SIMPLE CLEAN

Cleaning is good. Cleaning is excellent. So is clearing. Add sorting and organising to the equation as well. Very productive. Despite the chaos I live amongst, I love clean lines. Simple clean lines. I long for a house with those same lines. I long for long open rooms with white walls, clean furniture, and key elements displayed. Until my children grow up and we hire a skip to take away years of accumulated 'stuff', I live through clean lines of photographs, and simple vignettes.

This weekend I cleared out the children's room - cleared away toys not being used, or broken, or without a real play need (you know the ones) and suddenly the room is bigger, crisper. So I filled it back up with furniture which was supposed to be in there, but had been living in the living room until I cleared. There's always a knock on effect with clearing isn't there. The result of that is that I ended up having one complete chest of drawers (clean, simple, white drawers) standing there empty.

Over the last few weeks I have been clearing, and sorting, and cleaning my sewing room. It's a mammoth task in a tiny room. It's the dumping ground for the entire house, and so when it gets revolting in there, it really gets revolting. I have thrown, sorted, charitied and given away huge amounts of stuff. I now have room to lay out projects once again, gather piles again, and start some long put off projects. Despite the massive clear, I still have huge amounts of stuff.

Except now it's in a big white clean simple chest of drawers.

I'm really interested to know :: how do you sort your fabric and wool? As it comes out of the package/bag? By colour? By type? By brand?

In a final effort to clear, I have reduced the remaining items in my shop in a bid to empty it out and start again with new stock and new ideas.

Comments

[danielle]

Over the past week we've been cleaning, sorting, and tossing, as well and it feels rather liberating to be free of all the excess. I was beginning to miss the clean lines and colors of our house.

As for organizing wool and fabric, wool I do by color in a large bookcase; the fabric gets sorted by print i.e. folksy, modern, hand printed, etc.

Good luck trying to figure out what to do with that reclaimed chest of drawers.

[theresa/t does wool]

a good cleansing is also good for the soul :-),my fabric is arranged by color-but a bit messy at the present;my wool is sorted into groups-the ones i love most,the ones i may use,the ones i'll probably never use..

[cherrie]

At the moment I am not using a lot of crafting cotton so that is still in an unsorted pile in a wash basket. Easy to look through but not really inspirational. My other fabrics are sorted as either vintage or non cotton (mostly samples The large pieces are then sorted according to colour and placed on a shelf above my sewing table. The samples are still waiting sorting but will probably just be flded and placed in a cane basket on the cutting table or spare bed. Cherrie

[Avice]

Wool tends to spill out all over the place, but at the moment I have most of it in translucent fabric cubes that fit nicely into a cupboard. Smaller bits of fabric also fit into the cubes. Looks nice for about 5 minutes. I try to sort yarn by type -- lace, sock, dk, etc., but it all gets jumbled when I go hunting for something and then the cubes overflow with "unauthorized" purchases -- that is, when I violate the knit from the stash rule. Then there are the books.... I don't have a dedicated work space -- the sewing machine is tucked into a cupboard in the living room, yarn + fabric oscillate between a bedroom cupboard and plastic bins in the attic or a guest room -- and that makes life a little complicated. Cleansing, ho!

[Sarah]

Fabric I sort by color and yarn I sort by fiber. Currently everything except for scraps and the odd ball of yarn is on the top three shelves of a bookcase (my stashes are relatively small). The fact that it's all in plain sight is motivation to keep it fairly well sorted.

Have fun with the organizing. I'll see you in a few days. I'm looking forward to our meeting but not the plane ride. Also, I've suddenly realized that I'm going to cry when I say goodbye to Lola and Astrid. I guess that's what happens when you leave you children for 10 days. Who knew?

[michelle]

Hurrah for clear space!

Step 1: Find chest previously stocked with items that nobody really accessed. Sort, toss and store.

Step 2: Pledge to fill chest and allow no spillover. IG purchase of fabric is made, something must go.

Step 3: Go shopping (unintentionally) and buy fabric. Sort through chest, decide nothing can go.....

Step 4: Claim washing basket to 'temporarily house' spillover fabric.

Step 5: Go (unintentionally) shopping for more fabric.....

I need an interevention.

