Inquisitive Felines and Fibers

I believe that part of the reason I was as disorganized as I was in the past is because I didn’t have all of my stuff in one place. Granted it was all in the same house, but it was spread throughout 4 locations. The looms, spinning wheel, swifts, and my favorite work space were in the livingroom. My dyeing and felting stuff is stored in the mudroom. This is not likely to change, but I did move the raw fleece from the diningroom (it’s in totes) to the upstairs spare room where my yarn stash lives. The yarn stash will remain where it is until it gets smaller.  I have a big livingroom, but not that big. The fourth room was my library upstairs. That is where half of my knit/crochet books were stored. Oh, and my magazine holder full of  Magic Crochet, Decorative Crochet, Quick & Easy Crochet, Vogue Knitting, etc. was in the library. In order to pick a new project it was a bit of a scavenger hunt. AND I could never seem to find either the yarn and/or the pattern that I was looking for at the time.

Saturday I began the correction of this situation. Christmas made the trip upstairs to the attic and the other shifting began. The desk – which I love because it’s small and has bookshelves built into the sides – came down out of the library into the livingroom where it becomes much more useful. It still needs to be refinished, but now I see it daily and it will happen much sooner. I’ve placed all of the notebooks that I organized over winter break into the side shelves as well as the print pattern books that I have left from my clean-out last fall.  Inside the desk top are vintage relish dishes I use for drawer organizers. So much more charming than the modern plastic counterpart plus I get to buy – and use – cool glass pieces of history. They have a lovely feel to them.

I suspect that the inside will not stay this tidy for long, but I’m certainly enjoying the nice feeling of accomplishment that I got this weekend. Another thing that I did was to log into Ravelry and start cataloguing my books and magazines. The books that are on the shelf are in my library there, but I still have the rack of magazines to go. Next up will be my stash and my needles/hooks. It will be so good to have the information in a place I can access from anywhere so I will stop buying the same things over and over again or not buying something because I’m convinced that I already have it. Why did this take me so long to do? Do you have a system or area for your crafting and if so, how long did it take you to get you command center going? It still amazes me how one relatively small piece of furniture can make such a difference in the right place.