt that the machine is nearly empty, but still I resisted.

Last night I made tacos, chapulas, rice and beans and I had the forethought to put away some for my lunch today. I’m not really sure what DH is doing for lunch; yesterday he had tacos he bought from a guy who sells them at his office for $1 each. I think he said he had two or three. I can’t really argue with that, because it’s no more expensive than if he’d taken something from home.

What I really need to do is get one of those water pitchers that filters out the bad stuff from water and start drinking more water and less soda. I could drink probably three 20 oz bottles a day, but that’s $3 in just water. It seems expensive, doesn’t it?

 

Irritated with myself

I’ve written here about my inability to get organized, so it’s no secret that I have problems with that. Fortunately for me, however, most of the time I am able to lay my hands on whatever it is that I might need when I decide I need it. In that respect, I am happy to say that my lack of organization does not usually affect me in a detrimental manner.

Usually, anyway.

Bored with the same old tired quilt patterns, and with an idea in mind of something I want to do, I decided to install my copy of Electric Quilt 5 on my new computer. I had uninstalled it off the old laptop before giving it to my daughter, but never got around to putting it on my new computer. I figured I would play around with it a little bit and try to decide what I wanted to do with the charms I bought a couple of weeks ago. I knew exactly where the software was, so I figured this would be a five or ten minute install then I could get on with designing my new quilt.

I inserted the CD into my machine and waited eagerly, but after just one minute the Registration screen popped up. It requested the usual things – my name, my address, the serial number.

Uhhhhhh … the serial number? I thought about this for a couple of minutes and quickly turned to the trusty internet for information on where I could find it. Their website told me that I could find the serial number on the Getting Started book. Great, I thought, I saw that book recently. This shouldn’t be too difficult.

That was around noon yesterday and the book is STILL missing. I have practically torn my house apart and it is nowhere to be found. Have you ever seen a 40 year old woman throw a fit and act like a child who’s been denied her favorite treat in the candy store? I made that look innocent. Furious with myself for losing the book, I stormed about the house muttering to myself about the unfairness of it all and how much I suck for not being more organized. I believe there may have been a few naughty words and some very unkind thoughts involved as well.

To be fair, I moved into my house two and a half years ago, and there are still a few boxes hanging around. I went through what I think was all of them but I still may have missed the book. And I don’t know many people who would take a hundred dollar bill and run it through a shredder or set it on fire and watch it burn, which is essentially what I have done by not being able to find that serial number. This would be the second piece of sewing software that would be useless to me without the serial number.

Fortunately for me, the folks at Electric Quilt are extremely nice and helpful. They were able to look up my serial number for me, despite not remembering what name it was registered under (I often use my first name for stuff like this, or my first initial and middle name or just my initials), or even what address I lived at when I bought the software. I was, however, able to narrow down the city and they found it within just a few seconds. Tonight I’ll go home and install it on my new computer and play around with it.

In fact, my birthday is coming up in August, and I’m toying with the idea of asking for the Electric Quilt 6 upgrade … I just wish I knew where that Getting Started book was hiding for EQ5! It might help with remembering how this thing works …

 

Organizing the Studio – Take 1

I got all my pictures printed that I took of my studio the way it is now, measured my room, and headed to The Container Store on Wednesday night after work. My wonderful husband agreed to accompany me, so after stopping for a quick dinner, we found ourselves talking to a pleasant, if not terribly adept, gentleman about what I wanted for my space.

Let me just say that the first time I visited The Container Store and got excited about this project, I went to the store in the Houston Galleria area. The man there was very knowledgeable, he listened to me, and understood what I wanted. Unfortunately it’s also a pain to get there so I decided to go to the one that’s closer to me in the Champions area of Houston. I think that was my first mistake.

While the guy I dealt with at the Champions store was very nice, he was short on listening skills. I showed him pictures, I explained exactly what I wanted to do. He acted like he understood, so I let him work on the “plan” while my husband and I wandered around looking at things in the store. Finally, the plan was done, and I couldn’t wait to see it – it took about an hour from the time we walked into the store until the preliminary plan was completed.

But I was disappointed when I actually saw it. He kept telling me it could be changed, but I felt like he didn’t listen to what I’d said. I had given him three parameters …

1. I needed a table top for my serger and computer. I already have a very nice table for my sewing machine, but I did ask if they could do drawer-type storage under it (I could buy a cabinet from the manufacturer of the table, but it’s $1,000 just for seven drawers!)

2. On the same wall as the tabletop I wanted storage/shelving for craft books, threads, scissors – many things that, when I need them now, I almost always have to get up and walk across the room to retrieve them.

3. Nothing in the closet. I have quite a bit stored there now but I can’t see it and I want my fabric on shelves so I can easily find what I’m looking for. I want the closet to be a closet again, even if no clothes are hung in there for the time being.

First of all, he outfitted the closet with a “system” that would cost over $600 – all shelving, baskets and shoe boxes. There would be NO place to hang clothes at all, if I so desired. It was completely unnecessary and a total waste of time for him to even design it.

