Mid November already?? And winter has hit us. There’s snow on the ground and ice on my windows as I sit here at my desk typing this.

I’ve done a lot of sewing this fall, and I’ll be back later with more about that, but for now, it’s Organizing time. I guess we can call it “fall cleaning” if that makes it easier to deal with!

Did you find something last time that you had been procrastinating on and get it done? How does that feel? Good, I hope. Sometimes, things lay around in the wrong place for so long that they seem like they belong there, and when you finally clean up the mess, it feels like a breath of fresh air!

For November and December, I’m only offering up one task each month, and then, as usual, I’ll be back at the end of the year for The Final Countdown, which is always fun and motivating (at least for me). It’ll be our 14th annual Final Countdown (and I’m still not completely organized)! Honestly, if there’s anything I’ve discovered over the years, it’s that organizing is an ongoing thing — there will always be something that needs to be organized, and that’s OK.

So what shall we do for November’s Organizing Challenge? Again, I’m picking something that I myself need to do, and just dragging you all along for the ride, so here we go . . .

Reorganize a troublesome part of your sewing area

This is something I’ve been meaning to do all year. And last week, I got a good start on it, so I plan to continue. Here’s mine: I needed a good place to sit and do Handwork IN my studio.

Of an evening, I sometimes sit downstairs with My Cowboy to do handwork, but I mainly keep all my projects upstairs so the cats can’t mess with them. And most of the time it’s easier to do the handwork in my studio rather than drag stuff up and down the stairs when I want to work on it. When the lamp beside my chair downstairs broke, I decided it was a good time to do something different. So now I keep only one project downstairs, and the rest are upstairs in my studio.

But I didn’t have a good place to keep the projects, or a good place to sit and work on them.

However, I DO have one room upstairs that I’ve never gotten finished or used. So far, all these years, it’s been a catch-all room, a place to pitch stuff that I couldn’t find a place for. And . . . it’s not been included in any of the remodeling projects we’ve done to date, except for the fact that it has all new electrical wiring and lighting.

So I cleaned out half the room, and set up an area to sit and do handwork. I decided that it doesn’t HAVE to be perfect before I start using it, so I didn’t paint the ceiling or finish stripping the wallpaper or patch anything or paint the walls. I just gave it a good cleaning, had My Cowboy hang a shelf (that I also didn’t paint), and started using it. I have a cute little red cabinet in the corner (that you can just see the corner of) that was a gift from my daughter’s best friend, and it holds some of my projects and thread. My current knitting projects are in baskets on the floor beside the table. I DO need to get a new, more comfortable chair, but that will happen in time.

I put my wicker sewing box collection on the shelf:

The other half of the room behind me is still a complete mess, but I’m slowly going through all of it a little at a time and dealing with it. The piles used to be nearly to the ceiling, so you can tell that I’ve made a LOT of progress, even tho I still have a long way to go! I keep the piles covered with scrap batting because the old windows are not UV filtering and the light can fade things pretty badly.

And nearly 1/4 of that remaining pile is empty boxes (snicker)!

My initial goal was to completely remodel the room this year, which included all the patching and painting that needed doing, but my arms simply wouldn’t allow that, so I’m having to adjust my expectations for lots of things.

Not having everything perfectly patched and painted isn’t gonna keep me from using this room any longer. In fact, I really do love the old wallpaper with the yellow roses, and wish it had stayed more intact when I took off the top layer!

Now, I’m not suggesting that you take on a project of this magnitude for your ownself, but if there is an area of your space that is niggling at you and needing some attention, now is the time to address it. It’ll give you a clean start heading into The Final Countdown and the new year, and just like the procrastination task from last time, it’ll give you a great feeling to have it done.

Basically, just pick some area of your space that’s a mess, or annoying, or not set up right, or being used as a catch-all, or not being used like it should, and make it work for you in a better way.

Need to rearrange a little furniture? Do away with a pile? Change to some better storage units? Clean off some shelves or clean out some drawers and use them for a better purpose? Add some shelves or a storage unit of some kind? Categorize your supplies and keep them in a better place for the way you work? Get rid of some stuff? Go for it. Your sewing self will thank you!