Are you wondering how to organize a craft room or a sewing or quilting space? A couple of weeks ago, I {Amy} did a presentation for the Olney, Illinois Quilt Guild.

Here’s the handout I created for the Quilt Guild: Handout for Quilt Guild 3.4.13.

During the presentation, we talked about what a Professional Organizer is and how they work with clients. Then, we talked about ways to organize a crafting/sewing space, how to manage UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) and ongoing projects and wrapped up with staying organized on the go. Here’s a clip of the speech:

The principles of creating work and shopping zones are especially applicable in a kitchen. For example, in the kitchen you could set up a coffee zone. All small appliances, filters, coffee grounds, syrups, sweeteners and other coffee-related items would live in the coffee zone. They key is to store together items that you use together in the location that you use them. This maximizes your space and eliminates or reduces the amount of walking you need to do to gather items for a specific task.

At the end of the presentation, I asked for some audience participation! The ladies shared some organizing ideas they have learned over the years:

• Use empty hotel shampoo bottles to hold needles.
• Clean, new pizza boxes hold quilt squares nicely – you can purchase them from local pizza places very inexpensively.
• Pencil holders organize quilting supplies.
• Organize small items into empty baby food jars.
• Use ziplock bags to sort threads, so they don’t get tangled.
• Get into the habit of putting everything away as soon as you complete a project.
• Take a photo of the person that you gifted the quilt to.
• There are a variety of ways to sort fabric: by the amount (2+ yards, 1 yard, 1/2 yard, etc.), by color, by weight.
• Fold the fabric different ways, depending on how much you have so that you can see what you have at a glance.
• Give each family member a different color of scissors, so no one uses your sewing scissors!

Olney Quilters: Thank you so much for allowing me to share my love of organizing with you!

Visit our Pinterest board for Craft/Scrapbook Organization for more ideas about how to organize quilt spaces!