I do sometimes know how to go overboard. After yesterday’s insight that Grete’s baskets hold the standard pattern envelopes (which I tend to make without interfacing), I wound up making quite a lot of them in short order. I think I made a total of sixteen (out of the twenty-five I want to make). This led to a massive reorganization of my workshop space, as the baskets got loaded with patterns, notebooks, geomancy casebooks, tools, notions, and other gear related to my sewing enterprises. For one of the first times ever, I am now able to see all of my projects at once — in all of their raw materials and incompleteness, rather than in their finished state. Ooops.
No matter.
There’s quite a lot of progress that’s been made. I’ve used the equivalent of 28 Fat Quarters, or seven yards of fabric, in making these baskets. A lot of box-like objects have moved from short-term storage in the bookshelves to long-term storage atop the bookshelves, and now I can see what I have, and plan projects accordingly ( ‘a green early 18th century coat and some linen shirts will clear that lower right-shelf, and then I can make more bins for scraps… finishing that blue coat and that Victorian coat and a few other projects will give me room for two more bins up on the top-right…’)
There’s a new breathing space in my office today, in other words. I’m not done, of course. Of course I’m not done. But I’m farther along that I ever expected to be, just by doing some organization, clean-up, and materials management.
What next?
Ha. That’s the other part of the organization, of course. I can look up at the shelves and see exactly what I need to do next in order to make space for the projects that are still in storage…
These baskets are contagious! I think I’ll have to make some for my husband’s carpentry tools currently scattered around the house. No more stumbling upon a saw in the dark! >:-]
I would simply ask him to make a nice box or two with the tools. Or, make the baskets for your husband’s tools with batting between the layers so drill bits and saw points don’t poke through. And add a couple of straps/carry handles on the side so that he can carry them to the workshop where they belong!
Don’t give him ideas! 😀 I think most of these baskets will quickly end up in the workshop and scattered around building sites. He already has boxes… loads of them. But he has even more tools! Whenever we need to do something in the house, he gets a few things out of the car, and somehow they never make it back into the car… Amazing, really. All I can do is compensate with my ever-growing sewing machine park. 😉
But yes, I was going to make them extra-sturdy and with pockets and handles. I think handles would also be good for baskets filled with patterns or fabric scraps.