I always have several projects going at once. Each is stored in a plastic bin about 18 inches by 30 inches and 5 inches deep, with a label identifying the project. When I'm done with a project or a portion of it, if I'm not in the mood to put it back in its proper color container, I put it into a "to be filed" basket. I find if I label, I'm way more likely to put away notions and parts of projects. Right now I have pattern pieces and fabric, beads and yarns strewn around the room while constructing a jacket as a teaching sample. All of it gets scooped into its box when I work on my guild's challenge piece--I find I can't design amidst clutter. Once I know what I'm doing with a project, there's fabric and threads everywhere! I've posted more photos of my storage space on my Profile.

Margo, I'm chuckling about your story about raking the carpet. I remember those days so well. My mom was so fussy that I always made sure my house was clean when she was coming - guess that habit has carried on through the years, because I can't function in a mess and I am constantly picking up my sewing room. My quilty friends love giving me a hard time about that. One time at the end of a quilt retreat, I used a roller and cleaned all the threads off the design wall. I left the room and when I came back, they had gone through the garbages and covered it with threads. We all had a good laugh (and now I don't clean until they leave). lol

I can certainly relate....I have had so much fabric pulled out and all around me for the past couple of months working on my new quilt...I cleaned it all up and put every piece away a few weeks ago so I could work on sewing orders, which are made with whites and pastels of batiste and lawn. I had to clean all that dust away and clean the machine and get ready to work with the white things......Well, this past week, I couldn't stand it anymore....I pulled all that wonderful hand dyed fabric back out again and it's all over the tables and floors. It makes me feel warm and cozy somehow. I trip right thru the room to my chair several times a day, and I just love it!

And PDquilt.....love the quote!

I have a sewing corner in the living room, and projects are stored in large bags you get when you buy blankets or take bedspreads to the cleaners. I clean when there is either an avanlanche or when there is no room in the corner for me anymore! So now I am trying to finish projects, I have run out of bags to put new ones in! (oh wait, there's something coming back from the cleaners tomorrow....)

Well, I thank my Granny. She told me, when I had a small child at home and was moaning over it being a beautiful day and I had to clean house, "The dirt will still be there tomorrow--you only have today--today!". Thanks Granny--the dirt will be here tomorrow so I will enjoy today.

I learned from my mother that when out of town guests were expected we all had to "turn to" and clean everything in the house and in the yard. The first time she came to visit us in our first home, I not only cleaned everything I could think of to clean, but it was the time of shag carpet, so I used a carpet rake and raked the floors until I was out the front door with the rake in my hand. I sat on the steps to wait for her to arrive rather than leave footprints on the carpet that was then standing "at attention"!!!

I feel like I paid all my cleaning dues way back then, and I'm mostly over it now! LOL!!

Beth, my mother used to lick a finger, stand on tip toes, wipe across the top of a door, and then show me her dirty finger tip with a look of utter disgust on her face. I wonder if your grandmother's sister and my mother come from the same gene pool....... Hey, that would make us cousins!

Lorchen, I will never forget watching my grandmother -- at age 70 -- madly using a dampened white cleaning cloth to wash off the I-beams in her basement because her older sister was coming to visit for a few days. I remember saying, "But Dada, will she even notice any dirt on the I-beams in the basement?" and she responded, "You bet!"

My sisters and I have a pact: you don't look at the dirt in my house and I don't look at the dirt in yours!

BethMI

I love your reference to Rosanne Barr! But my favorite line of hers is "Fat girls don't get osteoporosis - 'cause we eat cheese!"

Well,I either take all the crap that's on the counter or coffee table or floor and put into paper bags and put those next to my bed and shut the door or I say(and this is a quote from that old Rosanne show)"Excuse the mess but we live here."

It sounds like we have the same cleaning style. Move it and bring it back when they are gone. I like to think my house looks like people LIVE here. We're always involved in making or doing something.

I bet a lot of us do 'I have visitors coming.... grumble, grumble' tidy-ups. I live on my own and work full-time, so I leave everything quilting-related out - on tables, chairs, worktops, tops of chests, floor, etc........ So, my ex-SIL is coming tomorrow and her favourite chair is stacked high with fabrics, boxes full of ribbons, pieces of wadding,...... I better clear that off before 4pm tomorrow. Knowing me it'll just get moved to the floor under a table and when ex-SIL has left next Tuesday it'll all go back on to the chair.

At work I'm known for my 'Germanic super organization and tidyness' of everything, but at home I have always verged on the chaotic. I just can't do 'perfection' all the time. But I admire anybody who is always neat and tidy. For me that would be too stressful.

Till she died a couple of years ago, my mother visited me here in the UK once or twice a year, and I always frantically tidied and cleaned before she came. However hard I tried, she always found things I had missed or not done well enough. Since then standards have slipped but I'm happier surrounded by my own chaos. I was always told that 'you should be able to eat off your floor'. Why??? I don't know anybody who prefers to eat off their floor rather than put the food on a table. So, I will continue cleaning the table and occasionally ignore the floor.

My dining room, which has become my sewing room, is a total disaster because I have made 6 quilts this year, and I work more than full-time.

But just this week, I did my part to clean it up: I bought 2 big, tall trash baskets from Office Max!

And I think that's as far as my clean-up will get, thank you very much!

BethMI

If only I had one project on the go that I could finish and clear up! It's impossible with about 10 going!! I do wait until I have the itch like you though. There is only so much gritting the teeth can put up with.

But to me if you use something you put it down where you are going to use it again and so you end up in this little bubble of regularly used tools. If you put them all away all the time, they are never to hand and you can't find them!!