A quick update on the knee - my appointment with the doctor is this morning. Then all will be revealed and hopefully the news won't be bad. I have to say that keeping that ice pack on as much as possible has really helped and while still quite painful this morning, I have much more mobility. Well - that is the optimist in me talking!
I just did a couple of talks about organizing your studio. You know how it is - we all have way too much stuff. Why do we have too much stuff??? The design people in companies that sell quilt related stuff are way too creative! and the marketing departments of those companies that sell quilting supplies are GOOD. They make us covet every single thing that is ever produced.
So for instance - if I were to ask, how many rotary cutters do you have? Are they all in one spot? I have too many - I think I have 10. I know - 10 rotary cutters. Who needs 10? Well you have one for the studio, one for the retreats, one for work, one for paperpiecing (a small one) and one for the pinking blade and one for - well I'm sure there is a reason for all of them. And the rest are spares! Yes - the rest are spares. But then once I realized that OLFA will back their product and has a LIFETIME GUARANTEE on the rotary cutter in the event that you wear it out (that doesn't apply to blades), well technically you don't need 10. Two cutters is probably all you need. Ooops - I stand corrected - I have ELEVEN cutters.
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| Yep - that's ELEVEN!!! |
Here is the bad part of all this - there are products on the market that should never have been made. Someone comes up with a cool idea (or so it seemed at the time), they manage to find someone to produce it, we buy it and NEVER use it!!! I'm not going to name any specific product (to protect the innocent), but I got sucked into those gadgets many many times. I am MUCH more careful with how I spend my quilting dollars these days. I would say one of the worst culprits is specialty rulers. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE specialty rulers. However, there are TONS of them out there and MANY are copy cats of rulers that have existed for a long time. Everyone trying to get our hard earned dollars when we likely already have something that will work. And then there are some rulers that are totally useless. And others still that add little value over what you could cut with your standard set of rulers. For me, the standard set of rulers is 8 1/2" by 24", 6 by 12", 6 1/2" square and a 15" square. For the most part, you can cut almost everything with those four rulers! Oh yes - believe it or not!
I did want to show you a picture of what I store my basic supplies in. It's one of those rolling set of drawers. I love the fact that this has 6 shallow drawers. Nothing gets buried in them. But all my rotary cutters, all my scissors, snips, sewing machine needles, hand stitch needles, sewing machine feet, bobbins (of any kind - pre-wounds, empty, new ones, partially filled), spare tape measures, thread for piecing. It's ALL stored in this cabinet. Those are the basic supplies that you need to do almost any job. This is a priceless piece of furniture in my studio. It's on wheels so I can easily move it around if I need to. And I am DILIGENT about putting things back in those drawers. There are NO EXCEPTIONS.
All of that preamble leading to this article that I found on the internet about our buying habits (written by GenerationQ magazine). It's an interesting read and I think the authors have hit the mark! I see MORE and MORE huge consumer trade shows opening up in the US. Why??? The dollar amount available to the consumer is the SAME - now you are asking vendors to spend twice as much to attend both shows. Well - I won't into the nitty gritty details, but there are going to be some changes (that's my guess - I have ZERO inside information) and well - we'll just have to ride out the storm!!!!
One other thing that I've learned about organizing - the more stuff you have, the more time it takes to organize it. Or find it if it happens to be lost. I still can't find the charger for the tablet and I was talking to someone yesterday and said "oh no problem, I have a tablet and I can try loading this particular software on it". Then I got home and remembered that I can't find the charger! Guess where my mind is going to be today? Looking for that charger!!!
Anyway - got to go - loads to do.
Have a great day!!!!
Ciao!!!
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