Winding to Unwind

Recently, I was pulling all my sewing things off their shelves and putting them back more neatly. (I can't sew much, but I can look and touch!) Among other things, I realized how full and chaotic my box of ribbons was.

I decided that something must be done.

Eventually. When school wasn't so heavy.

And then one dark and stormy night, I came home from school completely mentally and emotionally burned out. My class had tried to learn and be tested on the entire respiratory and digestive systems in a three-day period. Really, it was quite horrible.

 So I came home and remembered that box of ribbon. I needed something simple but worthwhile to do to keep myself from sitting down and crying, so I set out to see what brilliant organizing solutions were to be found in the vast Internet. I don't use ribbons often (hence the stash of leftovers) so I didn't want a container with the ribbon ends sticking out. There are some pretty cute ideas, and almost anything can look nice in a row of glass jars.

Thankfully, I don't have nearly that much ribbon.

I decided I wanted a way to keep it covered, out of the way, but easy to look through. I loved this method:

But a lot of my ribbons are short pieces, so it seemed silly to make an individual card for each. I still may do it someday; it just looks so nice. :)

I started by separating them out by color, to see what I had.

The box I had them in came with divider cards, so I started winding them on those.

And winding, and winding, pinning the end down... the perfect key to relaxing.

Isn't seeing order come out of chaos therapeutic for you, too?

Finished:

:-)

For those of you who wonder what made me take down that ribbon box to begin with, it's this!

The Viking department at my JoAnn's is getting new fixtures, so they're selling all their old things. They let me have this desk for a very good price, and it's so nice. (I already had the hutch from an old desk) Most of my fabric fits in boxes or on bolts below, and suddenly I have a lot of extra room above! I may even be able to keep the middle shelf for current projects/mending etc, so they don't pile up on the tabletop.