The Dreaded Stash Reorganization

Eventually, every quilter comes to the realization that the Stash has become a living thing, and worse - that the monster lying in wait under the bed and behind closet doors (every closet you have) is one of your own making. It no longer requires regular feedings of fat quarters or patterns, but continues to grow on its own despite your feeble attempts to address the obsession.
Whatever it's beginnings, the stash deserves a permanent home - not one of boxes and bins stuffed into every spare corner of my home.  I now spend more time looking for things and moving boxes than sewing.  Sigh.  The time has come for a trip to IKEA.

The new IKEA catalogue arrived last week and I leafed through it with avid hunger.  Do you find it as frighteningly compelling as I do?  One gets the feeling, looking at their tidy display pictures, that Europeans all live in homes the size of a studio apartment in New York City.  No one would dare suggest I have too much stuff if I could only make the excess fit tidily into the available space of my apartment.  I would just be one of those people who lives in a smallish home.  So I did it.  I bought this great wardrobe system, with baskets, convinced that my stash would fit in it.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - wheeze - cough - snort - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I know, at first glance the stash of yardage doesn't look excessive, but the wardrobe is deep.... each drawer actually holds three stacks of carefully folded yardage.

So I filled the wardrobe.  That left a "few" items to find a home for.  The notions and tools.

The strips, scraps, strings, kits, UFOs, and various block components in progress - half of which I managed to fit into plastic bins under the work table.  So much for that plan.  That's okay, I'd rather sew on the kitchen table near the windows anyway.  There's better light there.

And then those two old bins I dug out of my closet... I didn't remember them being this full!  I can't snap the lids down.  Sheeeshhhh!

And the boxes... This is how I used to organize.  It worked just fine for the first year and then it never really worked right thereafter.  A box for every project, a box for scraps - this eventually grew into a box for every size of strip and more scraps.  And the projects on the go multiplied.  It is now totally and completely insane.  At least I'm down to a dozen boxes.  I started this reorganization with three dozen boxes, plus the various plastic bins.

And then, of course, the books, patterns, and computer print outs...  But I never thought I would fit those into the wardrobe.  That's what the bookcase is for, right?

So far I'm quite cheerful about this reorganization.  Want to see what I do with the rest?  Want to see what's in the boxes?  Come back tomorrow and I'll give you a peek....