[porter]

Lovely blog! Everything is so simple and clean. Very well done. Have really enjoyed the time I've spent scrolling :)

[raina]

Beautiful photos - I saw these on your flickr and just love them...I am pretty cruel about my stuff. I have a shelf system with drawers in my knitting/sewing room. Once all the drawers are full, I can only buy yarn if I use some yarn from the drawer...I can't expand the collection into any other place in the house. I have sock yarn in one drawer, scarf yarn in another etc. I hate clutter. I saw a documentary on hoarders and that freaked me out into a state of organization :)

[Hyena In Petticoats]

I love hearing you admit that your house isn't as clean and minimal as your photos might suggest :-)..... I feel the same way about my house - I dream of some mythical limitless warehouse conversion with high, white walls and natural light, and enough storage space for a small army.... *sigh*....

Anyways, I sort my fabric stash by colour and type, quilting cottons on one shelf, dress fabrics on another, linens all together, etc. All the yarn is stuffed in one box and in a basket beside the couch for projects on the needles, but I don't have oodles of yarn so it doesn't matter.....

The only thing I'm really fussy about is folding - if you keep your fabric folded well it takes up about a quarter of the space - and leaves room for that extra bag you bring home from shopping!

Good luck with the clean out and sick bub....

Leah xxxx

[Creature of Habit]

Oh, that must feel so good. I good purge does wonders for creativity!

I sort by color first and foremost. Then I break it down by weight and fiber. Mostly I have mountains of cottons, but I have a separate cabinet for wools, linens and heavy weights. I also separate vintage textiles in a separate cabinet- kimono silks and antique cottons.

[Creature of Habit]

Eh - I meant "A"....a good purge.....sigh

[nicole]

you and i must be on the same wave length ! i have been cleaning and clearing a week and a half! i sort by size and colour and texture!

[Miriam]

I sort my yarn by use. Laceweight together, Sock yarn together, yarns in enough quantity to make a sweater all go together.

I also do have a bag with full and partial skeins of Cascade 220 just so I don't mix it up with other worsted weight wools in case I can use it all for one felting project or for the Great Christmas Slipper Project of 2009.

[Jennifer]

I just did a complete clean-out of our living/dining space, which is the only room on the first floor of our house. It had gotten out of control, and now it glows! Good for you for tackling some of those tough spaces, like your sewing room.

I first sort fabric by type (garment, patchwork, etc.), then by color. I keep my Liberty fabric separate, though.

[stinkerbell]

do you speak directly towards just me?? nah but really me and my trying to clean out, pare down and everything else... we parallel :)

[greenolive]

I have several blog posts and a mixtape column about this! Fabric by type: linen, silk, wool etc. Folded in stacks. Yarn by colour unless I have enough for a garment and then they get stored together. Good luck sorting.

[Em]

Wow congrats on cleaning out your Etsy Store, I went in for a squiz and it is empty ;-)

[amanda]

I organize fabric by color, and since I buy mostly cotton I don't separate by fiber or weight. There's another big stack of fabrics for large yardages, interfacings, solids, and muslins. For yarn, I organize them by weight, fingering, sport, dk, and worsted.
Of course there's also some stray piles on the dining table, sofa, baby's changing table, and nightsstand. They will be organized, sometime. Good luck organizing!

[charlotte]

I sort by brand and fabric type. So all the linnet linens are together, linnet cottons together. Everything is stored in plastic bags like the big superbuzzy ones so I can pick up a bag and see six pieces of fabric at once without making a huge mess and having to fold everything up again. And it keeps them protected from moths and dust. It also means I can file my fabrics like books up on their sides.

If there's not a particular brand I will sort by shop - eg Superbuzzy and Reprodepot japanese cottons together. Otherwise I have nani iro, liberty, linnet bags all on a shelf each. In baskets at the bottom of my cupboard I have all the wools and knits. Which reminds me they need plastic bags.

[joyce]

i have yet to clean the toys and the clutter...i need the time to do it. i'm so unorganized at the moment that my fabric still lie in their packages...

[Steffen]

these two images look great together as a weird hanging and shelf combined- perhaps something marketable.... do not talk to me about organising my sewing, craft, etc.. stuff.... and certainly do not ask my husband (who affectionately using words not appropriate for this site).... needless to say you will get a rude response

[amisha]

hello dear alison.
how i have missed you. over the past few days i have spent some lovely hours reading, reading, soaking up your images, your words. catching up with your winter/ my summer. there's so much to say and too little time. so i am going to try to start here, and go forward.
i have been clearing too, over the past few months, both here in my tiny space in NY and in florida, where a bigger space gets too full. and i've been organizing my fabric, which is currently sorted in NY by color, in a rainbow, on a bookshelf. it also lives in 3 large solid-colored boxes from ikea, under a table, one for large pieces of canvas, one for japanese fabrics of all types, and one for old sheets and such to use for quilt backs. for the time being it seems to be working :)
xox