Another UFO bites the dust

Sorry for the radio silence lately - my internet has been down - peaceful at first and then frustrating!

I've been thinking about my pile of UFO's or WIP's - yeah, I know, nothing new about that!  But I do want to whittle them down.  I was taking stock today and I saw this piece in the stack.

It's been taking up valuable real estate in my cupboard for several years.  I don't even know what it was intended to be.  Some sort of fractured/stained glass thingy that I had fused and then appliquéd random patterns, not even around each edge so not very stable!

So I shoved it under my needle and quilted it in black thread around each piece of coloured fabric.  It gave it a sketchy look I liked and would help hold the fused bits of fabric down.

Then I found Catherine Parkinson's tutorial on making little pouches/purses out of practice quilts and followed the instructions.  Catherine is a New Zealand blogger who quilts and photographs and sketches and is well worth checking out.

There were a couple of things I did differently.  In step 8, you need to put your pieces right sides together - but you'd have figured the out anyway.

When you are stitching two layers together around the edges to then turn right sides out and you have to leave a gap to turn them through, I always mark when I have to stop stitching with a double pin.  It must be the way my brain works, but too many times I've kept on going right the way round the whole edge - doh!

I used a popper, or dome fastener instead of stitching on velcro - but that's personal choice.  They are easy to put in, you just need a cheap tool that you buy at the same time as the domes, a hammer, some brute force and a little bit of patience to line them up.

I ended up with two cute little purses.  The back one has been claimed for my rotary cutter and the front one will go in the 'to be gifts one day' stash.

Yay!  One UFO finished, one cute pouch for me, one gift for my gift stash and one happy quilter! (and one gap in my cupboard - does this mean I can start another project?)

I'll leave you with an image of what's happening outside my back door.  Tui feeding on flax flowers - so lovely to watch.

Paperwork ongoing .... the home office reorganisation.

Thanks for your comments everyone.  It's nice to know I'm not alone in the paperwork war!!  In fact, if you type something like "paperwork organisation tips" into Dr Google, you'll soon find there are a heap of other people in the same boat!

So, in an attempt to kickstart my new, organised life, I moved my desk.  Nothing major, it just faces the other side of the corner.  A change around of furniture always gets me in a cleaning, decluttering, organising mood.  And I've splashed out on some new stationery supplies too.

I've been thinking long and hard about what I do and don't like about the way I do things now and I realise that I don't like hanging or accordion files much but when I have things in ring binders they stay in order better.  Four new co-ordinated ring binders and some divider tabs later, I'm on my way.

Ahhh, paper junk!  It's so comfy!

The first tip that everyone seems to say is centralise your paperwork.  Keep it all in one area.  I realise I have a bad habit of opening mail, putting it on the dining table, shifting it to the hutch dresser when it's dinner time and then burying it with handbags/books/school stuff.  So now I'm going to put it on my desk unopened and open it in the evening when I have a chance to action it and then file it/biff it straight away.  I declare the hutch dresser is a PAPER FREE ZONE!

The next big thing is: figure out what you actually need to keep (and then biff the rest).  After chatting to lovely Suz yesterday, she has me taking a hard look at what I should and shouldn't be holding on to.

So I've started - I'm analysing my bad habits and I'm going to try and make new, more efficient ones and I'm sorting out my systems.  The hard thing is going to be putting my stuff that I already have into those new systems!  But I'm done with procrastination, I'm going to put on some music and get to it......after a fortifying  cup of tea ;)

Need Help! Paperwork Crisis!

My house used to be a constant mess. Ok, it still is a constant mess, but it’s a tidiable (is that a word?) mess with an organised undercurrent. Having kids was probably the making of me in that department. I got so bogged and frustrated and upset that I went looking for help. I found FLYlady and did a lot of journaling and soul-searching about the role of a stay-at-home Mum (not all cupcakes and day-time television). I began to go to bed with a cleared kitchen, make my bed straight after getting up, clean something in the bathroom while waiting for the shower to warm, empty the dishwasher whilst the jug was boiling for my cup-of-tea and use a calendar….just those little things that some people know instinctively how to do to stay on top of life and some people (me!) need to learn.

In the spirit of full disclosure - here are my fugly bits.  Piles of paper everywhere!  And  there are other piles hiding in other spots around the house!

But I haven’t ever really got on top of my paperwork. Yuck. I hate it. But crunch time has come. Why? Because, for the life of me, I can’t find the kids birth certificates and I need them. That’s not good. I could order new ones (at $25 a pop) but that’s not really solving the problem, is it?

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that being organised with paperwork can save you time, help you be frugal, and keep on top of life in general.

I’m thinking of making goals – they seem to work for me. Do I dare ration my quilting time? For example: no quilting until I've done 15 minutes filing? Argh! It would probably work, but I think I have deeper issues, which are hijacking my attempts to stay on-top of paperwork. I don’t think I have a proper filing system sorted. Bits go here and bits go there and I have a big pile of ‘miscellaneous’! I don’t know how to sort stuff and how to store it.

So, tell me, how do you do it? What categories do you file stuff under? What techniques have worked for you (or not!)? Please! Anything you think will help me out. We’ve upgraded our computer after eeking out our current one for eight + years and I’ve decided I’m not allowed to open the box until my desk is clear!

Progress!

So two weeks ago, my new house looked like this.

We employed a builder pretty cheaply who was desperate for work (thank you recession). And it seems he's been working his butt off, because yesterday we went out to the land (our name for our little piece of paradise, I'll have to think up something fancy like 'skylark ridge'!) and this is what I found:

Yes, we have a floor and a couple of bedrooms for the kids all framed up. Wow! It is actually going to happen. It is kinda scary when I look around the house that I am in and contemplate packing it all up. So I'm hooking into the FLYlady's theory on decluttering and her other theory on 15 minutes at a time.

FLYlady is a bit over the top for some people, but I've found she has got some good ideas and my house and life are definitely more organised since finding her! The 15 minute thing is just that you can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes. It keeps you focused and stops you whining. I use it all the time when I don't feel motivated, or have lots to do and don't know where to start, or even just to make sure I don't spend too much time on the net! I just set my kitchen timer (or the one on my computer) for 15 minutes and get stuck in. If I have lots of tasks and want to procrastinate by quilting, I quilt for 15 minutes, work for 15, quilt for 15, work for 15.......get the picture?