Organization - Sewing Storage

I am amazed by the person who has a few sewing items and fabric piles. They are the people that purchase a pattern, thread and fabric, go home and make the garment and then send me the pattern or place it at a yard sale. Although in my mind less in more, I just can't resist purchasing fabric and sewing notions that make sewing so much nicer.

Now the big question is, where do I store all of this? Currently, I have shelves in my basement next to my 10 ft by 10 ft cutting table. These shelves hold bolts of fabric. Next to them is the unit that holds all of my daughter's scrapbooking supplies (well not all of it as there is a table next to the unit that holds the balance). I have shelves in the spare bedroom (pink rm) that hold folded fabrics and white on white baby clothing that I have fallen in love with at auctions and antique stores. There are shelves in the sewing room that hold folded fabrics, sewing notions, patterns, magazines, books, ribbons, magnifiers, hoops and threads along with the television and DVD player for watching all of the sewing DVD's that I have. There are baskets with projects that I am working on, and baskets with projects for the future, baskets with onsies as I use lots of these in my sewing business.

Today I sat in the sewing room at 6 a.m. thinking, "Oh my, I need to organize this to one room". I thought about more shelves, I thought about what I could rid the room of, I thought about color coordinating the fabrics and ribbons, I thought about moving the pattern boxes to the closet shelves so that fabrics can come out of the guest room closet. I have spent time on the internet searching for ideas for shelving and organizing.
My problem with these systems is, who really only has 12 things? Have you ever looked at these ads and thought, "Wow that looks great"? And then reality hits you and you realize that you will have to purchase plastic totes to store everything else in and put them in the attic or basement.

My husband just came downstairs and asked me what I was up to. When I told him mentally organizing the sewing fabrics and supplies, he rolled his eyes and kept moving......Can you tell that we have been here before?

Staples vs Stitches

Last Friday I had a total right hip replacement. I have a lovely row of 29 staples holding the skin together until next Friday when they will actually get removed. The staples made me begin to think why do they no longer use stitches? It would seem to me that the stitches that dissolve would make more sense but then again that is why I am the patient and not the doctor.
However, the whole thing did remind me of one Easter morning when I had Mary's dress and bonnet completed and both of the boys had vests to match and new slacks and dress shirts. I totally ran out of time to hem their slacks so ...I stapled them. Yeap, just took the desk stapler and nicely laid a few staples in the side seams. I worried on the entire ride to church that someone would know or worse yet, the boys would tell on me. No one was the wiser and the pant legs stayed up until I had time later in the week to properly hem them. It is amazing what we can do when pushed for time and also when we look at a tool that we have purchased for one purpose and realize there are many other uses.