What a coincidence! This week I got sick of rummaging that side of the table and cleared out everything I didn't need for the current project. I buy those low level plastic baskets from Joann's to keep current WIP's in them and keep those on the shelves and move only one to the table when I'm working on it. It keeps me from feeling chaotic.

I haven't met either challenge YET, but I did manage to straighten and clean my longarm room. That was a challenge in itself.

I'm so sunk. Day after you issued challenge 1 my DH decided to start taking down a cinderblock wall at the end of the room. I will clean, but as I do ( and this will happen slowly, assured), I will put either pieces of fabric or plastic sheeting over things. I never (usually) get a warning about his projects in our massive remodel. It's a good thing my sewing machine is upstairs.
Diane/Wyoming

Funny you should issue this challenge at precisely this time! I'm hand-quilting a scrap quilt using partially used spools of thread in a variety of colors and created an unholy clutter on the end table beside the couch where I quilt. Yesterday I took everything off, dusted twice (very messy underneath the doily!), vacuumed the lamp shade, put away unneeded things, threw out other unneeded things, neatly reorganized necessary tools, including TV remote, and worked feeling virtuous.

Mary in Tennessee

I also use pool noodles and empty wrapping paper tubes for quilts and large paper patterns. The tubes are great cause they slip onto curtain rods that I have mounted on the wall. The Side table is another story and need a little cleaning.

ritzy wrote:
Pool noodles are also good for rolling your quilts so that they don't get crease lines from folding!

What a great idea!!! The floating stick on your knee lift! Love it Margo.

Margo, what spills over to another surface for you ends up on the right of my cutting surface, but right now it's on top of a box on the floor because a friend spent the day with me sewing and I moved the cutting surface to another room. A magnetic pin holder and a pair of scissors is all that is to the right of my sewing machine right now as it's still in the other room and I'm getting ready to pack it up for a class tomorrow. Thanks for the challenge. Maybe tomorrow I will get things back in order after the class.

Lorchen wrote:
In your spare time!

Hehehehe..... Eeeeaasy...... My machine is on the right side of a table and there is no space for anything to the right of it.

Sooooo..... I'm delighted to report: Everything to the right of my machine is on perfect order and I challenge anybody to improve on it.

Now, if you would ask about what's on the spare chair underneath the table...... Mmmmhhh..... that's a little messy and needs to be sorted out.

I fixed it so I don't have a problem on the rt. of my machine. I took it in for it's yearly cleaning,cleaned up the mess and have a nice blank space waiting for my old machine to jump in temproarily. Met challenge two,but am still considering challenge 1.

This looks rather neat to me . I'm working on these issues already. For two weeks I have had hand workers doing some renovating on my old house, so right now it looks like a bomb exploded in my two creative rooms. I have been moving things around and not having a place to put them. While the workers were here I could do nothing but prepare for the 2008 BOM, that I'm working on. It took me those two weeks to fuse all the blocks, so now they are ready for sewing.I moved my Bernina to the other room because I want all my machines to be there, so a lot of rearranging is included too. What is important to have to the right of your machine? Pretty much the same as you want. The pincushion (from Fred like yours), a small scissors, seam ripper, machine oil and a brush to clean the bobbin area. And don't forget the iron. I have mine to the right of the machine, so I can just turn in my chair to press seams as I sew. When you placed the first challenge, I had just done those things.

The last challenge was issued on Sunday morning, but I thought that maybe Friday morning would be better for those of you who would rather do this over the week-end.

For our second do-able challenge for your sewing space let's focus on that pile of STUFF to the right of your sewing machine. As you can see, mine has actually spilled over onto another surface! I challenge you to deal with that stuff. What you do with it is up to you, but I'm going to try to just keep the necessities and put the rest back in its proper place. Things I will keep close at hand are: sewing glasses, machine oil and lint brush (to be used with every bobbin change), often used presser feet, a few bobbins, seam ripper, tweezers (for picking out thread from un-sewn seams) small scissors and ONE pin cushion.

The wooden cutlery box is a great container to organize the stuff that needs to be close at hand. If you are still on a roll after you've done that, you might want to give your machine a good cleaning too! I'm also going to remove my machine from the cabinet and deal with the family of dust bunnies that live there now!

What do you think is important enough to live by your right hand?