Grab your cuppa — this is gonna be a long post chock full of information you may or may not be interested in!

This topic has been consuming me for quite a while, and altho I’ve been steadily working on it for a couple years now, as the title of this post proclaims: It’s Time to Get Serious.

Back in August, I turned 61 years old! Back in my twenties, I never thought I’d make it this far. But here I am, on the downhill slide — haha!

(By the way, my daughters think I’m being morbid for thinking on this track, but I promised them they will thank me later for even thinking about it at all!)

When My Cowboy and I bought this place where we now live, we were buying it because his health had taken a serious downturn, and I wanted to move back closer to my family in case I end up alone at some point. My first question about the place was: Will it hold up for at least 20 years? Cos I was thinking that would be about all we’d need it for (haha — and I was only 50 years old then)!

Turns out, after 10 years here, this 102-year-old House is getting the better of us. We’ve been under constant remodel since the day we moved in. Those projects are going so slowly that we’ve had to RE-fix some of the things we already fixed once and we’ve not even gotten through the entire house yet!

My Cowboy is a) not a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination, and b) not in any shape to do long-term physically-taxing jobs. So I was mainly doing all the remodeling projects myself, with the occasional help of any handyman we could get to show up. When they advertise there’s “No job too small”, don’t believe them — I’m here to tell you, there are evidently LOTS of jobs that are too small for most of them. We’ve had so many take one look at this place and never show up again! (Not that I can blame them.)

After breaking my elbow, whatever projects I had in the works at that point came to a screeching halt as well. So with our dining room crammed full of various pieces and parts for projects we decided we could never finish, and one last call to a handyman that never showed up, we threw in the towel. The Money Pit has won the battle.

We’re done. We’re moving. We’re downsizing. A lot. And as much as I love this house, I’m not really that sorry about it. Two “old people”, one of whom is not in good health, do not need a 2-story 6-bedroom fixer-upper that’s falling down around them faster than they can fix it up. We downsized the farm part over the last couple years, and now it’s “Time to Get Serious” about the rest of it.

Where are we moving to, you ask? Well . . . into our own back yard! We love our location, we have great neighbors, we’re close to the doctors/hospitals we like, I’m close to my family, it’s private, and lovely, and quiet, and while My Cowboy still thinks he needs an 800-acre cattle ranch in Wyoming, it makes the most sense for us to just stay right here. So we are building a barndominium in between our current house and barn. Everything will be under one roof. We won’t even need to go outside to do chores!

It’s all one level, it’s simple, it’s smaller, it will be easy maintenance, and all handicapped accessible. And my intention is to NOT fill it up with Stuff. So that’s why I’ve been working toward getting rid of so much stuff, and downsizing not only my sewing stuff, but everything else we own as well.

Having watched this process unfold a myriad of times, not just with our families, but with other folks we know as well, My Cowboy and I are trying to be proactive so as not to be a burden on anyone as we get even older. And it’s not just stuff — there’s a lot of paperwork that goes along with this, too — property deeds, beneficiaries, Powers of Attorney, wills, etc.

But for now, I mainly want to talk about my Studio downsizing efforts. The studio in the new place will not have as much space as what I have now, which is by design. I NEED to not have so much stuff, so this is really forcing me to deal with it once and for all.

Here are some of the things I’m working on as we downsize and get ready to move:

Basic Cleaning and Purging:
I’ve always called this type of cleaning mode “Cleaning with an eye for Moving”. Meaning: I ask myself if I even want to move the item(s), or do I just get rid of it now so I don’t have to pack it or move it? If I don’t use it now, or haven’t used it by now, and I know I won’t be using it in the new place, it might as well go now. Well, turns out there’s a name for this type of cleaning — it’s called “Death Cleaning” — my name for it isn’t quite as morbid! But here’s a great article that explains it: “6 Swedish Death Cleaning Strategies to Free You From Clutter“. You don’t have to be dying to do this — why not enjoy the benefits of it now???

Dealing With the Fabric Stash:
I’ve been seriously working on taming my stash for a couple years now; I got even more serious about it once this move became real, and I realized that I’m not gonna have near as much storage space in the new studio as I have now. So . . . I’ve handed off lots of fabric to my friend, Amanda, to use in charity quilts, and have been resisting (for now) buying any more unless it’s absolutely necessary to finish something I have started (even tho I haven’t been 100% successful at this).

