Attack of the Killer Cleaning Fairies

There's been a serious cleaning bug going around here lately. I think it may have started in my quilting studio, and now it's spread across the yard to my house. A few weekends ago, Mike helped me clean out the linen closet. One Sunday evening, we took EVERYTHING out of the linen closet, sorted, purged, then put the surviving items back in. We discovered that we owned a heating pad. I found some old towels that my Mom gave me from our house growing up. She got them for HER wedding. They just won't wear out. They're still good enough to mop up a spill.We took all the sheet sets and put each of them inside one of the matching pillowcases. I read this tip in a magazine. I can never get the fitted sheets folded nicely anyways. We put two blankets and two sets of sheets in a bag for goodwill and there's a third set of sheets that will be heading there shortly. In celebration, I bought us a nice pair of 300 thread count cotton sheets from LL Bean.

Here's the newly organized linen closet.

This weekend, no sewing was done as the cleaning fairies continued their assault. On Saturday, Marion came over and we spent three hours organizing the business fabric in the Quilt Studio. We were relentless and went through every box of inventory. We found some long lost treasures and also realized we had run out of red flannel. We sorted out a box of fabric for my friend Sue who teaches quilting at a local womens' shelter as well as a bag of scraps that Joannie will donate to her friend who runs a troop of Girl Scouts. We had a scrumptious lunch at the Fifties Diner when we finished.

This morning (Sunday) I woke up and started working in the yard. First, I trimmed everything that was dead. Then I weeded the garden on the corner and planted some black-eyed susans, since all of the day lilies have died back and are now just a bunch of green leaves. This looked so nice that I was inspired to weed the garden alongside the front fence. Three hours later, I had three bags of yard waste to show for my hard labor. After a delicious egg white omelet made by Chef Mike, I took a shower, then headed out to do some errands. I bought some more black-eyed susans and some purple coneflowers for the garden, which I will plant later.

When I got home, Mike was heading out for a bike ride. I went upstairs and did some more cleaning in my office/upstairs sewing room. I'd like to eventually move all of the fabric in the Quilt Studio, but first I had to get this room clean. I hadn't seen the floor in months. I wasn't able to shut the door to the fabric closet. I was afraid to take a "before" photo in case someone sent it along to the casting agent for Hoarders.

While Mom cleans, Larry Pug takes a nap in a newly folded box of fabric.

I'm trying to use all the same size and same type of box so it is easier to stack them. I like the Iris box that has a hinged lid (one less thing to lose). It's interesting to see that my stash of just regular quilting fabric is diminishing, while my stash of batiks and Kaffe Fasset grows. I still have a lot of floral fabric, Asian fabric, and holiday fabric. When I sorted, every piece of fabric had to be a fat quarter or larger to go in the box. All scraps were put into a rattan hamper to be sorted later. I was able to use just one box for all the yellow, orange, green and brown fabric. Pink fabric has its own box. Blue fabric has two boxes. Red fabric and purple fabric share a box--I put a serious dent in my purples when I made Anna a purple quilt a few years ago. I put aside a couple of boxes of fabric that I am going to sell on Etsy (some woven plaids, some tiny florals and some beige tonals).

It looks really good now! I can see the floor! I can see the top of the ironing board. I found my missing camera, that had been missing for so long, I had been forced to buy a replacement. As usual, I found four or five bags from finished projects that have bits and pieces of fabric in them. I need to sort them and put them away. For my next project, I have bought three, three-drawer plastic carts at Target and I'm going to put my scraps in them, sorted by color, ala Bonnie Hunter, my quilting idol.

Here is the newly organized fabric closet. My next "to-do" is to make labels for the boxes.

Watch out, the killer cleaning fairies may be heading to your house next!

Exhausted! I am heading for bed. Going to work should seem easy after this cleaning-fest!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy