Sewing Spaces Focus

Confession time! My sewing space is in dire need of reorganization and some creative solutions to help me manage the various projects I’m currently working on. It’s a tiny space where I can really only fit one 4 foot table comfortably. This makes working on my queen sized quilt a big challenge, plus trying to find room to work on smaller projects at the same time too.

Over the next seven weeks, Shruti over at 13 Woodhouse Road is hosting an awesome feature on sewing spaces. She’s lined up a great group of guest bloggers who are sharing their sewing spaces and organization techniques. I’ll be a guest late in February, so I better get myself organized too! There are prizes to be won each week on her blog too.

Evernote Premium Give-Away

Earlier this month, I gave-away ten one-month trials for the premium version of Evernote. On a first come, first serve basis, they went very quickly. So, I contacted the great folks at Evernote, to see if I could get some more one-month codes to give-away.

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They came through, big time. They’ve generously donated five one-year coupons for me to give-away to my blog readers. These can be used by existing or new Evernote users to upgrade their accounts to the premium version for a full year.

While Evernote won’t help you organize your physical sewing space, it definitely can help you organize your digital quilting life. Last year I wrote an article for The Quilt Life outlining some of the ways I use Evernote: No more sticky notes: How Evernote organized my quilting life [PDF].

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Give-Away

To win a one-year subscription to the Premium version of Evernote leave a comment below discussing the following: What’s your biggest organizational challenge in your life right now? It does not have to be quilting-related. How do you think Evernote could help you be more organized and less stressed in 2011? Five random winners will be chosen January 26th.

P.S. Facebook readers, please share your stories on the blog post to be entered in the give-away.

Sewing Spaces Focus and Evernote Premium Give-Aways
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35 thoughts on “Sewing Spaces Focus and Evernote Premium Give-Aways

  • January 20, 2011 at 9:25 am
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    My greatest organizational challenge is my photographs. I had it under control until a few years ago. Actually until I went digital. I have half finished scrap books for each child, boxes of photo’s historical and for my own family and upteen thousand digital photos. Photo’s I love to take but am finding hard to organize.
    Put that on top of quilting/sewing, managing a 2000+ item church Ministry Library, three kids, DH, aging parents, job parttime, and a few medical problems of my own. On top of that my basement is a disaster. A couple of years of just shove it there.
    I am wondering if this could help me. I have tried day timers, pda’s, lists, files, the flylady…. and on
    Sometimes it is just the amount that is overwhelming.
    I will try most things just to see if it would help. Most of all when I try to organize it helps clear my mind to get on with a job. Cleaning my sewing room really helped me to focus there. I hope reorganizing your room does the same for you!

  • January 20, 2011 at 9:38 am
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    I already use Evernote (the one you get for free) – and I really like it. My greatest organizational challenge would be to handle my professional life and my hopefully-becoming-my-profession-artquilty-life at the same time. I also tried other systems – nothing really worked for me. I do use the good old to-do-list on paper, but I’m not too happy about it … Good luck with reorganizing your sewing room !! (I’ll be back to check it out )

  • January 20, 2011 at 10:03 am
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    Thanks to your site I already use (the free version of) Evernote! It has “saved” all my quilt patterns twice from TWO computer crashes in a row. All I had to do was log in on my new computer and there they were!
    My biggest challenge is still organizing all my fabric. I now have 2 sewing rooms!

  • January 20, 2011 at 12:03 pm
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    My storage closet ~ I can’t find a thing in it.
    ourbusylittlebunch(at)hotmail(dot)com

  • January 20, 2011 at 12:54 pm
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    My greatest challenge is working 2 businesses. Our mom and pop appliance business and my longarm quilting business. Organizing my time and keeping my paper work in order are my challenges. And between my photos (personal and business) and my husbands hobby of collecting local area postcards, we need organizational help. Thank you Evernote for your generous donation!

  • January 20, 2011 at 1:40 pm
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    Oh my, I have never even heard of this. I have so many ideas, patterns, etc. in so many places. This would help me so much to be more organized.
    I’m so glad I read this post.