It has gotten even more real as I have been mulling over how things WILL get stored in the new studio. I’m only giving myself a certain amount of space for fabric storage, so I already know it all has to fit in that space, and there’s really no place to keep it if it doesn’t. And I refuse to have boxes sitting around in the new studio waiting for “someday”, cos we all know someday never gets here.

So I started going through all my bins that are sorted by color earlier this year, and I think I have 3 or 4 (out of the 12) left to do. My goal is to get all of each color to fit into its designated bin for now, because my new storage will have drawers about that size, and it all has to fit in the drawers. In addition to what I gave away, I have also been using up a lot of it. It’s actually quite fun to shop at home when starting a new project! You come up with ideas you might not have thought of otherwise. Not that I need to start new projects (we’ll get to that next), but . . . when the urge hits, I refuse to purposely go buy something to make things worse for myself!

Here is a great article by Sherri at A Quilting Life about purging your stash: “5 Decluttering Tips to Help Purge a Fabric Stash“.

I’ve also been working hard to tame all my scraps and not have huge bins of those sitting around. I will have a new method for storing all my scraps in the new studio as well, so I’m working toward that now so I’ll be ready when it’s time to move it all. I’m happy to report that I am down to only one HUGE bin, and am working my way through that one.

What About the UFOs and WIPs?
I call everything a UFO once I pull the fabric for it. I guess because I envision myself working on it steadily, even tho I have proof in my storage closet now that some of those UFOs have been stewing for years in their respective boxes. My mind works faster than my hands.

But I’m on a mission to whittle down the number of UFOs as well. I’m finally putting some of my own un-quilted tops into the longarm rotation since I slowed down my customer schedule in anticipation of moving. I sorted out all the ones that are for donation, and intend to finish those first, because once they’re done, they can actually leave the house and won’t be moving to the pile of quilts that also need to be stored.

I’ll soon have the quilt that’s in my hand-quilting frame finished, and then I’ll take the frame apart and make some needed repairs to it and refinish it and give it new canvas leaders and have it all fresh and refreshed so that I can use it in my new studio.

I’m going through each tub and each UFO and seeing what needs to be done with each one. Some of them, I cannot figure out what my original plan was because I didn’t leave myself any notes, so I’m making new decisions and revising them just to get them finished. My guess is I might like the new ideas better than the original ones!

Some of them I’m downsizing. Here’s one example . . . I started this little DWR quilt in a workshop I took from Victoria Findlay Wolfe a few years ago when she was teaching in my neck o’ the woods. A bunch of us got together and showed up as students to surprise her! Anyway, I had planned to make 4 rings and have a big table topper or wall quilt for Halloween. When I pulled it out the other day, I decided that I was gonna stop with the one ring I had almost finished, and turn it into a smaller table mat.

I’m also pulling out all the UFOs that are meant to be donation quilts and seeing how many of those I can finish up and get gone from here even before we move. Anything I don’t have to move will be a bonus.

As for starting new projects, I’m trying to only start really quick and easy scrap quilts that will use up stuff I have on hand so I don’t have to move it. Or projects that I can quickly finish and give away so they’ll be long gone before the move.

And All the Other Stuff?
As you well know, we quilters also collect a lot of supporting items for our hobby. Thread, notions, rulers, batting, needles, pins, pincushions, scissors, cutters, and random other items that also need a place to live. And if you have more than one hobby, there’s all the stuff for that one, too! I’m a knitter, so I have lots of knitting needles, knitting UFOs, and a yarn stash, too!

I’ve been on a mission for quite awhile to use up all the odds and ends of random thread I have around here, and that’s been working really well. I’m hoping that when I move, and everything is all in one room again (instead of 4 rooms), that I can whittle down some of the multiples I have, since I won’t need a seam ripper in every room, and I won’t need several pairs of scissors at every workstation.

I’ve nearly worked my way through all the batting scraps by making placemats to donate to my guild’s placemat drive, and piecing the larger chunks together for throw quilts.

The shelf of yardage in my closet is getting emptier, as I use those big chunks to piece backings for nearly every quilt I make, if I can find pieces that work.

And I’m taking a good hard look at all the random things I have and making sure every item is something I can and will use in the new studio. If not, it’s gonna go — before we move — so I don’t have to move it twice.

So . . . that’s some of what I’ve been doing the last few months. I’ll update you again later with any more grand ideas that present themselves along the way. I’m sure I’ll have a few more light-bulb moments as I’m actually making the move to the new studio. Plus, you’re gonna want a tour of the new workspace, right? I’m excited to see it my ownself!

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of the front of our new house. I can’t get real good photos yet because the old house is still in the way!