Foot Doctor Greys

Today was a flat shoe and pants day due to a podiatrist visit for foot pain.   I decided to wear my grey pants and then as usual went overboard piling on other grey clothing.

It wasn't quite as comfy as I thought it would be - the pants were just out of the  wash and had not bagged out sufficiently. 

The doctor told me all sorts of things about me: one leg is longer than the other and I am slightly pigeon-toed on the left foot.   She was able to tell that just by observing my stance. And here I thought I was relatively symmetrical.

Nothing about why my foot hurts though - need more tests.

So, anyway, I wasn't super pleased with yesterday's scarf organizer, so decided to reloop the scarves.  This time I did a loop in the front and left the scarves dangling down the back.  It's much easier to see all the scarves because a little bit of each scarf shows. 

And, I can easily see that there is room for another 15 or 16 scarves!

Hanging Circular Scarf Organizer

As you know, I have a lot of scarves.  My scarf drawer is becoming a tad unruly.  I've always wanted to try one of those belt-scarf organizers but the cost seemed a little pricey for a bunch of circles joined together.

source

So, when they had one in the as-is section at IKEA (returns, discontinued, missing pieces, clearance) for $5, I thought it was a good time to try one out.

I wasn't sure how you were supposed to thread the scarves through, so just looped them and left them hanging down the front.  With lots of scarves, I put 2 into each circle.

 

I only hung the longer thin scarves; the squares and thicker ones are going to stay in the compartmented drawer.  I'm sure there is a better way to loop them, but will try it like this for a while.

My closet is too stuffed for me to hang this inside, so I McGyvered a ribbon and door hook so that this could be at eye level.

I think it works quite well.

Drawer Redo 2

After the successful re-org of my top drawer, I spent some of the weekend doing some more organizing of drawers.  I found a lot of sites on-line advising folding and "filing" your clothes so decided to give it a try.

I was able to do 4 drawers: a sweater drawer, 2 tshirt drawers and the pj/yoga drawer.

With the sweaters, they were too thick to fold flat and "file" so I had to roll them suitcase style:

The T-shirts are thin enough to fold flat:

The T-shirts would probably have to be rolled if you don't have that many because they only stay up if there are lots to pack together.

Sorry for the fuzzy pictures - the camera just did not want to cooperate today.

Results so far are positive.  I like being able to see everything at a glance and it will probably make getting dressed less stressful.  I even found a whole giant black garbage bagful of clothes to donate!

Drawer Redo

Are you one of those people who have a junk drawer?  It's a drawer that you toss all your stuff into.  You know, any little thing that you're not absolutely sure you want to throw away, but don't quite know what to do with goes into it.  Well, I have several - one in every room.

So the other day, I was thinking what a waste of drawer-space that was, and decided to tackle them one at a time.  Here is the one from the bedroom:

And here it is after the re-org.  I have a few small boxes and containers from travels, so decided to use them to hold rings, bracelets, etc.

Can you tell I like Hello Kitty?

And I also used some plastic deli containers etc.  I normally only use the ones you don't have to clean.  Have you noticed how some things come in an excess of packaging? You know, it's vacuum packed and then put into a plastic container and then boxed and the box is cellophaned!  Not so good for the environment, so I try to re-use any that I come across. 

Bracelets! Only a Dollar!

Mostly made by the kids.

Now everything's organized! I'm quite pleased with the final result and can't wait to get started on another one.

Starting to Organize

There is a giant IKEA store near our home which has wonderful sewing room setups.  One day, I hope to have one for my crafting and refashion hobbies, but in the meantime, I put the basics (needle, thread, scissors, measuring tape etc) in a toolbox which I got one year for Mother's Day.

The actual stash is just plunked into boxes, drawers, cases etc. I have some stuff in these drawers (also from IKEA):

I also use shoeboxes, they stack well, but as they are all different sizes, it makes for a hodge-podge which doesn't balance well, doesn't look good and of course not all shoeboxes are sturdy:

Better are salad containers which are not only see-through, they are all the same size so are much neater and tidier:

You can also use those hinge-lid deli containers (potato salad, coleslaw etc) for smaller items.  The hinge-lids are especially good because the lid is always attached.

Most of my fabric is in dresser drawers, but I have my grandma's old suitcase for storing odd bits of fabric:

I am on the lookout for something to store my spools of thread. I've seen some spool holders but they are not very sturdy - I want something which won't fall over and is strong.  I had a 99 cent spikey CD holder (again from IKEA) but the spikes were a bit too thick, so the spools didn't go all the way down; I eventually donated it to Sally Ann.

Here's examples of what I would like sewing-room wise:

And look at this one! I found on a blog:

One can only hope...