organization – tierneycreates

So a couple days ago John and I decided to switch back my studio to another room and our bedroom back to the primary bedroom.

In case you have no idea what I am talking about, see this post from June 2025 – Thrifting for the Studio.

My studio is located in the former Primary Bedroom of the house. A couple years ago my husband John and I decided we didn’t need that much room for our main bedroom and moved to a smaller bedroom. Originally it was a carpeted room but in summer 2024 John put in a floor.

I’ve always had a small space to sew and craft until I met John and then a couple years ago we turned our primary bedroom (which is fairly large) into my studio.

However In my small crafting spaces I created entire bodies of work such as those I exhibited in my solo show (see 2019 post Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part III) The Wardrobe Meets the Wall. (And no new body of work has occurred in my large studio!)

I made that entire The Wardrobe Meets the Wall collection of 12+ quilts in a tiny little back bedroom of my house in Oregon where I had to use part of my hallway as my design wall.

I know of course I traveled a lot in 2025 but this has been an ongoing problem – I don’t seem to be as “creatively inspired” in a large space. I just had a gut feeling that I needed a cozy little space of creativity again.

So we switched the rooms back and Chaos in the Craft Room ensued:

Moving the contents of my large studio and walk in closet into a much smaller space was quite the undertaking!

The good thing of this move is I spent a couple days preparing for it and purging what I didn’t really need. It seems that I thrifted stuff to fill the space – I expanded to fill the space…

It took a couple days after we switched rooms to settle into my new room, which is less than half the size of the space I had in the primary bedroom, and here is what it looks like now:

Yes my design wall had to be split into half as it wouldn’t work in the room in it’s full size.

Besides giving me a small cozy space to work in to stimulate my creativity, John and I also made this switch because we are considering selling the house someday and moving to a smaller Ranch-style house. We recently toured houses in a cool new development in another section of the Denver Metropolitan area and fell in love with a one story house with a basement that could be finished however we liked.

We aren’t ready to sell/move just yet, but we were going to have to switch the rooms back anyway someday in order to put our house on the market.

So what became of my huge stash of craft supplies (most of them thrifted)? Well I moved all the sewing related supplies that didn’t fit in the studio shelves into the closet in my new studio:

The non sewing supplies got moved to the closet in the upstairs guest room which had previous housed my clothes, which are now moved into the walk in closet off the primary bedroom.

And…

As far as the Primary Bedroom, John and I took a couple days and turned it into a relaxing bedroom sanctuary. I want it to be our private sanctuary so I am not sharing any photos. (I recently saw on YouTube a tour of a Hollywood actor’s home on the Architectural Digest channel and she wouldn’t show her bedroom because she said that was her private sanctuary. That inspired me!)

Well here’s to getting into my cozy new studio and creating!

Studio

Sorting and Organizing: Sometimes All You Need is a Friend

June 2, 2015July 27, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I have coworker (in my non-crafting, health care industry day job that keeps the electricity on so I can blog) who likes to say: “Sometimes all you need is a friend” (to resolve an issue). She says this tongue-in-cheek and is usually referring to a complex software challenge and “a friend” means someone who knows how to resolve your software issue, or a tool/reference to guide you towards resolution of your issue.

Although she says it tongue-in-cheek, her statement holds true. In my observations, in many situations in life, such as taking an overwhelming project to sort, declutter and organize your stuff – sometimes all you need is a friend.

Recently I helped two friends with their different organization projects:

A friend who wanted to gain control of a huge and unwieldy fabric stash; and
A friend who wanted to declutter and organize a desk where intense piles of paper had taken control

Both friends were overwhelmed with the tasks before them.

I can relate to being overwhelmed when it comes to a large decluttering/organization project of your own stuff. In my post The Fabric Purge! I share that during the sorting and reorganization of my fabric stash, I became so overwhelmed I sat on the floor and cried for a while, as there seemed to be no end in sight of my fabric purging and organization project. I could have definitely used a friend there, even if for just mere moral support.

SORTING (DON’T DO IT ALONE)

I think one of the biggest challenges to taking on a decluttering/organization project on your stuff, is SORTING YOUR STUFF. Why is sorting your stuff so difficult? Well, because it is your stuff. It is interesting to you, it has history, it brings back memories, it makes you think about things good and bad, it makes you realize what you forgot to do, it is meaningful to you. You can get stuck trying to sort through your stuff as you take that trip down memory lane or get anxious on what you have YET to accomplish.

This is where a having friend there can help. Your friend knows you but does not have the level of connection to your stuff that you have to your stuff. Your friend can more objectively sort your stuff to help you make quicker decisions. What does this mean? Below are some examples of when I worked with my two friends on their decluttering/organization projects:

Friend with the Unwieldy Fabric Stash – For this friend I sorted her fabrics into what I thought were piles of the same collection, and presented those collections to her to quickly sort through and decide – keep or not keep. I noticed when she was left to sort from scratch she had some memory lane bonding with fabric. I was not pushy, but I kept her moving forward by continually asking her to make decisions about piles of fabric. Once she made a decision I boxed up the fabrics and put them on the shelf. She could not spend anymore time visiting with that particular fabric collection until we finished getting through her whole stash. I did let my friend visit with her unsorted fabric as she liked while I was sorting as she knew when I started asking questions, it was time for rapid decisions.

Friend with the Desk-from-Heck – For this friend, first I sorted her papers (using my quick best guess from quick glance) into 4-6 general piles such as 1) important looking papers; 2) stuff she might want to keep; 3) business cards and small tags/cards; 4) photos; and 5) junk mail looking stuff. I made quick decisions and since I wanted to respect my friend’s privacy I did not read through any of the important looking papers (statements, business like correspondence, bills, etc.). If my friend had started sorting from scratch on her own, she might have gotten stuck on reviewing each important looking paper, etc. When I was done sorting materials from her desk into the various piles, I handed each pile to my friend and she made quick decision on each piece of paper of 1) keep; 2) recycle; or 3) save for immediate action. Before you know it her overwhelming pile of papers turned into a clean desk with a stack of important papers to go through on her own the next day. Plus by pulling out all the recycling (mailers, catalogs, obsolete papers) it made her pile that actually needed her attention look much smaller and less overwhelming.

In both cases, I think the key to success is having someone you trust (such as a friend) do the initial sorting (even if they get it wrong); and then having a friend with you to encourage you (not pressure you) to make as quick decisions as possible. You can get stuck if you are sorting through your stuff alone.

Even if your friend is not into organization and not interested in helping you sort, sometimes just having a friend there with you to hang out with while you work on your project, encourages you move forward.

Sometimes all you need is a friend.