organization - baby steps

I'm a big fan of organization. I love a tidy closet where all the towels are uniformly folded (with the folded edge to the outside, thank you very much) and arranged by color. But the actual act of organizing? Uh... I think I have a dentist appointment that day.


Here's a small section of my sewing room closet. Looks pretty organized, huh? I mean thread sorted by color - you can't get more organized than that, right? What do you say we step back and take a big-picture look at the entire closet?


Good grief, what a nightmare! So it's mostly tidy, but definitely not organized. Who could find anything in there?? And that's just the closet!

One of the main reasons for this state of affairs is that it's just too darn overwhelming to tackle all at once. So I'm going to take some baby steps here.

You know how all the "organization experts" tell you to take 15-30 minutes and organize ONE thing? Yep, did that today on this one bin - my bright stash of batiks (as opposed to the earth-tone stash of batiks which will be organized on another 15-30 minute jaunt - stay focused here, Shelley!)

Put on some music, plopped myself on the floor, and got busy folding and sorting. And look what happened! (Ignore the canine lack of enthusiasm...)

Most of these are fat quarter and half-yard cuts. The pile in the back right is yardage, but generally I don't purchase yardage for stash - only for backings and specific projects.

I'd love to show you a photo of these lovely organized stacks on the shelf, but I think I'll wait and do a big reveal at the end of "Project Organize" when ALL the bins have been sorted. For now they are safely tucked back (but uniformly folded and sorted!) in the bin.

I've got to do some research on shelf dividers. Any ideas on how to keep the stacks from falling over onto each other??