Cleaning Archives – Quilts and Other Stuff from Frances

Last week was a crazy week in my studio…..

I was given some fabric that needed to be sorted, washed, ironed, and put away.
I did some thread-painting on the Botero project
I did some fabric painting on the Botero project
I made a backing for a finished top
I prepped the Angela Walters FMQ challenge piece so that I can start on it.

At the end of the week, my studio looked HORRIBLE……

The top of my cutting table was unseen…..

The yarns for couching were all over the floor…..

I even realized that quilts I had picked up from a show THREE weeks ago were still packaged up…..

I don’t mind having a mess when I am in the middle of a creative project, but this had gotten OUT OF HAND!!!

As Sheldon from “Big Bang Theory” says…..

It was definitely TIME TO CLEAN!!!

I set a timer for 30 minutes, turned on the audio version of Michael’s book…..

……and GOT BUSY!!

First of all, I got rid of all of the trash and put up the paint supplies.

I pulled all of the Botero stuff together and got it in one place, even finding some fabrics that will work great for the next phase of the project…..

I use the closest bathroom as a photo studio and this one had been in shambles for too long and it was time for a clean-up there as well…..

I found a place to store the batting roll that I purchased…..

I just have to remember to move it if we have guests stay!!

I decided to use a basket to store a few rolled quilts….

There is a bag of scrappy bits that can go to the Guild charity bee to be made into a dog bed and two quilts that need to be photographed when I go to the Botanic Garden this next week…..

Now I would love to say that all of this only took 30 minutes, but it was actually closer to 1.5 hours…..once I got started, I didn’t want to stop.

At the end of the afternoon, this was the renewed studio….

Look at that, there are even some table surfaces that are available to use again!!

And probably the best thing is that I organized a bunch of “in-process” and “want-to-do” projects so that I will be ready to start the next thing…

….once I finish the current ones of course!!

So what type of quilter/cleaner are you? Do you clean as you go or do you work in disarray until you finish the project?

For those of you who haven’t heard, my son is getting married next weekend. The service and all of the festivities are in Atlanta, so not much is happening at my house, except for the two Grandmothers spending a couple of nights with me.

Given those parameters, can someone explain exactly why I am madly cleaning and clearing out my house!!!!! One of my friends was getting ready for her son’s wedding and he found her under the desk, cleaning the floor with a toothbrush. His question was “who exactly will be sleeping under there?”

I have no real reason to be in this cleaning frenzy, but I am certainly enjoying getting so much done!!

While cleaning my garage, I discovered a wonderful storage solution to a painful problem. The problem…..I have several sets of dishes that I use through out the year. Unfortunately, I dont have room in my house to store them so they have been in plastic boxes in my garage. These were not the best solution because the lids would crush and they took up a lot of room. They were also gangly to move so often I could not be bothered to get out a new set.

While I was busy pouring bird seed into an empty 5 gallon paint bucket, I started wondering whether the plates would fit inside the bucket. Amazingly they do!!! So, I discovered that I can put the small plates and bowls in the bottom of the bucket, place a little crushed newspaper around the edges to hold them in place and then place the plates on top.