Studio Overhaul 2012

So one of the things I was most excited about when we moved into this apartment was the front room, which is a great size for a small studio.  I already knew that I wanted to get one of the Ikea square shelving units.  It's the perfect size and shape for yarn, and doubles as a bookshelf.  I had it all arranged a couple of months ago, but lately everything was starting to get out of control.  I was running out of room for my fashion school binders and the desk was covered in circular needles and DPNs from all the times I've rooted through my needle stash.  My laceweight stash was also starting to have a life of its own and spilled out of its cube whenever I was looking for anything.

This morning I got up, ate breakfast, and then organized the crap out of this room for the next five hours or so.  I would have a picture of the before, but it was so messy that it was embarrassing.  So what did I do?



- I consolidated all of my magazines and books on the lower shelves.  We don't have any pets right now, but I want to be prepared so if anyone ever brings theirs over that my yarn is out of gnawing range.  A dog would have to be pretty dedicated to rip up a magazine that's tightly packed in with the others.

- I organized all my magazines by date, made a cube for my fashion school binders and sewing books, made a cube for my fashion magazines, and put all of my sewing patterns in a little basket.

- I moved everything in baskets to the cubes that are difficult to reach.  Over the last few months, I've learned that it's much easier to grab an entire basket than to search for a single skein of anything from those cubes.

- I gave my lace stash an extra cube for wound skeins.

- I separated my sweaters' worth stash into three cubes: fingering/lace/sport, dk/worsted/aran/chunky, and wound skeins of all weights.

- I made one cube for yarn that I'm intending to use soon.

- I dusted.  Gross.



- I also took out a rocking chair that had been here and put my brand spankin' new skeinwinder/swift in its place.  It's so cute!

I still have to find somewhere to put all the paper patterns from school, which are currently perched on top of the shelving unit, but other than that I'm pretty happy with how much better it looks.  I also realized that the reason this room feels so absurdly dark is because one of the overhead bulbs is out.  I had to turn up my camera's ISO to 800 and down to a shutter speed of 1/20, and still had to do post-processing to get it light enough to see, which is a fancy way of saying it's reeeeally dark in there.  Also: time for a new camera, because this one is starting to have fits of dementia.

I'm hoping to get some blocking done tonight on my new clean floor.  I'm so excited!