Sunday, January 04, 2009

WIPs, UFO's & Stash Sorting


It is that time of year when I take stock of everything that I have done over the last 12 months, review what I have finished & what is still left to do. Ten years ago, after completing the Intermediate Certificate with the Embroiderer's Guild here in Sydney, I started a little book of all my new projects that I started. As I worked on each one, I would make notes in my book, including what my thoughts were, where I was headed, & what I still had to do. Over time this little book became very disjointed and bits of all my projects were all mixed up together. Last year I decided to tidy up my method & put everything on a huge spreadsheet, with each project having it's own worksheet. Much more organised!

Two days ago I decided it was time to add a new page of all my UFO's. These were all listed in a word file ( after sorting out a cupboard some years ago), & I thought I could cut & paste everything from this word file to my spreadsheet. Somewhere along the line, after much setting up of new worksheets, cutting & pasting, I forgot to save my file. OOPS! As you can imagine I was "Not Happy Jan" and uttered a few choice words. ( I blame lack of sleep from New Year!)
So yesterday I spent the day sorting through one of my sewing cupboards, the one with all the UFO's stashed away & hiding out of sight. As I sorted, I made up my new UFO worksheet & carefully saved it after each entry. So now my spreadsheet reads like this:-

Page 1. Fabric stash - all 37 pieces of dressmaking fabric (with more still to be listed)
Page 2. UFO's & WIP's pre 2008 - all 34 of them ( and still more hiding in other places)
Page 3. 2008 worklist summary with 9 projects still outstanding & not finished
Page 4. A finished items list with markings for pieces for exhibitions
Page 5. 2009 work list summary ( so far this page is empty)

The pages continue with each individual project having it's own page of work notes. It makes everything easy to find. Sometime in the future I may add a page of threads.
Today it is the turn of the magazines. Not sure what I will do with those yet, they are taking up too much space in my cupboard so something needs to be done.

2 comments:

Guzzisue said...

you sound soooo organised!!I just seen to have a mess of bits and pieces, most of which I now can't even get to!!!

Adriana Ortiz said...

I'm learning how to be organised, so many projects to finish!!
You are the best,this will save you a lot of time.

Regards,
Adriana