Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Quilting ABCs: PIGS, UFOs (PhDs) and WIPs

Jill over at Ramblings of a Fabric and Yarn Obsessor, has proposed a Year of the PIGS support group. All you have to do is answer a question twice a month and share your deepest, darkest secrets about your PIGS and UFOs.  Well maybe not those kinds of secrets, but tips and techniques you've found to tame all those PIGS which are hogging shelf space in your closet.   (PIGS are Projects in Grocery Sacks.  Those projects you have the pattern and the fabric, but stalled on start up). 


Jill's question for this week is "How do you store your UFOs and PIGS separate from your fabric stash?"  

I use various storage containers for PIGS, UFOs and WIPs.


The top bin with the vinyl window contains all the purple and yellow fat quarters that are being used for the purple and yellow scrap quilt (a WIP/UFO).  The little yellow sticky note tells me what project the fat quarters are associated with. The bottom gray container has the patterns and fabric for 5 or 6 PIGS.  Both of these containers reside at the back of my sewing room closet.  I use the same gray containers for some of my fabric stash. 


These "Super Satchels" are stored on a shelf in the sewing room closet. They contain UFOs and PIGS.  You know, out of sight, out of mind?  All the fabric associated with a project is in these satchels. One of the UFOs has more than one satchel for that reason.   



Here is the one PIGS that is actually in a sack of sorts.  It's one of those Minky strip quilts and it stays in the bag so as not to shed all over the other projects. 


I have more satchels which sit on the chest in the sewing room.  These are the WIPs and UFOs that I'm actively working on.  Once I finish sewing the binding on a quilt, I empty out the satchel.  Extra yardage gets rolled back into the stash.  Scraps go into my scrap bin.  I don't do any preparation of the scraps, but I'm going to start cutting the smaller scraps into squares, strips and bricks for scrap projects this year.  The recently vacated satchel usually has a new project in it within a day or too, so they don't stay empty for long. 

So that's how I store all my past, present and future projects.  Check out Jill's post to see other storage solutions. 

5 comments:

Chris said...

You are just so organized!! Kudos! I have one BIG happy mess that I rummage through periodically. LOL

Shay said...

As far as Im concerned Kate PIGS are part of your stash!

I have a big cupboard and EVERYTHING gets thrown in there- thats pretty much the extent of my system.

I see now I may have to mend my ways since you're so organised!

Marg said...

I don't have any PIG's as I buy the pattern and wait for inspiration to kick in before I get the fabric, and I don't buy kits. Oh I just remembered I do have a BOM that I started about 10 years ago that is sitting in a folder.
My stash is slowly taking over the house, I tried to contain it in a fashion last week, but I need to find a better way, either that or buy a bigger house!

SpinningStar said...

I like those boxes with the handles - they would be great for traveling with projects. Where did you get them?

I just have a variety of plastic boxes - small ones to gather scraps and small projects and then larger ones to hold "fabric families" or that group of fabric which just goes together and is not in my stash available for general use.

Liz

Quilter Kathy said...

Oddly, I have no projects that I haven't started! I have little self control, so if I have the fabric, it's cut and usually partially pieced or in blocks. I like your stackable containers.