- I want to thank Skillshare
for sponsoring this video. Is stepping in your sewing room like walking through a minefield? Are your drawers too full
to put anything away? Or are you just avoiding
your sewing room entirely? Then chances are you need to declutter, but where do you start? Here are my 7 top tips for decluttering your sewing space, and stay to the end
where I'll have details on my January decluttering challenge. So stick with me and I'll
show you how do you do it. (upbeat music) Hi, I'm Karen Brown of
Just Get It Done Quilts. I give you tips, tricks and strategies to help you make the quilt
that you want to make. And if you like what you see, please hit that subscribe button. In part one on organising
your sewing space, I talked about the sewing triangle, your sewing machine, your cutting board, and your ironing station, and how you need to design
yours to fit your needs. Now I'm sure many of you want to jump into organising your space and folding your fabrics, but before we do that,
we need to declutter. And no matter if you're new to sewing or you've been sewing
for years that means you. As an inventory specialist,
I have cleaned out spaces from 20 square feet to 20,000 square feet. And here are my top 7 tips. (upbeat music) There are parts of this process
that are going to be easy, but a lot of it is going to be painful. It raises feelings of
embarrassment and shame. How did I let this get out of control? Why did I put that on my credit card? My son gave me this,
how can I get rid of it? Sound familiar? Just know that you are not the only person that feels that way, and you can not move forward
and improve your situation until you forgive yourself. It is what it is. The money has long been spent and the item is yours to
do what you want with it. (upbeat music) Set your timer for 15 minutes, it can be on one of these or
on your phone or microwave, it doesn't doesn't matter. When the timer goes off, it's time to tidy up the drawer, the shelf or the cupboard that you're working on. Why? Because decluttering is
full of decision-making. Do I want it? Do I like it? Can I use it? Do I sell it? Do I donate it and many more? And decision-making is
taxing on the brain. Some of us make decisions fast, some of us are more considered, but regardless of your style, decision fatigue can set in quickly. So if you work in 15 minute increments, when that fatigue hits
you like a Mac truck, you can tidy up quickly and go rest. If you make a mistake of overdoing it, or you find you just can't get going, I have some ideas to get you
back on track in my video, Where's My Sewjo? (upbeat music) Decluttering is about removing
items from your space, the garbage, the broken, the stained, the things that belong somewhere else, the goods you no longer need, the goods you no longer love, and the ones you no
longer have the space for. Trying to reorganise while you declutter, it is like walking and
reading at the same time. You can do both, but you
do neither very well. (upbeat music) Like I said, decision-making
is hard on the brain. So make the no discussion ones first. Remove all the garbage then take out the items
that belong in other spaces. Toss the broken and the stained, then grab some donation boxes for the things you no longer love. I have the stack of donated
items for a quilting retreat that was cancelled because of COVID, and most likely will not be
rescheduled anytime soon. So I need to divide this stuff up, get it out to the participants, so it's out of my space. Are you stumbling over old quilt projects? Watch my video on what
you do with your UFO's. (upbeat music) When we are doing something
that's hard or tough, our brains react by throwing out ideas that are easy and interesting. I call these squirrels
because they're cute and busy and before you know it you've wasted an hour watching them play. But what I've learned to do this year is let the squirrel in momentarily because sometimes they
are really neat ideas, but then I put it on a post-it note or I add it to the note
section in my phone, and then I'll put them
on the squirrel page in my bullet journal so at a later date when I have the time I can explore the idea further. Sometimes they get made into videos, sometimes cool patterns, and
sometimes I just let them lie. And remember that timer, it can get you back on track, before you lose an hour
or two to a squirrel. Before I get to the next point I want to tell you about Skillshare. Skillshare is an online
learning community for creatives where millions come together
to take the next step on their creative journey. Skillshare offers thousands
of classes for curious people on topics like illustration, design, photography, freelancing and more. Skillshare classes include a
combination of video lessons and a class project. Most classes are under 60
minutes to fit your schedule. Turn this time into an
opportunity to explore new skills, deepen an existing passion, take a look at their class lists, what you've seen might just
surprise and inspire you. Skillshare is also incredibly affordable, especially when compared to
in-person classes and workshops, and annual subscription
is less than $10 a month. The first 1000 people to click on the link
below in the description will get a free trial
of Skillshare premium. (upbeat music) This is a big one, and
probably the hardest. When all the easy
decisions have been made, the garbage is gone, the donation pile is out the door, it's time to talk about capacity and there are 3 different types. The first capacity is how many
quilts can you make per year based on your available time? And we each have a different capacity, because it's not just about time, but it's about the type of
quilts that we want to make. And that means our capacity
changes as our lives change, as our skill level change
and as our equipment changes. And then there's the physical
capacity of our space. How much can it hold comfortably? That is without moving five boxes to get at the one we need. In the mall, we have our
tools, we have our stash, our threads, our patterns
and all the other stuff, that we need for our hobby. And if you've been sewing
for more than 5 years, it's highly likely that you
have more stuff than you need. And for some of us, we have more fabric than we'll ever need. It's overflowing in our
drawers, our cupboards and most likely invades
another space in your home, and this is called over capacity. So the next part of the
decluttering challenge is getting the volume of your stuff down to the physical capacity of your space, and this is really hard to do
when you want to keep it all. There is one more capacity
that you need to know, and that's mental. How much of your brain is kept busy keeping track of your stuff. If you are dealing with overcapacity, your brain is more than likely
exhausted with the effort. And an exhausted brain is
more prone to depression. And after 2020, frankly,
we have enough problems without having to deal with this one. (upbeat music) So the last tip is like all challenges, they are easier with a friend. Use the momentum of a friendship
and a mutual commitment to deal with the hard stuff. And friends are not as
emotionally invested in your stash so they can often help
make the harder decisions and vice versa. And I will be hosting a
decluttering challenge on my website. It starts on Monday, January 11th and will run for three weeks. I will get into more details
on what to declutter, why to declutter and how to declutter, if you want to participate,
all you need to do is subscribe to my newsletter. Just visit my website,
Justgetitdonequilts.com and sign up. And once we have decluttered our spaces, it will be on to organising our stuff. If you want more help with
decluttering your fabrics, check out my interview on Karen's Quilt Circle with Kim Soper of Feel Good Fibres where we talk about destashing. Her blog has tonnes of tips, on how to destash and send
your fabrics off to a new home. And next Monday on The Circle, I have Mary Fons and we
are talking about legacy. It's a great interview, so make sure you subscribe. If you liked this video,
please give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe
and hit that bell beside the subscribe button so that YouTube will notify you when I make new videos. You can also find me on Facebook,
Instagram, and Pinterest and my website, Justgetitdonequilts.com. So take care and I'll see you next time. (upbeat music)
