The Great Craft Room Reorganization of 2017

My crazy-time at work ended at about 2:00 AM Friday, June 30, at least for a little while.  I've been working a lot of hours since March, but particularly in the last 2-3 weeks I was easily working 60 hours/week.  It's an annual occurrence, so in that sense I'm used to it, but when it's over I'm always exhausted and cranky and have the feeling that while I was working the rest of my life has spun out of control.  That last part is not usually literally true, but so many things get put off those last few weeks I always feel like it is.

I don't know about you, but organizing something always gives me a sense of putting my life back in order, so I've spent a good chunk of the past week rearranging and reorganizing my craft room.

First goal was to get the yarn and fiber out of the closet and into the room where I can see it easily and constantly.  This is in part to make it easier to see and find what I have, but also to remind me of how much I do have and hopefully curb some of the "oh pretty" impulse buying of more.  I bought some more cubes and successfully got all my yarn, including handspun in bins or on display.  There's very little room left for more.

All of my yarn

And most of my fiber is also out on display now.  The only thing left in bins in the closet is a couple of fleece-sized quantities.

Most of my fiber

I moved my cutting table to a longer wall.  This makes it easier to access the fabric and supplies in the cubbies underneath and it's also a better location for rolling it away from the wall if I need to be able to walk around it while I cut.  My ball winder and swift also stay attached to this table most of the time. The cart between the fiber bins and the cutting table holds all my current crossstitch projects (which have seen no love in recent months) and rolls easily out of the way when necessary.

My sewing table is now where my cutting table used to be.

 About the only thing that stayed in the same place is my desk.

The bookshelf that was full of fiction books got moved to the guest room.  I removed the shelf in the closet and moved the other two bookcases in there. These hold photos that need to be sorted, craft books, supplies and things I don't use as often.

The closet is now more for storage so I won't have to move things in there around as often trying to get to my yarn or fiber.  These two tall rolling drawer sets hold partial balls of yarn, buttons, smaller pieces of fabric like fat quarters, and other odds and ends.  My blocking mats are to the right of them, and my drying racks to the left.

Although it still looks like a bit of a jumble, the remaining shelves that hold more supplies and other odds and ends for various crafts are more organized as well.

Overall, given the limited space I have to work with, I'm pretty happy with where everything is and how functional it will be.  We'll see how long it stays that way!