Secondly, I showed him pictures of my craft books and magazines. He designed the shelves to store them to be 12 inches apart. A lot of my books are at least that tall and would barely fit! Also, I showed him pictures of the plastic storage drawers I intend to continue to use, that would need to be placed on these shelves. I would much prefer the shelving to be 18 to 24 inches apart – which would eliminate at least half of the shelves he designed.

And he failed miserably when it came to the cabinet to go under my sewing machine table – I told him I only had 23 inches under the table. The “basket system” he designed for that area stands at nearly 30 inches tall.

There were other problems as well … he didn’t take into account that I already had one set of baskets that could be used in the room. He put shelving for my fabric on another wall that was spaced too closely together – he could have lost half the shelves and the design would have been better. And because he put all the baskets in the closet, he didn’t have nearly enough on the fabric wall.

They did email the plan to me, though, and I went through it and made some modifications – however, there is not a parts list or an individual listing of cost for each component. I ended up building a spreadsheet and taking the prices off their website to figure out a price. I brought the desk/book storage wall down from nearly $800 to just $450 – still quite an expenditure, but then I paid over $700 for my sewing machine table, and it has no storage at all. My redesign really would work better for me all around, too. The only thing I might add to it eventually would be some sort of storage baskets under the table top.

My mom and husband have both suggested I take my pictures and go back to the store in the Galleria and see if I get better results with them. I may do that …

I am very disappointed that the planning process did not include a list of parts that would be needed and a price list. I don’t like secrecy and I don’t like “package pricing”.

Still, I am pretty sure that this system can meet my needs … I just need to perfect the layout and then start working on buying it, a little at a time.

 

Organization – Is it possible?

I grew up with a mother who sewed. She made our clothing, but rarely did any home decoration or other sewing. It was probably rare when she bought fabric “just because” she liked it. Usually, she bought with a project in mind. I remember quite clearly going to the fabric store with her (which I found boring to the extreme back then), picking out patterns and fabric for school clothes, and waiting as she had the fabric cut, consulting the back of the pattern envelope all the while. I don’t know for a fact if this is true or not, but I doubt she had a very large stash while we were kids.

Oh, how times have changed! Now with not one but two dedicated sewing spaces, my mother has made up for lost time by building a stash that would terrify most people, quilters and seamstresses included. Her sewing room is … interesting. There are projects and fabric everywhere. Whenever I go in there, I feel a little faint at the overwhelming array of what she has in there.

To be fair, I have my own large stash – and it grows every year. The difference between my mother and I is … the closet in my studio has a door, so I can hide much of my stuff away – hers does not. I have made a bold attempt to organize my things, as you can see from these photos.

The problem is, the “system” I’ve come up with doesn’t work. It’s not really functional – the fabric is hidden in the closet, which means every time I want to use a stash piece, I have to dig for it. Further, I only ever really dig for fabric if I remember that I have something useful for the project. What’s the point of having a stash if you never remember to check it out?!

My mom and I have also talked about how regular bookcases leave quite a bit of room above them that is virtually dead space. This doesn’t really help much … what’s the point of having all that dead space? We know we need major storage, and a solution that has major flexibility.

Enter The Container Store. I stumbled in there last night just because I needed out of the house and I like looking in there. But I never considered going there for help with my studio. Frankly, I still wouldn’t consider it because I thought that they were too expensive, and I don’t want a lot of holes in my studio walls from brackets and such. But last night, my eyes were opened. Elfa now makes some pretty cool stuff – like free-standing closet organization components and track systems that require only the track to be attached to the walls. It’s really very cool. And somewhat expensive. OK, who am I fooling? It’s going to cost quite a lot for what I have in mind.

What do I have in mind, you ask? Well, I intend to replace the table I currently use for my serger with a desk surface that is a little longer and a lot deeper. I will be able to use both my computer and my serger there. Above that, I intend to have storage for patterns, books and magazines, software and embroidery cards, and thread. Currently I have to get up and walk across the room for all of that. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that it’s not efficient.

The other two walls I intend to build out will have storage for fabric – LOTS of storage for fabric! A place for my ribbons and other embellishments, storage for all of my scrapbooking, jewelry making and needlework supplies, and hopefully room to grow as I add more fabric to my stash. I’m also hoping that I’ll be able to work out space for the soap and candle supplies I keep handy. On the other hand, I may have a solution worked out for the storage closet that will make better use of the space and give me a place to store that stuff downstairs, instead of having to carry it up and down the stairs every time I need to make something.

At any rate, I intend to start this endeavor soon. It may take me years to get it all done, but done it will be. At least if we ever decide to move, the system will move with me.

I’ll be documenting the process here, step by step … so stay tuned to find out how it works. I’ll be starting with a visit to The Container Store for my free consultation, which I’ll tell you about, and the journey from chaos and clutter to organized and peaceful. It will be lots of fun, quite a bit of work, and a learning experience for anyone who’s interested.

I may yet become the most organized quilter on my block!