March Madness - In Baby Steps

So, you started this month out with many plans and then suddenly it was almost the end of the month!! What is the saying? Fail to plan - plan to fail? Something like that. So, we have 12 days left in the month. Let's see if we can't tackle one organizing project a day. Remember the projects don't need to be big projects. Your project could be as small as organizing your utensil drawer in the kitchen or getting rid of the pile of junk mail that is sitting on your counter.

A few weeks ago Frances mentioned making To-Do lists. In the last few weeks I've made several To-Do lists the day before I wanted to get these things done. It worked wonders for making sure that I work on at least one organizing project during the day. An example of organizing a small area is part of my desk. If I showed you my whole desk you would faint, but here is the before and after -

This section of my desk has been this way for yeeeeaaaars! I can't tell you how many.

I moved my knitting books to my desk and purchased a few little baskets from the local 99 cent store. The binders are used to keep my clipped knitting patterns that I find in magazines and online. I also have a binder there for saved articles from Family Handyman. Everything is so much handier. I love it!

What small area in your house are you going to work on today?

Pattern Database

So, you want to store you patterns on your own computer, huh? This may seen like a novel idea when first it pops into your head, but if you don't have an organized bone in you you will end up with a lot of patterns that you won't be able to find when you need them. Ideally, you would back up your saved information regularly because we all know that our computers can be rather fickle at times, and before we know it all our hard work and saved information can go right down the tubes.

Bookmarked Sites
Many bookmark the patterns that they find on the internet. The danger in doing this is sites disappear or pages are moved by people all the time. Plus, out of site out of mind. The solution for this is to either save the pattern page on your computer by following this path -

File> Save Page As

"File" will be in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Then the entire page will be saved on to your computer with an extension of .html. Some sites, especially personal sites, will have their code protected so that when you go back to view the page from your computer you'll see a blank screen, but this doesn't happen often. Just in case, though, be sure to open the file from your computer to make sure it saved the page as viewed. Here is a sample of the folders that you can create to organize your patterns on your computer.


The other thing you can do is print the pattern directly from the site, but to save yourself from printing the extras you can highlight only the pattern information and clicking on 'selection' in the Print Range box.



Another useful tool is the PDF Creator, which you'll see in the box for my designated printer. This is extremely useful if you design your own patterns and would like to create a .pdf out of a Word document.

Project Gauge

To continue the topic of gauges I've put together a nice little chart for you to use when cataloging your gauge swatches. It seems that all kinds of things can be done with swatches, but for those of us that may tend to knit several of the same items or even knit different items using the same yarn, it is a good idea to catalog your gauge swatches so that you are not swatching redundantly. My absolutely favorite yarn to knit with is Lamb's Pride Bulky. I have felted many bags with this yarn, and I love the thickness of the felt and the shine of the yarn. I also like to use KnitPicks Wool of the Andes.

You can put your swatch into a ziplock bag and attach it to the page. Slip the entire thing into a page protector and keep your Gauge record in a 3-ring binder for further reference. If you can think of something else that I could include on this record just leave a comment and I'll be sure to update the page.

Condensing Magazine Patterns & Articles

We begin our organizing adventure today with just that - beginning! Like me I'm sure that you have every intention of getting organized. You might have even planned what you would like to organize, but as the week progresses suddenly you realize it's Thursday again and you haven't organized a thing!! Well, that was almost me. I actually did do some organizing this week, but failed to organize my patterns, if you can believe that. I organized my spice cabinet and a utility shelf (which I failed to take pictures of) in my laundry room.

So, today I attempted to organize part of my desk, which meant also pulling out the stack of magazines that I had stacked on my stash shelf. After pulling out this stack of saved magazines I realized I needed to reduce more than just my knitting magazines. I didn't tackle all of the magazines because I hadn't purchased enough 3-ring binders or page protectors, but I did tear out the patterns from my Interweave magazines and my Family Handyman mags that I wanted to keep. I've decided to donate my Family Fun magazines to our local MOMS Club, and I will save the articles from Working Mother that I like.

As you can see, this side of my desk is in shambles. It's been this way for years. I clean my desk, but never really organize it so things just end up back the way they were rather quickly. My biggest problem is paper and keeping up with the slew of bills that need to be organized daily. In this picture you can also see binder which are no longer in use and a few that have not been in use for at least a year or more.

