SBQ and 'stuff'

Just for a change, I thought I'd answer the SBQ as soon as I received it ... I actually wrote this post, then saved it as a draft, and forgot all about it until now, two days later!

A busy couple of days, with not a stitch in sight - I did a whole pile of hemstitching on 5 different needlerolls on Wednesday night, as I couldn't concentrate on much else, but I still have to get the sewing machine out to do the seams before stuffing ... and there's too much clutter around to do that at the moment hmmm ...

On Thursday morning we were up with the larks, to let in the 'odd job man' who does the maintenance on my unit - I've been having problems with the front door lock for quite some time, and finally decided to mention it when I had my recent inspection ... it turned out Paul had to go out and get a new lock to fit, so we had to spend a bit of time waiting around at home - but at the same time as Paul being here, the delivery van arrived with my new lounge suite. To be honest, I was really disappointed with it when it arrived, but it's grown on me since then ... I only saw the colour on a wee swatch, and it looked a lot darker when it arrived, and not quite as 'blue' as I thought. It's got a bit of a violet tinge to it, in some lights ... then looks 'french' blue in others (a bit more french blue than DMC 792). I have to say, though, it's 100 times more comfy than my old one, that's for sure! Here's a piccie of the new suite ... I'd take a piccie of the whole room to show it off better, but it's a shambles at the moment (I'll say why in a minute ...) ... I'll take an 'overall' photo once the lounge is tidied up and finished. In fact the photo makes it look a lot bluer than it actually is - it has more of a '792' tinge in real life ...
Before:

After:

We've had a drama trying to work out what the hell to do with my old lounge suite. Fraze decided that he didn't want it after all (I only found out the night before the new suite was delivered), and the Salvation Army won't take it because it has a tear in one of the arms (that happened while it was in the old flat - I let them hang onto one of the chairs for a while after I moved out, as they only had a sofa ... so now I'm stuck with this bloody thing). I found an online Yahoo group to give away 'free stuff' for the taking, and I posted a message earlier this afternoon for my old sofabed and chairs "free to a good home" - and within an hour I'd already got a response saying someone would like it, and will pick it up on Monday. At the moment it's piled on top of each other between my lounge area and dining table (hence the difficulty in getting to the sewing machine at the moment, as it's on the dining table) - with the size of my flat, that's the last thing I need piled up in a 'corner'! :(

To top it off my mother has been a very very bad influence ... she's helped to drain my bank balance in its entirety (as at yesterday I have $20 to my name again!) - but it was for a good cause :) We went to Ikea earlier in the week to check out some storage ideas for my future wishlist, and I found some bookcases etc that I love ... well, after coming home to my lovely new lounge suite, we ended up going back to Ikea and picking up a few things ... my last two days have been spent playing DIY Queen, and I've made up a bookcase with doors for a new china cabinet (so a lot of my glasses have been able to come out of storage yippee), plus a CD tower to match (I previously had 4 x mini CD towers that were a bit rickety in front of the lounge windows, but decided they had to go in readiness for cat-proofing my home), and a new coffee table to match as well. On top of that, we also got 4 sets of mini drawers for my flosses etc to go into, also freeing up some cupboard space. I spent last night and this morning staining them with wood stain - white for the outsides, and blue (surprise, surprise) for the drawers - and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to fill the first lot (I've only painted two sets so far, 'cos we didn't have enough room to do the whole lot, as it's covering the last remaining space in the lounge).

Today I've got Rogan Josh marinating in the fridge, so we can have an Indian curry for dinner tonight ... unfortunately no stitching will be done again tonight, as I can't get to everything in the shambles that is currently our lounge, and I managed to put my neck/shoulder out lifting the DIY stuff - I'm just a walking disaster area healthwise these days! hmmm ...

Now onto the SBQ ... Today's SBQs were suggested by Ami and Anna and are:

"Do you have an organizational system for your fabric? If so, what is it? If not, what do you store your fabric in? How do people store their fabric, especially those small but potentially usable pieces? Do they sort by count? How do they label it or otherwise know what each piece is?"

Basically I just have all my fabrics in three separate plastic storage bins - one for 32ct, one for 28ct, and one for everything else ... I just keep them in the original bags with the labels on them, and regardless of size it all just gets lumped in together - definitely not very flash! ;)