Lol. I started doing this a couple of weeks ago. I was making good progress until I committed to the BOM, sorting fabric tracing patterns etc etc. It now all looks worse than it did before. Robin, I had'nt thought of taking before and after pictures to share, but it may get my butt into gear to make a better job of it. Thanks.

Good grief Margo! Did you run out of quilting to do?

This reminds me of a pastor who used to say something such as, "Now you've gone from preaching' to meddling---"

Today I dismantled the sashing strips from my DJ in order to combine it with the BOM center........and have played and drawn and erased and played........and finally have a plan. So yes, I guess I do need to clean off my surfaces because they are really a mess now! ha

Seems like even my sewing machine is happier when things are neat and tidy all around it!

Margo, Love this concept...a little doable bit every now and then. I cleaned my ironing space and worktable this weekend, but I still need to clean the iron and maybe I'll wash the ironing board cover.

I'm almost finished with a project, but since I never work on just one at a time, this will be a challenge. I bought fabric to make a new cover for the Big Board on my ironing board some time ago but still haven't gotten around to it. Just as long as the closet doesn't come up in a challenge this might just work for me.
Fi in Northern CA

I'm already working on it Margo. I bought a nice storage cabinet at Home Depot yesterday. I've been washing new fabric that's been laying around for a while (some a year). I thought DH was going to put the cabinet together today, but that didn't happen - gotta light a fire under him tomorrow. Still have a good way to to, but I'm on a roll. I have a huge stack of quilt magazines to go through and then give away. Going to start working on them a few at a time.

Lorchen wrote:
You definitely got your money's worth out of that iron!! I don't know what's next! Gotta get those two surfaces uncovered first!

Count me in....... for the time being.

I finally broke my iron (wedding gift in 1977 - lasted a lot longer than the marriage) and had to replace it recently. Right now it is cleaner than anything else in my house.

So, what next?

Okay, Margo, I'm up for that! And your timing is wonderful because I need to do it this week, anyhow. Early this week, I will be finishing one project (source of most of the mess on my table), and getting ready for Ruffled Roses . Tomorrow morning, I will take a "before" photo, so I have it ready for the "after" photo My rotary blade is fairly new, so that's okay, but my ironing board cover definitely needs work. In fact, I almost bought a new one today, but decided it is worth trying to wash the old one first. From my LQS, I recently bought Iron Clean by BoNash, and that works really well for cleaning my iron.

SuperJudy wrote:
Hmmmmm....I'm not ready to deal with UNDER the table!! LOL!!! Let's just take baby steps to start with!

I'm up for it! I'm not a very organized person at all In fact, I heard DD Keri telling DH Mike last week she's not going to help me any more because I just mess things up again. Funny-all these years that's what I thought was supposed to happen

I'm up for that challenge. The following challenge should be to get the "stuff" off the floor under the cutting and pressing surfaces! In my case, that
might require another couple of weeks.

Would you like to organize your sewing space? Are you up for a do-able challenge?

I challenge you to clear off your cutting surface and your ironing surface by next Friday, January 21, 2011. That's all.

What you do with the stuff that's cluttering up those spaces is up to you, but get them cleared off by the end of this week.

While you are at it, treat yourself to a fresh blade in your rotary cutter. Maybe even clean or replace the cover of your ironing surface? How about cleaning your iron? Inside and out!

Here are a couple of links for some cleaning tips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY9nydiILM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyRU-aDrBJo
and there are lots more on You Tube.

What is your favorite way to clean an iron?

If you are up for this, let me know and we can think about another do-able challenge for next week!