Cleaning up and preparing for the next project

I am not the tidiest person...oh, who am I kidding? Peg Bracken ain't my patron saint for nothin' kids.

I hate housework.

I also hate not being able to find stuff when I'm working, so I do have a tidy ritual with the sewing space.

First, after the project is done, I sew up bias strips. Okay, I cut them out when I was cutting the blouse, but I sew them together at the end. I chain them and then cut them apart

I make the joins all lean the same way (less annoying when in use)

Iron it out

Roll it up on a card or whatever's handy.

Now, in case you think I'm crazy, I use this stuff. I don't waste my time making it into ironed up folded strips, because I'd just be unironing it later. And I use a lot of it for nice accents and a sweet interior detail on a lot of clothes. Sometimes it's a nice way to remember a great project. Sometimes it's what was left when the project was an enormous failure.

The cherries on yellow was  a CLOWN suit, much nicer as bias trim.

The pink with stripes was a nightmare shirt that  was ALL cut for bias

This is a sweet dress for summer and I love having more of it to wear in other things.

I pull the thread FROM THE NEEDLE END (some repair guy gave me great grief about pulling it "backwards") and thread a needle with it. And save it for later.

I clean out the parts I can get at with a huge brush. It really pulls out the fluff and dirt, so I don't worry as much about vacuuming it out.

The usual. Wipe off the throat plate, you know the drill. 

Then I oil it. Take out the needle and run it. Wipe the devil out of it, and let it sit with a piece of something absorbent under the presser foot. And come back tomorrow.

Maybe go read a book....