Would you please expand your description of your "wonderfully organized professional library"? It has now been over 5 years since your post. How is your library working out?

I find that I save lots of great "for the future" projects, but have to search all my projects to find the one I want. I've thought of creating a directory, but it needs photos to be of real value. I know organizing my projects will take a while to accomplish, but I hesitate to start until I'm more comfortable with an organizational plan. Please help me get over the "buts". Thanks.

P.S. You have to make yourself throw out or give away those magazines and patterns and even books that don't fit your current plans or style any longer. I'm sure you have them and the relief of having things organized overwhelms the little pain of throwing things out.

As some of you know I have been reorganizing my work space to set up my new retirement micro-business as a fabric artist. In the process, I have been reorganizing and culling my books, magazines, and patterns. In the first place, when going through all the books and magazines I have collected over many years in order to move them from one room to another and get them more useful, I found all kinds of exciting and interesting things I had forgotten I had. In the second place, I ended up with a wonderfully organized professional library in which I have resources for design ideas, answering problems, information about the history of needlework and thimbles, and all kinds of fun things related to quilting and sewing, and patterns...many many patterns. And now they are organized so I can find them. I still have a little ways to go, but I have been so enchanted with the result that I think I will do this at least once every year.

I found that I had purchased four or five Dover coloring books more than once that I can give away, that I could just throw out a large number of magazines that then made room to properly order things, and I emptied a whole filing cabinet by culling my fashion and accessory patterns, which now stands empty for either some other use or patterns more closely fitting my new life.

The result is surprisingly wonderful and I encourage you to find time to do this for yourself if you have a large unruly collection. It will save you more time than it costs and it's kind of fun!