a home for my interchangeable needles

Guys, I am totally obsessed with knitting right now. Really, I can't stop. And I have a gazillion things I want to make! Gazillion! Really, I have enough to keep me busy for years all planned out I think, and ever since my parents brought me some very belated birthday yarn last week, I have been going to town. I can't wait to show you what I am making, and I think I will be done by the end of this week! That combined with my avoidance of my pony club quilt (yep, still avoiding, but much closer to actually doing it) got me rethinking my knitting needle storage. Ultimately I need 2 cases, this one which is for my knitpicks interchangeable needle set that I am slowly collecting, and another for the rest, which I have thought out and designed, I just need to buy a few things and get to work.

Anyway, this needle case, I love. It is kind of from a tutorial I found in French, which I got the gist from and then got to work. It actually works out super well, with a place for the needle points, a snap pouch for the cables and a zip pouch for the little extras. I opted to change the closure to a tab with a magnetic snap. This color scheme, it just makes me happy. It was fun to make and while it is a bit wonky (like most things I make....we'll call it character....) it holds things just perfectly and will have space for any new needles I may acquire.

At least my avoidance is getting other things crossed off my list. Except for the totally not on the list pencil case I obviously *need* to make. But seriously, I really do plan to have a finished pony club quilt top by next week. If I can make myself stop knitting that is......

pattern storage overhaul

a.k.a. I finally caught the organizing bug and went a little crazy.

So for whatever reason, for the past few weeks I have been on an organizing/clutter reducing/simplifying mission. I don't much know where it came from, nor do I particularly care since it is precisely what we need around here. I was on a roll this weekend after we cleaned out our filing cabinet so I decided to attack my various sewing/quilting patterns and pattern pieces.

Does anyone else have a horrible time trying to figure out how to store these things?? I hate folding them up to begin with and then I just never know where to stuff them so that I can find them when I need them and all the pieces are together. I have tried a few things, but this time I think I've found something that will stick! Meet my new solution:

I went and got a 12" scrapbook binder from Joanns yesterday, picked up some {removable} labels and used some scrapbook page protectors I already had and ta-da! Some of the pages hold multiple patterns and some are just for one so I can label them as needed. I was going to just use a scrapbook, but the binder works much better and gives me a lot more space. This thing is huge!

It works perfectly so far. I am sure I will end up moving and readjusting things, but I love it. I don't have to fold things all that much which is nice and it holds a lot. I even put in pages for books that came with patterns that I have taken out to use so I can keep the pattern pages and any that I trace all together in one place.

Now this is just for sewing patterns. I did another binder for quilting that is just a regular 8.5"x11" binder filled with page protectors since nothing I had was bigger than that. It has some reference pages, patterns I have bought or been given or whatever, a page for templates and a page for random quilt block pieces all labeled and paper clipped together.  I'm curious though, how do you organize these things?

Seriously, I don't know why I never thought of this before. And I am telling you, with all the clothes and such I have been making, and the blocks from the skill builder sampler, all my pattern pieces and templates were out of control. As in, now I can finally see my top shelf again. It gives me a nice inner peace. Now I just have to decide whether to make more spiderweb blocks or finish that stupid fall jacket today. I still am not sure how it is supposed to go together at this point (the sleeve/lining finishing is completely baffling me), but I finally got buttons and kinda just want it done. We'll see which mood strikes me when I finally get the chance to work on something.