So, what did I do with all this stuff? I threw it all on my bed and sorted it. Even though I do have a drawer for bills, I simply sorted the ones that were laying on my desk and that were stuffed into the slots that you see, into a box that I will need to sort through later because some of the bill can seriously be thrown away. All the books I put in the bookshelf that is in my livingroom and the rest of the stuff got sorted into a box for my husband to go through.

The end result is rather nice. I even have some empty space with with to buy a few more binders to sort the other magazine 'keepers' into. I still have yet to actually put titles to my binders, but I'll work on that a little later today.

Thursday Patterns

This week I'm going to talk a little bit about storing fabric patterns. Because many of us who knit also sew I felt like this is an area that needs to be discussed. I, myself, separate my knitting supplies from my sewing supplies, but in any case, organizing one area will hopefully help us to organize other areas of our craft life.

On the Ravelry forum I shared my current method of storing my patterns.
I purchased a little Mobile Work Center from Wal-Mart a couple of years ago to store some of my sewing supplies as well as the patterns that I've collected. I don't have a lot of patterns right now, so this method has been good to me.

I'm able to store my sewing machine supplies, thread, and other little doo-dads in the work center. As you can see, right below the tray is where I keep my patterns. What I've done with many of my patterns because I can never fold them the same way they came out of the package is to place the pattern and package inside of a ziplock bag.

I wanted to highlight some of the other storage options that I've found while searching the net that I thought would work well.

Sue's Pattern Pockets
Each 3-ring page contains a smaller pocket to store the pattern package while the rest of the page is used as a storage for the pattern itself.

Sterlite 4-Drawer Carts
If you have more patterns then you want sitting on a bookshelf another option would be to put them in these clear drawers. You can separate your patterns by type and by size if you have more than one of the same pattern.

If you decide to tackle your patterns this week I've love for you to come back here and share what has worked best for you.

Knitting Patterns - What to do with them!

I am probably the most unorganized of this group of writers. I need lots and lots of help! But, don't we all feel the same way? I tend to see lots of patterns online that I like and want to eventually get to, so I bookmark the patterns and usually it's out of sight out of mind. The other thing that I tend to do is when I have a particular project in mind I search Knitty.com or Ravelry for the perfect pattern. I print the pattern out and put it in my project bag with all the supplies that I need for that project. What do I do when I want to do that project again later down the road? I print the pattern out again! Yes, I know, it's insanity! Such a waste of paper!

While perusing the forums of The Organized Knitting Club on Ravelry I've noticed that many of you have different methods to savings those treasured patterns. Some of the top methods mentioned were -

• Bookmarking the pattern site
• Printing the pattern and keeping in a notebook
• Printing the pattern and putting it in a bag with yarn for the project

While doing research for this topic I'd have to say the one that will get you into trouble would be bookmarking the site where the pattern in located. Why? Because the site may disappear. Last year I was desperately searching for Dobby Socks. Those are the socks that Dobby knitted in the Harry Potter series, and many have since published various patterns (thank goodness!). At the time the only pattern available was no longer available, which resulted in quite a few broken links. So, these are the methods that I found most useful and will be putting into practice this next week. I will be sharing before and after photos of my pattern archiving in next week's article.

Step One
Start a 3-ring binder with tabs in alphabetical order. Fill with plastic page-protector sleeves. As you print out the patterns that you'd be interested in knitting, stick them in the appropriate section in your notebook. If you have a lot of patterns you might have to use one notebook per category. If there are patterns which you find yourself knitting often you might want to place those patterns in their own special section in the front of the notebook.

Step Two
What about all those knitting magazines that you have laying around? This is a tip that I learned from Martha Stewart: After 6 months or so tear the patterns out of the magazines which you would like to keep and file them with your other patterns in the 3-ring binders. From there you can either toss the old magazines, or better yet, donate the magazines to your nearest elementary school.

Next week I'll share about sewing pattern storage and display my attempts at organizing my knitting patterns.

The Other Jenean

Hello! My name is Jenean and I'm very much opposite of a professional organizer :) I love to organize group activity and will be getting my bachelors degree in Hospitality Management in a year's time. I'm the founder of the club and started it because I need help with organizing my 'stuff' and figured that other people need help too.

In my section I hope to share ways to organize your projects, patterns, and even a few tips that you can do along the way which will streamline your knitting process. I more than anyone HATE doing gauge swatches, but I'll show you a method to the madness of only doing your gauge swatches once per weight/per needle size.

I'm excited to have you here with us and I hope that many more will join in and make organize a fun part of our lives.