Is stepping in your sewing room
like walking through a minefield?
Are your drawers too full to put anything away?
Or are you just avoiding your sewing room entirely?
Then chances are you need to declutter,
but where do you start?
Here are my 7 top tips
for decluttering your sewing space,
and stay to the end where I'll have details
on my January decluttering challenge.
So stick with me and I'll show you how do you do it.
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Hi, I'm Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.
I give you tips, tricks and strategies
to help you make the quilt that you want to make.
And if you like what you see,
please hit that subscribe button.
In part one on organising your sewing space,
I talked about the sewing triangle,
your sewing machine, your cutting board,
and your ironing station,
and how you need to design yours to fit your needs.
Now I'm sure many of you
want to jump into organising your space
and folding your fabrics,
but before we do that, we need to declutter.
And no matter if you're new to sewing
or you've been sewing for years that means you.
As an inventory specialist, I have cleaned out spaces
from 20 square feet to 20,000 square feet.
And here are my top 7 tips.
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There are parts of this process that are going to be easy,
but a lot of it is going to be painful.
It raises feelings of embarrassment and shame.
How did I let this get out of control?
Why did I put that on my credit card?
My son gave me this, how can I get rid of it?
Sound familiar?
Just know that you are not the only person
that feels that way,
and you can not move forward and improve your situation
until you forgive yourself.
It is what it is.
The money has long been spent
and the item is yours to do what you want with it.
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Set your timer for 15 minutes,
it can be on one of these or on your phone or microwave,
it doesn't doesn't matter.
When the timer goes off,
it's time to tidy up the drawer, the shelf
or the cupboard that you're working on.
Why?
Because decluttering is full of decision-making.
Do I want it?
Do I like it?
Can I use it?
Do I sell it?
Do I donate it and many more?
And decision-making is taxing on the brain.
Some of us make decisions fast,
some of us are more considered,
but regardless of your style,
decision fatigue can set in quickly.
So if you work in 15 minute increments,
when that fatigue hits you like a Mac truck,
you can tidy up quickly and go rest.
If you make a mistake of overdoing it,
or you find you just can't get going,
I have some ideas to get you back on track in my video,
Where's My Sewjo?
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Decluttering is about removing items from your space,
the garbage, the broken, the stained,
the things that belong somewhere else,
the goods you no longer need,
the goods you no longer love,
and the ones you no longer have the space for.
Trying to reorganise while you declutter,
it is like walking and reading at the same time.
You can do both, but you do neither very well.
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Like I said, decision-making is hard on the brain.
So make the no discussion ones first.
Remove all the garbage
then take out the items that belong in other spaces.
Toss the broken and the stained,
then grab some donation boxes
for the things you no longer love.
I have the stack of donated items for a quilting retreat
that was cancelled because of COVID,
and most likely will not be rescheduled anytime soon.
So I need to divide this stuff up,
get it out to the participants,
so it's out of my space.
Are you stumbling over old quilt projects?
Watch my video on what you do with your UFO's.
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When we are doing something that's hard or tough,
our brains react by throwing out ideas
that are easy and interesting.
I call these squirrels because they're cute and busy
and before you know it
you've wasted an hour watching them play.
But what I've learned to do this year
is let the squirrel in momentarily
because sometimes they are really neat ideas,
but then I put it on a post-it note
or I add it to the note section in my phone,
and then I'll put them on the squirrel page
in my bullet journal
so at a later date when I have the time
I can explore the idea further.
Sometimes they get made into videos,
sometimes cool patterns, and sometimes I just let them lie.
And remember that timer,
it can get you back on track,
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This is a big one, and probably the hardest.
When all the easy decisions have been made,
the garbage is gone,
the donation pile is out the door,
it's time to talk about capacity
and there are 3 different types.
The first capacity is how many quilts can you make per year
based on your available time?
And we each have a different capacity,
because it's not just about time,
but it's about the type of quilts that we want to make.
And that means our capacity changes as our lives change,
as our skill level change and as our equipment changes.
And then there's the physical capacity of our space.
How much can it hold comfortably?
That is without moving five boxes
to get at the one we need.
In the mall, we have our tools, we have our stash,
our threads, our patterns and all the other stuff,
that we need for our hobby.
And if you've been sewing for more than 5 years,
it's highly likely that you have more stuff than you need.
And for some of us,
we have more fabric than we'll ever need.
It's overflowing in our drawers, our cupboards
and most likely invades another space in your home,
and this is called over capacity.
So the next part of the decluttering challenge
is getting the volume of your stuff down
to the physical capacity of your space,
and this is really hard to do when you want to keep it all.
There is one more capacity that you need to know,
and that's mental.
How much of your brain is kept busy
keeping track of your stuff.
If you are dealing with overcapacity,
your brain is more than likely exhausted with the effort.
And an exhausted brain is more prone to depression.
And after 2020, frankly, we have enough problems
without having to deal with this one.
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So the last tip is like all challenges,
they are easier with a friend.
Use the momentum of a friendship and a mutual commitment
to deal with the hard stuff.
And friends are not as emotionally invested in your stash
so they can often help make the harder decisions
and vice versa.
And I will be hosting a decluttering challenge
on my website.
It starts on Monday, January 11th
and will run for three weeks.
I will get into more details on what to declutter,
why to declutter and how to declutter,
if you want to participate, all you need to do
is subscribe to my newsletter.
Just visit my website, Justgetitdonequilts.com and sign up.
And once we have decluttered our spaces,
it will be on to organising our stuff.
If you want more help with decluttering your fabrics,
check out my interview
on Karen's Quilt Circle with Kim Soper
of Feel Good Fibres
where we talk about destashing.
Her blog has tonnes of tips,
on how to destash and send your fabrics off to a new home.
And next Monday on The Circle,
I have Mary Fons and we are talking about legacy.
It's a great interview,
so make sure you subscribe.
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You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest
and my website, Justgetitdonequilts.com.
So take care and I'll see you next time.
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