A Peek Into My Drawers (Or... How I Organize My Stash)

Hi, stitching friends!

Today, I want to give you a little peek into my drawers! OK, OK, get your mind out of the gutter. Not those drawers.

Over the past few months, I have come across YouTube videos and blog posts talking about how to organize all of our crap errr... treasured stash. I thought I would add my voice.

I am not an expert, but my system works for me. I have one bedroom that I use for an office/craft room, but you could use some of these storage methods even if all you have is part of a closet.

I have a large armoire that we used to have in the living room to house our old TV. When we ditched the old TV for a flat screen, I thought about giving the armoire away. But I imagined all the storage possibilities and moved it into the craft room.

In the above photo, on the left (looking inside the armoire), I have all sorts of storage bins I've collected over the years. They house everything from patterns to linen and fabric to buttons and embellishments. Ignore the miscellaneous junk I haven't organized yet.

On the top shelf on the left, you can see I have patterns stored in some 12x12 scrapbook bins. The orange bin holds patterns I have not stitched yet, and the purple bin below it holds the patterns I have stitched.

The photo on the right shows a bookshelf I have propped up against the armoire. It houses books, magazines, boxes of miscellaneous supplies and small, seasonal pieces.

I put printouts of freebies and charts I have downloaded from the internet in page protectors. These go into a binder with tab dividers for subjects such as Christmas, Halloween, autumn, patriotic, etc.

I mounted a shelf with hooks to the top of the armoire, and you can see my fancy flosses (overdyed threads) hanging from the hooks.

I put my overdyed threads in snack-size zipper bags, punch a hole in the corner and put a label in another corner where I write the brand and color. I put the bags on 3" jump rings and organize them by brand. For brands such as The Gentle Art or Weeks Dye Works, I organize the flosses alphabetically. For Colour & Cotton flosses, I organize them by color (because I'm usually using Colour & Cotton flosses as substitutions and I look for the floss by its color, not its name.)

When I work on a project, I pull the colors I need from the larger jump rings and put them on a small, 1-1/2" jump ring (see above photo). When I'm done with the project, I put them back where they belong.

I keep my DMC flosses wound on bobbins in four plastic bins. I also keep my Kreinik threads here. When I was in college and falling in love with cross stitch, a local department store had DMC on sale for 25 cents a skein, so I splurged and bought every color. My boyfriend (who is now my husband!) sat with me for hours, winding the floss onto those bobbins. I sort them numerically.

When I work on a project, I pull out the flosses I need and store them in a small, portable floss box. I also keep my scissors, needle threader and extra needles here. I dedicate one section for thread clippings. When I am done, I put the flosses back where they belong.

I've found that the most important step is the last one - put things back where they belong! If my desk gets piled high with new stash or things I didn't put away, I just cannot think straight. I feel stressed. When I put things where they belong, I feel inspired.

Because I like to have several projects going at once, I like to organize them in zippered bags. I found these on Amazon (click here for the link). They're more durable than a Ziploc bag, come in lots of colors and cost less than a dollar each. The size I linked here fits up to an 8x8 Q-snap, but the company sells larger bags on Amazon as well.

How do you organize your stash?

Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow Update

This weekend, I put the finishing touches on blocks six and seven of Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow. Just five more blocks to go! Woot woot!

I am NOT a fan of spiders, but I have to admit, the spiders in this gorgeous project are just so creepy and perfect. Once in a while I catch one of them in my peripheral vision and I jump a little bit.

Summer Schoolhouse SAL Update

I'm working hard to stay on track with RJ and Mary over at Stitching Friends Forever on our Summer Schoolhouse SAL. We stitch one hour each day... in theory. Sometimes I get caught up in another project and I procrastinate, but I manage to get caught up. This weekend, I found myself six hours behind! Eek. But I got caught up.

Here is pattern number one (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), all finished up. It took me 44 hours and 23 minutes!

This is my first SAL and until now I had never tracked time while stitching. I can't say I love tracking time, but it is interesting to find out just how long it takes to get something done!

