I promise better pictures of this quilt, made many years ago and given to my husband on one of our anniversaries. It hangs above our bed.  It belongs in this post, because the entire bottom section of the quilt was made with CHIPS of fabric… some of them the size of postage stamps.

These doors and windows, from one of my Village-Quilts-Turned-Pillow, are TEENY, some as small as 1/4″ x 1/2″.

You can see how being able to construct a design using such teeny bits of fabric makes throwing ANY scrap out difficult.  This would be true even if one were NOT a fabricaholic (am I?!!), or a pack rat (YES!), or a curb-side and thrift store aficionado (many decade member of that club!)

So here are a few before pictures.  You might want to sit down.

I say “YIKES”, but actually, I can and do work pretty productively in this environment.  The biggest problem, in my eyes, is not that I have too much fabric (the gross insulation hanging from the ceiling is not up for discussion today), or my storage system (I like bins), but that pin board.  That pin board is 8′ x 4′ and is a piece of my booth.  I use it as a design board when not out selling, but then have NO WHERE to put it.  I prefer to work on the floor, squatting and not having to pin or unpin, but there is very little floor room, and then, if a quilt goes into a resting phase, one has to walk on it (alright, the lack of floor space is directly tied to there being too much fabric).  Maybe today I will cut it into thirds — which will seal my commitment to redesign my booth (a much discussed project that has not really materialized into a good working concept).

That TV is gone, sad to say — a 13″ B&W which I bought when I was a 1L at Boston College Law School.  It was not worth a converter box!  I have been sorting the patterns, which can be difficult to lay my hands on.  But so far, I have been unable to heave most of the fabric under the desk (and a LOT of fabric went on the curb in the last five weeks!)

Here are some shots, post-clean up.

I’m not a huge fan of folding fabric, but fellow-blogger, Mal, was undertaking a monumental fabric-sorting task and reporting about it on her blog, turning*turning, in a way that inspired me.

Some of my crates and boxes read:  TROPICS, PRECIOUS BITS, LANDSCAPE, BINDINGS, STRIPS, CHICKEN, FARM, WEIRD & MISCELLANEOUS, FELT, FLAT FELT, UPHOLSTERY, BLANKETS, I SPY, and CIVIL WAR.

The problem is, after sorting, chucking, folding up in the living room (Ken was away), once the bins and boxes and piles returned to the cellar, I used up floor space again — rendering the bottom shelves less useful.

There is more to be done!