Feeling blessed, and getting organized!

Hello my dear blogging friends.  I have been surprised by a couple of wonderful stitching friends this week, and I have to share.  These random acts of kindness have touched my heart, and made me reflect on my responsibility to do more for others.

First off, I won Jennifer's blog giveaway a few months ago.  Woohoo fabulous Gingher scissors!  I was the last person to comment on her post, and  you can imagine my surprise when my name was picked by the random generator.  Jennifer was going through some very difficult stuff in her personal life, so through an e-mail I told her not to worry about sending anything, which I really meant!  I was the last person I wanted her to worry about.  How sweet of her to still send the scissors to me.  She even threw in my favorite kind of candy bars!  Beautiful scissors and fabric Jennifer?  You totally went beyond anything I expected, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Do you remember this sampler from my 2012 goals to finish this year?  This was a Round Robin that I did in 2007 with my local stitch group.   I had decided to just stitch the last section so I could get it up on the wall.  Well last week, I received an e-mail from Edgar, who volunteered to stitch the last section for me.  I was completely surprised by his offer.  I really could not believe that someone would volunteer to do that!   I am honored by his request, and thank him so much for being willing to share his stitching with me.  It will mean so much to me to know that the whole sampler was stitched by people I admire and consider great friends. 

What else have I been doing this week?  Well, Deb and I had been e-mailing back and forth about getting organized and getting our sewing mojo back.  One thing that I know I have been needing to do for a long time, is improve my sewing space.  (Thanks Deb for the gentle push in the right direction!)   My husband was on vacation last week, so I was showing him my completely overstuffed closet, and asking his advice on how to get things under control.  The next thing I know, the whole loft looks like a bomb went off!  It's hard to believe that all of this...

and this...

and this...fit into my tiny closet!  What an embarrassment!  I ended up taking all of my fabric out of my drawers (below), and if it had 2 or more yards, I wrapped it on bolts.  I now have about 3 times this amount, and my daughter keeps calling it her quilting store.  LOL!

Now with the fabric out of here, I organized all of my quilt kits into the drawers.  I also organized a drawer for wool.  My DMC floss is now in it's case, and there is nothing in front of it, so I can open it easily. (big sigh of relief!)  The blue shoe boxes still need labels, but they are holding my bindings for quilts that are at the quilters, and fabric that I have cut into various squares and rectangles.  I also have one with card making supplies.   

DH built in an extra shelf, and reinforced the ones I had.  Fabric is very heavy, and it was making the shelves bow.  I was worried that if we had an earthquake, there would be some serious damage done to my stash.  I organized all of my fabrics that are less than 2 yards into these drawers, and you can't really see it, but I also have shoe boxes stacked on the left side.  There are 12 boxes for fat quarters, and every color has it's own box.  I also added another filing cabinet below these bins, and all of my cross-stitch kits and patterns are stored there.   

This is one of my favorite things we did.  I don't have a lot of pre-made frames, but I thought this was a good way to store little frames that I have purchased for certain projects.  This is inside the closet above the door.  My husband reinforced it with an extra piece of wood as most of the nails would not have been in the studs.  Now they are not getting scratched and taking up a lot of valuable shelf space.

The other thing I have been meaning to do for a long time is to recover my sewing chair.  This is a chair I have had for 11 years, and I love stitching in it, however the cream color was starting to look really dingy.  Yuck it was time to replace it, but new cushions would have cost $279.00.  I was really intimidated to tackle this project, and even though I have had the fabric for over a year, I have had to sit and think about how to do it for a long time.  Finally I decided that I needed to get it done, or get a new chair, so I went at it, starting with the foot stool.  I was able to get it done in ONE day, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  It only cost me $24.00 for the fabric, kaching!  I am really pleased with the results. 

I still want to stain my little drawer unit to match my chair, and I want to cover my computer chair with the same fabric as my accent pillow, but WOW what a difference it makes.  It really has motivated me to get projects done, and I'll show you more pictures when I'm done organizing everything.  Right now I am working on putting the past 9 years of pictures into albums and getting that out of the way.  It feels good to get things under control.  Hope you all have a little time to organize your sewing space, and to do something nice for someone else.  Thanks for stopping by, and for leaving me your wonderful comments.  They make my day!  Until next time...Happy sewing!