Pattern number two (H-I-J-K) is quite a bit smaller than pattern one, so it is going much faster. I'm 14 hours in and I'm close to finishing! Don't you just love the colors in this series? I have to say, out of the hundreds of projects I've stitched over the years, this series is in my top five favorites. RJ and Mary have excellent taste in choosing patterns.

Until next time, dear friends. Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you sunshine and lots of time to stitch.

January in April

Hi, stitching friends!

Spring in Idaho is like a moody teenager. One day it's 72 degrees and almost all my neighbors are outside in tank tops and shorts, walking the dog or weeding flowerbeds. And the next day we have a high of 59, strong winds and overnight frost warnings. At least we haven't had snow again. We have had snow as late as June.

Speaking of chilly weather, my post today, "January in April," was inspired by my blogging muse, Carol at Stitching Dreams. Hers was the first stitching blog I ever read, and her post from way back in February 2010 (<--- link) inspired me to get my hands on this chart: Waxing Moon Designs' "Monthly Sampler Series: January."

Isn't it lovely? I love the whimsical sentiment, the variegations in the blues, the "pop" of the red house and how it adds the perfect splash of vibrant color.

I stitched it on 36-count country French mocha linen, mostly using the called-for colors. I substituted Colour & Cotton "To All a Good Night" (from the 2018 Christmas mystery box) and Colour & Cotton "Dark Indigo" for Weeks' "Deep Sea," and I used DMC B5200 in place of Week's "Whitewash."

I plan to write more about Colour & Cotton in a later post, so watch this space. By the way, thanks, Arlene, for the recommendation!

I love January (it's my birth month) and I love blue, so I couldn't wait to stitch this. I did have good intentions, starting it back in January. But I used so much of the "To All a Good Night" thread in the top band and the side borders that I didn't have enough left to finish the bottom band. I wasn't sure what to do since this was a limited-edition thread and I couldn't get more. So I put January away and started working on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow.

Earlier this month, inspiration hit me. I looked through my collection of Colour & Cotton threads and found "Dark Indigo." While it's not exactly the same as "To All a Good Night," it's pretty darn close, and honestly, now that I've finished this, I cannot tell a difference between the top and bottom bands. Can you?

To frame January, I painted a thrift-store frame that I got for $4.99 with three coats of white chalk paint. (Thrift-store frames are usually priced less, but this one had a signed and numbered art print in it, which I will donate back.) I mounted the stitching on foam core, and because the frame was a little wider than it needed to be, I added crocheted white lace to the sides. I think it's dainty and complements the dainty swirls in the frame. What do you think?

Another bonus to using this frame was that it had professional mounting hardware on the back. I was able to salvage and reuse that. Yay!

My mom bought me the Logan Dual-Drive Elite Point Driver for my birthday, so I used it as well. (I'm linking to this on Amazon because I really like it. I'm not getting money to convince you to buy it! Sometimes readers ask where I found something so I wanted to make it easy to find.)

What's a point driver, you ask? Well, you know those little metal bendy-tabs on the back of your framed pieces that hold everything (the glass, mats, photo or stitched piece) in place and keep them from falling out of the back of the frame? Those are points. A point driver is a tool that looks like a staple gun, and it shoots the points into the back of the frame. If you recycle a lot of thrift-store frames, a point driver is helpful. It also comes in handy when the points on your existing frames break off. This happens to me when I use one frame and swap out different stitched pieces, such as monthly series. Those little bendy points eventually wear out and break off.

Thanks for stopping by! I was so excited when I finished this today that I couldn't wait to show you. I will post again soon, when RJ and Mary reveal our progress on our Summer Schoolhouse SAL. Until then, be well, sweet friends. I hope your weather is a little more even-tempered than ours!

Whatchaupto?

Hi, stitching friends!

Whatchaupto? (Translation: What are you up to?) I closed my Facebook account about a year ago, and since then, my blog has become my only "social networking" medium for keeping in touch with my family and friends. (Hi, Mom!)

Here's what I've been up to the last month:

1. Halloweening...

Continuing work on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow, and I'm on track to finish by my September 1 deadline. Square five is so colorful, and with the nautical theme, I think it's my favorite. It took a long time to stitch because except for the strip at the top, it's fully covered in stitches. I was relieved to finally finish it, but it was so much fun. I thought about changing the color of the mermaid's skin to be more flesh-colored and less white, but then I thought, no, when I'm underwater, I look pretty bleached out, too!

Square six is half of a two-square spread in the middle of the design. It was hard for me to stop at that hard line on the right and not go pull out the pattern for square seven. I don't like leaving things unfinished!

2. Tracking Time...

I've put in 31 hours on the Summer Schoolhouse SAL with RJ and Mary from Stitching Friends Forever. (For my non-stitching readers, SAL stands for "Stitch-Along.") This is my first SAL, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm using the called-for fabric and threads, stitching over one on 28-count mushroom lugana. Do you like over-one stitching? Sometimes when I start I groan a little bit, but then I get into it and stop complaining! You can read more about the SAL and see photos of RJ's and Mary's progress at their blog linked here: Stitching Friends Forever.

This is the first time I've ever tracked hours on a project. It's mind-blowing to consider how many hours go into a project, isn't it?

3. Gifting...

Many of you have experienced firsthand the generosity of our friend Robin in Virginia. When Robin heard that I wasn't going to do the SAL with RJ and Mary because the patterns were cost-prohibitive at the time, she sent me the entire series. I'm still simply over the moon and in awe of her kindness. I asked what I could do in return, and she suggested that I make an ornament for her wrought-iron ornament tree. So, I made this little guy for her....

The pattern is called "All Dolled Up" by Little House Needleworks. I stitched him while we were on vacation in Oregon in December last year and finished him just for Robin. The "coal" eyes and buttons are matte black beads. I stitched the ornament on 28-count coffee/tea-dyed linen. The ornament is laced onto foam core, which is mounted on a fabric-covered backing. Handmade cording, a fabric bow and a fun "2019" charm finish it off.

I used the called-for threads, except I substituted coffee-dyed white thread for the white in the snowman. (To do this, take a skein of DMC white and drop a little bit of strongly brewed coffee on the thread here and there - a little goes a long way. Let the thread dry and voilah - a rustic white thread.)

4. Reconnecting...

April has been a great month so far. I've reconnected with a friend from high school I haven't seen in almost a year (or more?!). I spent a weekend with my husband and friends at their cabin in Crouch, Idaho. I spent Easter weekend with my mom, and we celebrated my niece's 19th birthday. My niece has grown into such a lovely person. She is a freshman at Boise State studying chemistry, and it was awesome to be able to help her celebrate.

5. Gardening...

I started a garden. We have a large (24' x 36') garden spot in the backyard, but I'm just not up to anything that big this year. My husband dug up a 3' x 3' spot for me, and we pulled out a 2' x 4' raised bed we used several years ago. I planted onions, carrots, kale, lettuce, beets and ONE cherry tomato plant. I LOVE growing a garden - from the planning (see the diagram to the right - I am a total planning nerd when it comes to the garden), to the day when the first little sprouts peek through the soil, to the harvesting and especially the eating....

This year's garden is scaled waaaay back from years past, but the last garden we grew was such a disaster that I needed some time to get over it. (We brought home some organic tomato plants, and it turned out they were all diseased. One by one, every plant in my garden died.) We usually have great success, so fingers crossed this will be a good year. We are only planting one tomato plant - we are still a little wary from last time.

6. Dreaming...

And, hmmm.... what else? Oh, yeah! Shawn and I booked our next trip to the Oregon coast for December. Don't you find that the anticipation of a vacation is almost as good as the vacation itself? So for the next eight months we will be dreaming of the beach....

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your spring is bringing you fragrant flowers, hopes in bloom, warm weather and lots of time to stitch.