Inspired By

Inspired by Sarah to make a scarf hanger:

You've probably already seen this idea all over Pinterest. It was appealing to me because it's so modular. I love to sort clothing and accessories by color so that they're easier to find, and I loved the fact that you could add a shower curtain ring anywhere on the hanger without having to shift other things around. As soon as I saw it about a year ago, I put my scarves onto shower curtain rings and put them on a hanger.

The problem, though, was that no matter how hard I tried to keep things evenly distributed, the rings would slip and slide all over, and all the weight would eventually shift to one side, causing the hanger to be lopsided. If you know me at all, you'd know this would irk me! It was actually a little better when there were more scarves on the hanger, but still...

In re-organizing my closet this week, I decided I'd search for other solutions. I love the idea of installing towel bars to hang the scarves, but I didn't have a good space that would work. I looked at various scarf organizers online and then made a trip to the Container Store to evaluate all the ones they had. With some of the commercially available scarf organizers, it was hard to get out one scarf without disturbing the others, or else there was a lot of overlap and things got bulky. Plus, none of them were modular. So I had another look at the hanger + shower curtain ring idea. I tried a wooden hanger, and it was less slippery, but the rings would still slide around. Plus, it wouldn't match the rest of my plastic white hangers, LOL! I didn't want to glue the rings down or put them in fixed positions because then I'd lose some flexibility. So I cut up some foam shelf liner and hot glued it around my hanger. I had the shelf liner on hand already, but I'm sure that felt, fleece, or some other non-slippery fabric would work well.

Now everything stays neat without slipping around, even when there are very few things on the hanger.

I like this so much that I'm hanging my belts this way too. I just orient the ring so that the prong points up and leave it open so that it's easier to get the belt on and off.

Stash Management

I was in the mood for cleaning out my craft closet, so I invested several hours last weekend and yesterday. The closet is set up more or less like the closet in my old house, though I don't sew in the closet anymore. There is paraphernalia for lots of different types of crafts, and most of it was tidy, but my yarn was kind of in disarray.

As you can see in the old picture, I used to have a large bin for new yarn, along with a medium-sized bin for remnants. As the remnants built up and I added some yarn, my space started to overflow, and there were several additional bags of yarn placed in the closet. The yarn had also begun to spread around the house again, so I had to round it all up and do a full reckoning. I no longer buy completely random stuff, and I'm not enticed just because something is on sale anymore, so I didn't end up doing any additional destashing. I just had to pull everything out:



I still have the large bin for sweaters' worth of yarns, almost of all which is designated for a specific item on my queue (Rav link).



I decided to organize the rest of the yarn by gauge this time, regardless of whether it was a fresh skein or a remnant. That's the tower of 6 bins that you see, from bulky yarns at the bottom to lace weight and crochet thread at the top.


Looks like I have a lot of knitting to do!!

Fresh Start

As I helped my older daughter get ready for the beginning of school last week, I was reminded about how much I used to enjoy this process myself. For me, the prospect of a new year, with new school supplies and fresh clean notebooks was so exciting! (Why yes, I am a geek. Why do you ask? LOL!)

In the spirit of fresh starts, I did a light cleaning out of my knitting bag and a little reorganization. I thought I'd share with you what my supplies look like. This bag is something my sister gave to all of us in her bridal party on the occasion of her wedding. She had a destination wedding, and when we arrived at the hotel, we got a bag filled with beach-related goodies. It has a couple of compartments inside and plenty of room, so it serves well as a knitting bag for me. I keep a project or 2 in there, and this is what I carry to my knitting group and what I pack for car rides or to bring on the plane with me when I travel.


Inside I have my Denise needle kit. Other than a pair of straight size 8's I picked up at a Michael's, these were the first needles I bought. For along time, they were the only needles I owned, and I did absolutely everything with them. I used unattached needle tips as cable needles and did magic loop when a pattern called for dpn's. I only bought more needles when I started knitting finer gauges and needed size 4 needles and smaller. These are still the only needles I have for sizes 5-17.





The fact that there are hardly any cords in the box is a testament to my inability to be monogamous with my projects. Most of the cords are in use!

And then there is this binder.


It stores photocopies of the patterns I'm working on. I prefer to use copies so I can mark them up and not have to worry about being gentle with a book or pamphlet. The patterns are in little plastic sleeves and I use highlighter tape to help me keep track of where I am. I also found these cute little pouches at an office supply store and put my supplies in them. What's in here is basically my entire collection of knitting tools (minus the books and yarn of course).


This pouch holds the odds and ends--scissors, tape measure, row counter, a couple of crochet hooks, a few tapestry needles, a bit of scrap yarn, and a film canister full of multi-purpose safety pins.


This one is for the extra-large Denise needle tips that I bought to supplement those in the original kit, along with another set of cords.


And this last pouch is for the few other circular needles I have (there are 2 more in use).


That's it! Hope you enjoyed the tour :-)

In addition to tidying up my knitting bag, I pulled out some yarn from my stash that I just don't think I will ever use. I was trying to decide what to do with the yarn, and in a bit of serendipity, I received an email yesterday alerting me to a project called Iraqi Bundles of Love. It is a way to spread some goodwill to fellow knitters in Iraq not lucky enough to have the problem of what to do with excess yarn. And for those of you who have a yarn *and* a fabric stash? They're looking for that too. I hope you'll check it out.

Into the Closet

I will really miss my house after we finish the Big Move. For example, I love my Craft Closet. We are using one of the upstairs bedrooms as an office, and I converted its closet into my own little space.


Shall we take a peek?


These are the things that crafts are made of: sugar, spice...er, wrong list...actually, scrapbooking supplies and albums, sewing notions, and several books. I have drawers of sewing patterns and stacks and stacks of Martha Stewart Living, Memory Makers, Threads, and Handcraft Illustrated magazines. There are enough gift wrap supplies to stock Santa's workshop.

Over here is the sewing machine--we had an electrician come and put in an outlet so that I could sew in the closet.


Underneath are my bins of yarn. I've made a little dent into my stash, but only a little. Since I got the bins, there's not much leg room anymore for sitting at the sewing machine, but I really haven't been sewing anything to speak of anyway.


Up above are the (literal) remnants of my sewing life.


You can see that I had the same problem with fabric and other stash as I now do with yarn stash. It's the "collector" in me, but I am working on it. I'm on a yarn diet now, and before that, having and seeing all my crafting stuff in one place helped me be (semi) disciplined enough to put a moratorium on other things some time ago--scrapbook paper/supplies/books/mags, most things related to sewing, gift wrap supplies, and magazine subscriptions of any kind. So see? I am better about it. I do feel guilty for having all this stuff, but there is also comfort in having these familiar things, knowing they'll find new homes in the new house.