Friday, December 27, 2013

vacation goal: organize!

Do you set goals for yourself for your time off from work? I do. Sometimes I even work on them. Like this year, for the past week, as if Christmas preparations weren't messy enough, I had to work on organizing our craft room. MY (well, at least mostly) craft room.

When we remodeled our house, we turned the carport into a room. We use the door onto the driveway as our main entrance. Everything that we didn't know where else to put it, went in there. It never has been totally cleared up and put away. Sad, isn't it. We put in a nice table to be able to work on various crafts that has never been used for ANY crafts yet. Well, except the storing of said crafts.

Now, I'm a life long crafter and I got my first sewing machine while in my teens. I've collected and I've inherited, and I've treasured, so I have a BUNCH of crafting stuff. Most of my sewing over the past couple of years has been done other places, though. I've packed up and gone to Roxanne's and to Arts & Sciences for SCA, and my crafting space at home just got more and more chaotic, until I really couldn't use it very well. That made me sad. And uncomfortable.

I did something about it. I organized. I bought some new tubs, and filled them with fabric that has been sitting around in piles (I'm a pile person, I admit it). I actually (gasp!) threw some away (long past time, people, long past time). I gathered up the things that I had been collecting to donate, and I donated them. I moved the shelves and dusted and swept. (and swept... and swept...)

Then, today, I sewed. It felt lovely. Oh yeah, and I took pictures.

This IS the after picture...
Ta da! Organized... well, at least more organized. The sun came in today and made the room bright and cheerful. Here's the other side of the room, it still needs work, but - believe me - it was worse than it is now.

Chaos, I admit it, but LESS chaos
Notice, if you will, the visible walkway. It can't be all bad, right? It's progress, people. Significant progress! Oh, yeah, and here is the shirt I finished.

You can almost see the green paisley pattern to the fabric.
I call this one a success.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

post christmas

Did you have a nice Christmas (or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate - if any)? I did. Among other nice gifts, my husband gave me a new camera. It is very nice (although not as fancy as the one I lost, but that is understandable), and since the technology has advanced, there are some things about it that are advanced from the previous one (and some features I will miss, I'm sure). What the heck? Am I complaining? Not a bit! I'm very happy to have it. Happy indeed! I took my after Christmas shopping trip to pick out a new memory card and tomorrow I'll take pictures of my recent crafty projects, yay!

I've taken the vacation opportunity to work on organizing my craft room a bit. I won't finish, there's too much to do at one time, but I've made significant progress, and I think I've reached my goal of making it a room I can once again work in. That is good news for me, I'll tell you.

I'm working on getting things set up to work on my goals for the coming year. What goals are those, you may ask? The same ones as every year, Pinky, do stuff, make stuff & write about it. Oh yeah and take better care of myself. That is work in progress as well.

Celebrate in the manner of your choosing, friends, (although responsibly, please!) and welcome in the new year next week!