Saturday 11 July 2020

Friday's Stitching Ground 🗂

This was my view this evening in the corner of the great room, with Chewie checking on me!


I finally completed the bottom and now I'm working on the tree. I have a couple floating ghosts to add and I think I might use glow in the dark floss for them.


My question this week is how do you file away and find your patterns?
For the most part, my patterns are here, not too hard to locate.


But I also have them here, mainly smaller kits including all the Mill Hills.


Then I have some stitching magazines here, 


here, 


and here, although these are mainly Christmas.


Some combo drawers, Mermaids and Halloween.


Then I have my WIP drawer, at least the ones I can fit.


I can pretty much find what I'm looking for, EXCEPT remembering which magazine has what in it. I used to put sticky tabs labeling what the pattern is that I like, but that ends up being a lot of tabs! How do you remember (and find) the pattern you're looking for in a magazine? Did I mention I have online magazines I've purchased too? Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!

11 comments:

Mad Englishwoman said...

It all looks beautifully tidy and organised. How about listing the magazines in a notebook/file in date order with details (patterns, page numbers)? It will be quite a job to go through the magazines you already have but then you can keep the list up to date as you buy new magazines. It's the system I use for my photographs and their dated folders on my computer.

Quilting Tangent said...

Make an index for the magazine projects.

Cathy said...

I'm really going to need to start that Halloween project sometime soon since I love how yours is turning out. Your stash is much better organized than mine, but one thing I'm doing is going through all my magazines and freebies and tearing out the projects I want to keep. Then I mark them with the Magazine name and date/number and enter each one in an Excel file that has a separate sheet for each theme. The final step is filing them in some old two inch binders I found with tabs separating the themes.

Magpie's Mumblings said...

Out of curiosity - do the magazines have an index in them that shows little photos of the projects? Perhaps taking a photocopy of those indexes and filing them in a 3-ring binder that has dividers according to Halloween, Christmas, etc. Might be easier to flip through the indexes rather than the magazines themselves if you're looking for something. Just a thought - and probably a useless one at that!

Barb said...

The glow in the dark thread would be just perfect!! I actually rarely stitch from magazines so I'm not sure how I would manage it. My organization looks a lot like your first photo. I can usually find what I am looking for unless I filed in a strange way!! (I say, what was I thinking???!!!)

Mary said...

Great idea for glow in the dark thread!! Your making wonderful progress on this stitch. I have my patterns in notebooks by designer but I'm going to change it to themes and seasons to make it easier to find, I actually forget all that I have! I have one cross stitch magazine!! Your very well organized!

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Nice work on the Haunted Mansion, looking forward to the little ghosties.
I like your filing cabinet storage. I need to get better organised with my chart storage! My magazines are all in cardboard boxes by title. I did start keeping a list of charts I wanted to stitch but it got too long! So now, if I want to stitch something from a magazine I start it straight away. Except for my JCS specials which live in one box together.

Faith... said...

The mansion is looking great and I love the glow in the dark idea for the ghosts! Your organization looks pretty good there! As for magazines I have gotten rid of most of them after taking out the the charts I wanted. After REALLY looking at the charts I didn't really keep that many because of taste changes or I just thought I would realistically never get to them. Now I really mainly get Just CrossStitch. It comes in the mail but as a subscriber you are also entitled to a downloaded version. Sooo I download it and keep it on my external drive and then I cut out the cover, table of contents and in the very back of the magazine they have a "gallery" page which shows all the projects. I keep those pages together in a three ring binder so I can easily flip thru it and see what there is. I also very casually leave the magazine I dissected in doctor's waiting rooms hoping people may be curious and open it up and get hooked!

diamondc said...

Astrid: Chewie is adorable, what a sweet face.
Your Halloween design is a cute design.
I do not keep my patterns for long, most magazines I keep in order by month and year with a ledger of the pattern I like and the page and year of the book along with the month, that way it is easy to find.

Catherine

Tiffstitch said...

Great progress and love seeing your pattern organization! For the online ones, I started making a page on my blog that's private, with the magazine and the design. But you have to keep up with it, and I haven't. I've also tried printing out the ones I like, but then I end up with all these patterns again. It is a problem.

Linda said...

Your organizing looks great Astrid. Most of my charts and kits are listed in binders with the number box its in. The magazines are just piled on shelves.

Linda