    ShirleyC
    clarkclay@bellsouth.net

  • January 20, 2011 at 2:08 pm
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    My biggest difficulty is keeping OTHER PEOPLE’S agendas moving forward. So much seems to be in perpetual pending. I’m a secretary…wife…mom…

  • January 20, 2011 at 2:15 pm
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    My biggest organizing problem online is keeping track of all the fantastic tutorials and online patterns. I used to have them all bookmarked on my browser. But sadly last year my computer crashed and had to be re-installed from scratch. I lost all those fantastic bookmarks of ideas. :-( Some of them were all my studio organizing examples. I would still have access to that info with Evernote. Now if only it could come over to my house to clean up my studio in between projects.

  • January 20, 2011 at 2:23 pm
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    I have so many organizational challenges in front of me that picking just one is difficult.

    My list of UFOs is probably one of the worst. I’ll find one and think to myself, “Self? I thought we finished this one!”

    Then there are my books. I LOVE to read. Unfortunately, because I have so many, when I’m out on a book-buying-bonanza, I find out that I’ve duplicated a title or three that are already in my “library.”

    I have the free version of EverNote on my Droid phone. I haven’t really explored it much but sounds like I’m going to have to do so. A Premium version would be AWESOME!

    Thanks so much for having this giveaway!

  • January 20, 2011 at 2:29 pm
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    Just went and read your Evernote article. Wow! It looks like it’s just what I’ve been searching for. I have multiple to-do lists, daily schedules, quilting notebooks, lists of movies to see, music to listen to…..I guess my biggest organisational challenge is organisation! What an amazing give-away.

  • January 20, 2011 at 5:48 pm
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    My biggest organizational challenge is keeping track of what pattern goes with which fabric stack, where all my online patterns & tutes are filed, which embroidery design I’m looking for, and where all my notions are stored. We live in a 40′ 5th wheel, and I have notions, fabrics & supplies stuffed into every nook & cranny I can find. I spend a lot of time searching for just the right stabilizer (because I have to put it where it fits, not necessarily where all the other stabilizers are), or that elusive notion I squirrelled away, in such a good spot…

    I also get involved in craft shows and have lots of doctor appointments, and I do doggy-day care, so I have lots of appointments and must-do scheduled. My little pocket calendar goes everywhere, but it would be nice to have it all online too!

    thanks for the great opportunity!

  • January 20, 2011 at 6:33 pm
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    My Greatest organisational challenge is my sewing room. There are little packets of everything every where. My fabric is like one big hug in piles all around me and the magazines, sometimes it is hard to keep track of which issue I really do have. Also keeping track of all my Works in Progress quilts. Just where I am up to and where the pattern is. I have the same problem with my favourite recipes remembering which book or magazine they are in especially with the change of seasons. I have had this disorganisational problem all my life. I know I am not too old to change I just need the right program
    Would just so love the opportunity to win
    Many Thanks
    Lynne

  • January 20, 2011 at 9:08 pm
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    I LOVE making lists. on paper. in text files. in my daytimer. everywhere. Evernote helps me keep it all in one place. Once I put it into evernote, I never have to question the location of my notes or lists! I am confident I will never find evernote crumpled up in the fist of a small child. :)

  • January 20, 2011 at 9:24 pm
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    I love LOVE Evernote! I use it for work as well as personal stuff!

    My org challenge is my sewing room. I need to use the space I have more efficiently, and the books, magazines, and printed pages from the interwebs are all over!

  • January 21, 2011 at 12:01 am
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    My biggest organizational challenge is the snippets of knowledge i create from the web. I save them on different places but searching through them again is a mess. I have free evernote account but since most of my documents are in pdf, it is of not much use to it.

  • January 21, 2011 at 12:22 am
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    My biggest organizational challenge is time and feeling I don’t have enough of it… that comes down to prioritizing tasks and to dos, I am not doing that well. I’d love to have segmented time for my professional life as a photographer and time for my quilting/sewing life. I’ve never used Evernote – it sounds interesting.

  • January 21, 2011 at 4:22 am
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    My biggest organizational challenge is my computer. I have so many programs and files and photos that I can’t find what I want when I want it. I need a way to integrate to do lists, calendar, address book, all the little scraps of paper, and a way to organize all the neat things I find online once, but have a hard time finding again if I want to go back to have another look. Maybe Evernote will help – I certainly hope I win so I can find out!
    BTW, thanks for the quilt contests. I enjoy seeing how different quilters use the same idea or theme.

