A Little Less Chaos Please!

I know yesterday was WOYWW, but I was too busy cleaning and organizing to write about it! Yes, at this time of year I get very inspired to start rearranging, clearing out clutter, digging through neglected stash, and dreaming of how I would design the perfect craft room if I had the money and time. Sometimes I type in a search on Google for the term “craft room images” and then sit in front of the computer for about an hour salivating over some of the craft room pictures. They are truly amazing! I also collect pictures and keep them on my computer to show DH (he says he is always surprised to find people with more stash than I have!). Now that I’ve added sewing and quilting (and knitting to come in a couple of weeks), the amount of stash has doubled, so it’s at critical point now.

Yesterday I went on a mission to find something to use for storage. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I started at Hobbycraft (yikes, the traffic queues into the shopping centre were horrendous) as that seemed like a good start. Wrong…. Hobbycraft has increased its prices on everything! Their fat quarters, tools, and cotton fabrics were more than high street prices and not nearly as nice. They did have a “tower storage” (basically a plastic chest of drawers) for £31.99 but the drawers were small. From there I went to Homebase, but they were out of stock, so I walked over to Argos, almost next door to Homebase and got this set:

Not exactly gorgeous but functional enough until I convince the DH to build me a whole new craft room. The smaller four top drawers are just right for holding my fat quarters and tools. The larger drawers hold my larger sizes of fabric. To fit this into the room, however, I had to do some rearranging. I turned the little white desk I used for writing and sewing. sideways, then backed the new chest of drawers up against the back of the desk. So now my craft space is U-shaped instead of the previous L-shape. Believe it or not, I really like it much better!

On the white desk is my sewing machine (in the white case) and my laptop (the black rectangle in front of the sewing machine). I can just swivel around and move slightly back and forth to make use of both my work desk and the extra table. It took a couple of hours as I did some MAJOR clearing on the shelves (though it doesn’t look like in this picture) and in the drawers under my work desk. All in all, it’s nice and cozy now. And tidy, but it won’t stay that way, of course. After all, a tidy craft room usually means no work is getting done there.

Trust me, this work desk does NOT stay tidy for more than 24-hours unless I’m away or ill. One of life’s little pleasures for me is to sit here and read, scrapbook, make cards, or do some kind of needlework. I agree with Virginia Woolf, who wrote “A Room of One’s Own” --- every woman needs a sanctuary, a sacred place to call her own, a place to create. Men have their offices, their garden sheds, or even their cars and garages, but women need their space, too. I’ve always felt that way and always tried to find a little room, or sometimes just a little niche within a room, just for me. I’m fortunate to have a husband who supports that.

Now if I can just win the lottery, I can really kit it out!!!