How Organized a Sewer Are You?

How organized a sewer are you?

I was looking at photos of people adopting the "tiny home lifestyle" last fall and wondered, how would someone manage having a hobby in a small space like that? 

Or a spouse??

Many of these mini houses are in the 325 square foot realm. When I consider that's about the size of my master bedroom and ensuite, it becomes mind boggling to envision living, cooking, bathing, sleeping and storage areas all squeezed into that space.

Where would I sew?

Not to mention, where would I put all the crap that I make?

Of course, that's got nothing to do with today's topic. (Although if you are truly interested, there is a video on YouTube called "how I sew in a 325 sq ft tiny house"; I came upon it quite by accident while I was tidying up this post for publishing.) Today I'm wondering how organized you are about your sewing, regardless of how much room you have to do it in.

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Obviously, if you only have 325 square feet of space to call your own, you'd be forced to be very organized about your life. Those of you who don't have a dedicated room in which to craft and sew have probably become organized by necessity.

For everyone else, do you...

Consistently clean up your work area?

Do you put away everything after each sewing session, or do you do so only after completing a project?

Or do you clean up only when you start to feel buried?

This is about as messy as my sewing table ever gets...

I'm a bit of a neat freak (but not compulsive). When I leave the room, usually the only indication that I might be in the middle of sewing something would be that the sewing machine is left uncovered. I generally put what I'm doing aside, in a pile, and do a quick sweep of the work surface.

Everything that I've moved must go back to where it belongs. For instance, I don't want not to be able to find my seam ripper the next time I need it, because I chose to let it roll around loose.

Schedule cleaning for your sewing machine?

Back in September, I posted about my unexpectedly indispensable sewing tool of a small spiral notebook.

Apart from being an adjustable hump jumper, I use it to track my current sewing machine needle usage and to record when I clean the sewing machine. In actual practice, I probably don't clean it any more than four times a year, but then again, my machine is not put to rigorous use either.

Cleaned my sewing machine right before Christmas... and yes, I did repair a flag!

So as to whether I actually have a schedule for cleaning my sewing machine, no, I don't. But I do know when it was last done so that I ensure that I don't go too long without cleaning it.

Keep your supplies in view?

Because, if you don't, how do you know how much you have to avoid over buying? I suppose that's how fabric stashes are born, but most of us really don't need to keep an overabundance of other sewing notions on hand, out of sight and potentially out of mind.

Plastic storage boxes hold the majority of my sewing notions like zippers, thread, fasteners and bag making supplies. While the actual items are not in my immediate field of vision, the boxes are on or near my sewing table and are easily accessible.

My "exploding" fabric box that keeps all my sewing machine needles in one place...

Some of my favourite sewing projects over the years have also been storage solutions for sewing notions, like this early multi-zip organizer and this knock off of an Everything Mary Desktop Tote, to name a couple.

Out of all of them, however, this one tops my list. It keeps all my needles organized and I never have to wonder where they are.

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Organize your fabric supply in some way?

I don't have a big enough stash to worry about sorting and organizing it, but for those of you who have a lot of fabric, is it ordered in some logical manner?

I've seen people pin little slips of paper onto each piece of fabric, tracking the yardage or size, type of fabric, and whether it's pre-washed. The fabric itself is then stored in bins according to colour.

My most recent fat quarters are organized by colour...

OR — and this is truly meticulous — another method of fastidious organization is to clip a piece of the fabric itself onto an index card that tracks what the fabric is, how it's been used and how much of it remains (and of course, where it is located). The index cards are then filed in a box in some manner that works for the owner. 

However you keep your fabric probably depends on how much you have; I don't have much. My Tim Holtz fat quarters are in view on my table at all times, and the Lily and Loom selections shown above are out in the open as well, but the rest of my fabric is stored out of sight in the closet or under my futon.

Keep notes about your sewing projects for "next time"?

I have a big spiral bound notebook that I use to plan my projects. Whether I'm working out a pattern/tutorial of my own or getting ready to make a modified version of someone else's project, I scribble down a lot of notes.

My other indispensable notebook...

I rarely make multiples of the same project, but if the need arises, I can find important information about any wonky steps in this book. That said, having a blog also provides me with automatic help if I need to revisit a project... it's highly likely that I've posted about it. 

The important thing is that if there's any chance that you might "make another one", it really helps to have captured the tricky parts and your solutions to them from the first time around.

Just another part of being an organized sewer.

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Store your patterns in one place?

Some of you likely have tons of sewing patterns, so perhaps you've gone the filing route with folders and a box or cabinet. My collection of patterns is quite small, and so far they've all been able to be collected in this one box.

It may not be optimal, but virtually every pattern I've ever used is in here...

Admittedly, my method of storing patterns is certainly not the best, but at least they are all in one place and I know where to find them. (It isn't as haphazard as you may think: I do paperclip the pieces from one project together.)

So, on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how organized a sewer are you?

'Til next...