SSF Post # 14 : Scrap Solution by Kat

I was supposed to have a guest post by someone else today. But there were issues like me being busy this weekend and not being able to remind that someone nor was I able to tell her where to send her post. So, today I'll bring to you, my guest scheduled for the 11th. Kat from mummastimetocreate...

She is another of my wonderful blog friends and her sewing room is going to make us all go green with envy...

Go have a peep. And dont forget to comment, follow, blog, like on FB to enter this week's giveaway sponsored generously by The Fat Quarter Shop...

Hi I'm Kat. It's nice to meet you!! I blog over here and partake in Flickr as Flutter from.Kat (mummastimetocreate).

Firstly thank you so much to Shruti for hosting this great series & also thank you for allowing me to come and share my sewing space with you today!! I've really enjoyed being inspired by everybody's spaces over the last couple of weeks and have really enjoyed & appreciated learning some new tips on how to better organise my stuff!!

A little about myself before I begin... I am a stay at home mum of 2 beautiful daughters (2 1/2 & 6 months). I only started sewing in about April last year when I decided that I really would like to make my eldest daughter a quilt for her 2nd birthday. In order to do this I first had to learn how to sew!!! LOL... Yay for a close family friend teaching me to quilt & a big yay for the virtual online crafting world & the abundance of free tutorials out there!!! - I very quickly became a total sewing addict!!

In the past I've always used the dining room table for my crafting. However, after I became addicted to sewing, it became apparent pretty quickly that this was no longer going to be practical in our new house. Our new dining room (and house) is very small, and we fill all other available space. But unless I have the ability to leave my stuff out, unfortunately I just never get around to getting it out & getting crafty - I'm far too lazy to drag it out each time to be quite honest!!!  LOL...

So to overcome this I picked up a little old dining room table off a friend for like $20, and set myself a little crafting nook in the corner of our sitting room. That was awesome for a while, but with an every growing stash, along with the establishment of my new business, again it became apparent that I needed more desk & storage space. For my Christmas present last year my wonderful husband came to the rescue for me and built me a new sewing/crafting space. Here's my new "happy place". (I still sit there and admire it everyday & feel so lucky!!) :

Because the space is quite small, is in my lounge room, and is prone to attacks from "little fingers" I have to keep it extremely tidy & organised. I organise my stash into 3 different parts within this space...

1)  My stash of fabrics over 1/2 yard in size:

These are organised on coreflute board, and organised predominantly by colour. (*side note - if you're interested you can find my tutorial on how to organise fabric using coreflute board over here)

2)  My small stash of designer fat quarter collections I keep separated into a one of the drawers that you can see. I also separate out my small range of solids, and fabrics which I'm using for any current projects into one of these drawers - they have become my work in progress drawers:

- I can never keep my fabric as tidy if it's just folded in stacks like this - hence the coreflute board for my shelves since they're on display all the time!!

3)  Lastly I separate my fabric scraps (which is what I'm supposed to telling you about today). I keep these scraps in 2 big bins:

Within my scrap bins I separate the scraps out into a couple of different groups...

- There's my bigger scraps... they just get folded up neatly and organised into colour groups.

- Then there are my smaller scraps. I find the easiest way for me to keep these organised is by bagging them up in clear plasic bags - functional, tidy & most importantly cheap :)

Now this is where it gets a little random in my grouping... the bag I put them in depends on things like how many of that type of scrap I have, the size of scrap etc...

**  Sometimes I bag them by colour. For example I keep all my white scraps in a big bag all together (this is the only colour that gets grouped into a colour group regardless of the size of scrap - the rest usually only get grouped by colour only if they are very small scraps).

**  Sometimes I bag just all the scraps of one type of fabric in a bag - usually this method is used when I have lots of scraps of that one type of fabric.

**  Sometimes I group them by designer collections:

**  Sometimes I group them into bags of scraps that have all come from the same project - I'm most likely to do that if a) I think the combination of fabrics works really well together or b) if I can see myself using them all together in a future project.

Once all the scraps are neatly bagged I usually sort the bags into the containers by colour.

So that's my system. It's a constantly changing & developing system, and it's still a struggle at times to keep it tidy, but overall it works well for me and I find it easy to maintain.

Thanks again for having me along to share my space!! I hope it was helpful.