
The Cleaning Epidemic has pushed its way down into the basement studio!
I honestly don’t know:
1. How it got so out of control in the first place?!
2. Just what it was that tipped me over the edge?!
3. How long this virus is going to STICK AROUND?!
I always thought I was semi-organized. I mean, ask me where something is and I can tell you….but pretty much lived by the philosophy that if it was IN the drawer and the drawer could shut, that was fine with me.
I honestly think it was working on this baby quilt that tipped the scales. I had THREE big drawers of 2.5” strips. And they all looked like the picture at the top of this page ---- two drawers with colored strips, one with neutrals. And they are OUT of control.
As long as there was one drawer for each, it didn’t bother me so much, but when you get to the point where both colored drawers are a mix of everything under the sun and you can’t find anything and you have to dig….it only seems logical ((Wait, did I just say LOGICAL!? Where does that word belong in fabric hoarding stashing?!?)) to want to sort things a bit better.
But what to do? I had no clue! But something had to be done. So I put on a Netfix movie and just started ironing. And sorting by color. And draping these strips by color family over the rail of my longarm…because it was the closest workable surface to do so.

Did it occur to me that I wouldn’t be able to load a quilt on the machine until I finished ironing EVERY DANG STRIP IN THE STRIP STASH!? It started pretty simply. Looking good…but those drawers are deceiving --- they have more in them than you think!

Strips began to pile on top of strips and some things became VERY evident!

HOLY. MOLY. How did I get so much PINK!?? I thought I’d have more red than anything..but you know what? My reds are nearly non-existent because I’ve been sewing with them quite a bit! I thought I’d have more blue too…but I’ve attacked the blue strips quite a bit this year with the Jamestown Landing quilt, and some others. Blues were not much of a space taker upper…but THOSE PINKS?!? LOL!
Do I see a pink challenge in my future? Hmmmm…MAYBE!
For those asking, YES -- Jamestown Landing will be featured in the next book...stay tuned and look for it in July, 2012!
And this is where I reached a crossroad. What to do now? I had 2 empty drawers with all the strings now ironed and lined up on the quilting machine rail --- HOW am I going to store these so they don’t get all messed up again? I thought of bundling them with a rubber band, but that won’t stop the thready fraying happening at the edges.
I remembered traveling with a ziplock bag of red ironed strips when I kitted stuff up to travel before. In fact, some of those red strips were still perfectly contained in that bag IN the mess of un-ironed strips. Dare I? Bag them?
I know plastic is not good for fabric, but I don’t have to zip them all closed air tight. It would just be a way to contain them by color family and keep them from needing to be re-ironed as much.
If it works for Bali-Pops to come all shrink-wrapped to minimize fraying – it will work for these!

This just might work for now. I’ll try it and see. It has to be at least a bit better than it was!

I took a bundle of strips, folded one end over, and rolled it into a long rectangle to fit the bag.

The gallon sized bags will hold 3 of these bundles….and I don’t have to zip it more than 1/2 way to allow air to circulate. Frankly? At this point, I really don’t care about the plastic..I just want the mess to not be so messy!

Jeeze-Louise! I can’t believe the difference! I never thought in a million years I would find it necessary to do this, or have the patience to start --- but you know what? Now that I’ve started? I know it’s going to take some time to get the other strip sizes under control too, but it’s worth it!
How do YOU store your strips? Do you have any ideas for me that might work better than this? I thought of putting each color in a plastic shoe box, but some of these colors would require several shoe boxes, and I wanted to keep using my drawers.

This afternoon we’ve got a fun excursion planned! DH has some visiting co-workers here from other areas, and we are all heading over to Raleigh for the Hurricane’s Hockey Game! It’s the Pittsburgh Penguins vs the Carolina Hurricanes!
I actually like Hockey – it’s easier to understand than football.. ;c)
And if I ride shot-gun in the van, I might be able to get some binding done on the 2 hour drive to Raleigh before it gets too dark.
Whatever you get up to on your Saturday, ENJOY EVERY LITTLE THING!