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!

2017 Crafting Goals

I've set some new crafting goals for 2017.  I'll do an update on how I did on 2016's crafting goals later, but here are the new ones for this year.

• Knit 1 pair of Desert Vista Dyeworks socks/month
  
• 2 projects with handspun
  
• 2 projects with laceweight
  
• 3 projects with yarn added to stash before 2016 (this can cross over with handspun or lace goals)
  
• Reduce total number of stash entries (including trade/sale) to 540 or less (currently 554)
  
• Spin at least 12 fiber stash entries
  
• Reduce fiber stash entries to 65 or less (currently 70)
  
• 3 sewing projects of some kind
  
• Stay on track with Frosted Pumpkin Happily Ever After monthly pattern
  
• Aim for more yardage out than in on a quarterly basis (handspun created does not count as yardage in, but handspun knit counts towards yardage out)

I've got a few other goals that aren't crafting related, but they're still in generalizations at the moment, so maybe I'll talk about them at some point.

As usual, I'm going to try to start posting here more, but we'll see how it goes.

Bits and Bobs from July

I don't know what I was thinking, but my only excuse for trying to start writing here again so close to crazy time at work was that when I wrote last I didn't yet realize that the final craziness was upon us.

The NCGA wrapped up their session around midnight, Friday, July 1, 2016, a month ago and I've spent the month of July recovering, at least I think I've recovered...almost.  I'm still feeling a bit brain dead most of the time, but it seems to be getting better.

We celebrated my grandson's first birthday at the beginning of the month, and in typical one-year-old birthday style, there was a lot of food, a lot of presents, and a lot of messy toddler.

Before the messy part

 The only other event of any note in July was a quilt class my mother and I took together this past Saturday.  One of my goals for the year was to learn to sew, and I've been slowly doing that.  My mother used to sew a lot when I was a child, but hasn't really in a long time.  She bought a new machine about the time I did and we took a mystery quilt class at the fabric store in Sanford this weekend, just to spend time doing something together.  I'll probably never finish the quilt, at least not the size it's supposed to be, but it was fun.  As usual, I had good intentions of taking some pictures, at least of my mother and I, but I totally forgot.  I'll insert a picture of what I got done sometime soon if I can remember to take it when I'm home.

Other than that, it's now August, and I need to get moving, literally.  I started taking a tap class again about 3 weeks ago, and so far I'm enjoying that.  Class right now is on Tuesday nights, but will shift to Monday nights in the fall.  So I should be able to attend until early January at least.  2017 is a long session year, so session will start in mid-late January and at that point Monday night classes won't be possible.  There is a Thursday night class, but it's more advanced, so if I feel I can keep up in that class by that point I may be able to switch to that.

I'm going to try this month to start getting back into an exercise habit.  Rob signed up for a 10K race the end of the month, so I signed up for the 5K FunRun with the intention of walking it.  Need to get some walking in before then though if I'm going to make it.  Just ordered a new swimsuit so I can start swimming laps again, and I'm considering making an appointment with a personal trainer if I can find one I like through the Y.  Grand plans for sure, we'll see if they actually happen.

Until next time....

Long Time Gone

The longer I go without blogging, the harder it seems to be to come back to it, primarily because I feel like I should tell you everything that's happened of any significance since the last time I posted.  But that's just not realistic, so here I am back again, and I'll hit a few highlights and we'll just pretend it hasn't been that long OK?

My son and his family are back North Carolina, at least for the next couple of years until the Army decides to send him somewhere else, so we've been able to spend more time with him, his wife and the grandkids.  I love my kids, I love my grandkids, but spending a few hours with the grands makes me glad I'm done with the kid-raising phase of my life.  The joy of being a grandparent is being able to enjoy some time with them then send them back home with Mom & Dad!

We took a trip to Louisiana in March to celebrate the 90th birthday of Rob's Aunt Sue.  It was good to see some of his family that we rarely see and my DIL was able to bring the grandkids down too even though my son couldn't get leave.  Sue is my MIL's sister and is quite a bit older than her, but you can see the family resemblance.

Rob & I celebrated our 16th anniversary last week, and I can't believe he's put up with me this long.  There are days it seems like our wedding was yesterday, and others when it feels like it's been forever.  But that's true of most marriages I suppose, but I'm glad he's stuck with me for yet another year.

I took a sewing class for a few weeks and have actually learned how to use my sewing machine, although it will be a long time for I feel like I have any degree of expertise. I've also attended a couple of fiber events this spring, but I'll talk more about those in separate posts.

Other than that, it's my busy time of year at work, so my hours are erratic.  Some days I work relatively normal hours and other days I work until late at night just to get things done that need to be done for the next day.  I've been in my current job over 20 years now, and although some days I would like to find something different, for the most part I still like my job, and every time I try to imagine doing something else I think of all the things I would miss about my current job.  I keep my eyes open for something else that might be interesting, but I've essentially resigned myself to being here another 9 years and 8 months at which point I can retire with full benefits, and hope to do so!

O.k. quick and dirty update done, more crafting and other tidbits to come, assuming I don't get totally distracted again right?

2016 Goals

Unlike 2015, which was the year of no goals, I've set some goals for 2016, and one of them is to blog here at least three times per week, so I probably should get on that by actually writing a post huh?

I've done some serious thinking and planning about goals this year.  Who knows if I'll be able to achieve all of them, but I'm going to try.  I'm also trying a technique I've read a lot about of having a word and a mission statement for the year. 

While I will probably talk more about most of these in future posts, for the purpose of this one, I'm just going to give you the list, or as Joe Friday says..."just the facts."

My word for the year is....  

DETERMINATION

My mission statement for the year is....

 Determination and action lead to achievement.

Writing Goals

• Blog 3x/week
• Write 30 minutes 3x/week
• Journal regularly

Health Goals

• Make exercise a habit
• Lose weight (I've set a more specific number, but I'm going to keep it general here for now) 

Crafting Goals

• More yarn out (knit) than in (purchased)
• Knit 12 pairs of socks
• Spin the bin challenge
• 2 laceweight projects
• 2 handspun projects
• Finish Marigold Moroccan
• Steeked & Zippered Cardigan
• Learn to sew