Sewing With Nancy

My Nancy's Corner guest is one organized person. She shared with us in a previous segment last season how to clean, cull, and organize our creative areas. Today, she's back to share with us the next logical step how to set up our sewing and quilting rooms in zones. Please welcome back Gretchen Hudock. Gretchen is a professional organizer of Reorganize Today. Gretchen, good to have you back for a Nancy's Corner segment. The last time, as I mentioned you taught us to cull and organize. You used the word "Spring" as in spring cleaning, as an acronym. First, we were asked to... Sort. Pare down. Reuse, repurpose, recycle. Identify locations where you're going to put things. Yeah, that's an important one. Now is the time to buy containers. Gotta put things away. Okay, you've gotten kind of cleaned out and then there's a next step. I like this idea that you're going to tell us about. We're going to put our areas of sewing into zones. Just like you organize your kitchen in a work zone you're going to organize your sewing room work zones. In a kitchen you have... The refrigerator, the stove, and the oven. They're usually in a nice little triangle. Correct. And so, here's your triangle. Right, we have our cutting area sewing area, and ironing station. That may seem logical but I kind of know that I don't always do that. There's an advantage. Right, it just makes your sewing more efficient. We want to do as much as we can in the time we have to sew. I like this idea. you liken the triangle to a color wheel the basic three primary colors. Right, we have red, yellow and blue. So, likened to these three areas. Then, around the periphery you have the complementary colors or the combined colors. Right, and if you have a serger or an embroidery unit, all of those things would be outside of your main triangle. You don't have to have a big space to do this. No, even a small, little closet you can work all of your like items together. You recently re-did a friend's or a client's, I should say, work and craft area. In the cutting area, she did more than one thing. Right, she had a cutting area that was sitting in the middle of the room so half of it, we used for cutting fabric the other half, she could do her scrapbooking. Rarely would she be cutting both at the same time. You can see in this one image where her cutting area is for sewing. The flip side of the table was for scrapbooking. Correct. Keep like things together. You said that if you don't store right you end up buying duplicates, because you can't find things. That's very true. I hate to admit that but I've fallen into that trap! Then the sewing area, here's Judy's sewing area. Right, and she has her embroidery machine and her sewing area, and her sewing machine. She also has a little cutting station right there but just for minor little things. The main cutting is done over at the cutting area. I think this is important. You know, when I used to give some advice on this I would say, you know, get your ironing board close so you don't have to get up. Oh, wrong! We do need to move around once in a while when we're sewing, too. Get moving and enjoy the process but don't be sedentary and sit around. So, we have the cutting and the sewing and then the ironing area. Have all of your ironing supplies together so that you're not running across the room to get spray starch, or whatever else you need. Just have everything there, have a drawer unit. A basket works, too, just with all of your supplies in it. It looks pretty, too, and things stay contained. You know, okay, I have to put my ironing supplies back into my basket. That's the key thing, putting things away. Once you find a home for them put them back in that space. Okay, Mom! Good idea. Then fabric, you know, the fabric you go to but once you choose it it's a secondary area of storage. Correct. You want it near your cutting area so you can get to your fabric but you don't need it right on top of that space. Have it just off so it's not interfering with your triangle. The zone again. As a closing, it has cutting... Sewing and ironing. Get that together and you'll be more efficient in your sewing. Gretchen, thanks for being our guest. You're very welcome. If you'd like to know more information about reorganizing today for your room you can go to all things Sewing with Nancy at nancyzieman.com. You can re-watch this program, this two-part series on "Quilts With Carefree Curves." You can click on Nancy's Corner and find Gretchen's interview as well as 52 other interviews-- Or 51 other interviews, I should say as well as 51 other programs to watch online. Sign up for our blog. Again, at nancyzieman.com you'll find all this information. Thanks for being with us. Bye for now.