  • January 21, 2011 at 2:42 pm
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    My biggest challenge is my quilting area. I have taken over a windowless storage room in our basement. It has great lights in it, but is very narrow I am sharing the space with a shredder, wrapping paper, school supplies, tools, cake decorating supplies, old magazines , retired computers, old ball equipment, and I know that if we had one, I would be sharing space with the old kitchen sink too! I have to keep my quilts very organized, and sometimes that is a big struggle. Each time I quilt I reorganize something, so I can get a bit more room carved out for myself.
    It truly is a quilters cave. Thanks for running this contest, and hopefully I can win something that would help.

  • January 21, 2011 at 2:58 pm
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    My biggest challenge is keeping track of all the projects I have in the works. I’m going to try using Evernote to keep track of all the inspiration, patterns, etc. so I don’t lose projects into the UFO pile.

  • January 21, 2011 at 8:20 pm
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    I am having a terrible time keeping all my paper work organized. I used to be better, but I guess I will just blame it on old age.

  • January 22, 2011 at 11:00 am
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    My biggest organizational challenge is simply me and everything I do. I need help with photos, magazines, patterns, the linen closet, and my craft room. I think the only semi-organized area of the house is the kitchen and even that could use some help lol.

  • January 22, 2011 at 2:59 pm
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    It’s my craft room and computer room. If I’m not in one I’m in the other.

    Papers and/or fabric everywhere.

    Billie

  • January 22, 2011 at 11:33 pm
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    My photography, quilt patterns and embroidery designs that I’ve saved on my computer are my main organization NIGHTMARES..I’m a photo junkie and I have pic’s not only on my computer but I also have a dozen or so rubbermaid containers FULL of photos from a previous 13yr marriage and my son from birth to now (he’s 17 now!) and the last 10yrs since I remarried.. YIKES…other than that I’m a pretty neat and organized person-some of my quilt buddies sometimes call me “Ms. OCD” when it comes to my organization…so right now I would be over joyed to win any kind of help I could get!

  • January 23, 2011 at 10:09 am
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    I never thought about using Evernote for my quilting projects. It would replace the notebooks I start and never can find when I need it.

    Photos are a big one for me, too.

    And of course, novel ideas and research. I’m going to check out Evernote.

  • January 23, 2011 at 3:24 pm
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    I have a lot of patterns for embroidery, sewing and quilting, and as you guess, I can’t find anything when I need too. I just need some way to organize my patterns so maybe I can do some sewing instead of looking for sewing most of my time. I have not tried Evernote, just found out about this software and anxious to try. hopefully it will organize my collections so I can find them. I, also, have lots of old photo’s due to doing genealogy, is this something that will organize photo’s too.
    well, like others, I am going to check it out..
    Jennie

  • January 24, 2011 at 4:53 pm
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    Patterns, fabric, ideas – I need help keeping it all organized!

  • January 25, 2011 at 11:01 pm
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    I am just learning about Evernote and would love to have it. I an zillions of embroidery designs and now I am accumulating quilting patterns that I need to catalog and organize so that I can find them. Having them tagged in Evernote sounds like the perfect solution.

    Chris

  • January 26, 2011 at 7:13 am
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    I sew professionally and personally as well as quilting and crafts. Being organized would be such a relief. I have patterns, books, fabric and tons of notions and supplies that need organizing. I think I need a maid as well.

  • January 27, 2011 at 8:49 pm
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    I have started using the free version to get my books under control.

  • January 28, 2011 at 1:21 pm
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    My challenge is keeping track of quilting ideas I see in blogs and websites. I need a place to put them to easily find them. Evernote sounds like a good solution. Kathie L in allentown

  • January 28, 2011 at 8:06 pm
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    Oh, gosh. My closets are total FAIL. I’ve gotten to the point where I keep the doors shut and hope for the best.

    btw…..Evernote is a great little tool.

  • January 28, 2011 at 8:22 pm
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    I have been trying out Evernote after reading your blog about it and also hearing about it on the radio.
    Thanks for your passing on a great tool.

  • January 30, 2011 at 8:37 pm
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    I have piles, stacks, sacks, bundles, tubs, baskets and corners stuffed with UFOs… I have read that I should toss them, donate them, whatever but I simply CAN NOT do that. Tidier would be an option I could live with!

  • February 4, 2011 at 2:08 pm
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    What’s your biggest organizational challenge in your life right now?

    I would have to say space is my biggest organizational challenge. We have downsized our living arrangements and I lost my sewing space completely. We have begun fixing up an old garden shed for my sewing space but I just cant figure out HOW to keep everything close for when I need it; but kept hidden when I don’t.

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