February Challenge Winners

This week I get to announce the February Challenge winners. We had some great organization going on last month and it truly inspired many people to tackle their spaces. Congrats, ladies, on winning the prizes and on organizing your space!!

1st Prize - Cindy (rusmilen)**

1-Hour Organizing Consult by Janine

2nd Prize - Angela (CelticFrog)

Knitter’s Almanac donated by Lynne (Durango)

3rd Prize - Suzanne OwlKnits

Project Bag donated by Carmen (Dulcedosa)

4th Prize - Andrea

Stitch Markers donated by Zelphia

5th Prize - Bonnie (BonnieRed)

Hi-light Straight Needles

Here are pics from our first place winner's 30-day Challenge

**The names in parenthesis are their Ravelry ID's

It's Like Playing Dominos

This Club has got me working! I accepted the 30-day Challenge and have started organizing my yarn. I shifted, dug, and unearthed 43 WIPs, entered them into a spreadsheet, and then relocated them, temporarily, into my bedroom. This is not the greatest picture, but as you can see, there's a lot of knitting that needs to be done.

What does this have to do with Organized Space? Well, once the projects were out of the way, there was more room to access and assess the rest of my stash and the space used to store it, and I can now consider how I am going to rearrange and declutter.

My next yarn-related task will be to ferret out all the yarn that I have bought for a specific project and isolate it along with its pattern. This group will join the WIP group in my bedroom, in its own pile to keep it separate, and will give me even more space to work in. I plan to shift around furniture, and set up a cozy knitting nook with proper lighting and a comfortable chair, not to mention relocating the computer and printer closer to the telephone outlet and plugs, after I move the 6-ft long cabinet that's against the wall.

This whole process involves a series of related steps. Once I started on the first one (WIP identification and relocation), the next one fell into place. Because I knew my overall goal, I could break the process down into babysteps (Flylady, I'm over here) that are manageable.

So I encourage you to look at your space, figure out what you want as an end result, and then work backwards from there to formulate a plan. Obviously, we're all here to help with encouragement and with suggestions.

Our First Challenge!

The 30-Day Organizing Challenge

Do you have an area in your home where you store your crafts that has been bothering you, which you have been wanting to get organized for awhile, and which you are tired of looking at? Over the next 30-days you'll have something to do about it and we want to help. Our intention is not to overburden or overwhelm you but to support you and have others in blogland support you. Clutter is not our friend (Mantra to repeat to yourselves over and over again).

The challenge if you choose to accept it is this:

Organize one area or room in your house and post the before (don’t be scared) and after pictures on your blog. On February 29th we will put up a Mr. Linky for you to link up to so we can all share in your success. If you feel up to it, post your before pictures now and let us know about it in the Mr. Linky below. We would love to cheer you on!

Oh, and what would a challenge be without a PRIZE?? We still have to work out the details on that but, oh yeah, we definitely have to have a prize.

If you would like to participate, please sign your name below to Mr. Linky. This way everyone in the challenge will be able to visit you and root you on to de-cluttering success! Please feel free to grab the challenge plaque and link it from your blog.

To link from your Blogger blog you need to save the image to your computer and then upload the image to a photo hosting site or to your own website server. Example photo hosting sites would be Flickr, Photobucket, or on a server.

Go to your blogger template and choose 'Add New Element' and then choose html/java script. Copy and paste the code below into the window that pops up.

Then go to where you have your image stored, and if it's through a photo hosting site, right click on the image and choose 'properties.' Highlight and copy the code where it says 'location.' Paste the code into the proper section of the code below and you should be good to go.

<center><a href="http://organizedknitting.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="ENTER THE LOCATION OF YOUR GRAPHIC HERE" /></a></center>

Prizes

1st Prize

1-Hour Organizing Consult by Janine

2nd Prize

Knitter's Almanac donated by Lynne (Durango)

3rd Prize

Project Bag donated by Carmen (Dulcedosa)

4th Prize

Stitch Markers donated by Zelphia