By Kim Jones

Having a room designated just for your quilting “hobby” can be considered an extravagance or a necessity, depending on your interest or investment in said hobby. For me, I am among the throng of quilters that have acquired an alarming amount of fabric from which I have made many attempts to organize and, therefore, store/display/hide/etc. My third bedroom has become that place.

Yes, it is a bedroom first, to accommodate my kids and grandchildren when they journey up from the cities to visit. But open its closet doors, look under the bed, or gaze upon the packed bureau as you enter the room and this inviting guest bedroom reveals itself to be storehouse of fabric for which my future quilts are built upon.
Whenever my husband might happen to take a peek into my sewing/guest room while I am sorting through my prodigious piles of fabric, he’ll look perplexed and say something like, “What ARE you doing?” I’m most grateful that he seldom comments on the amount of fabric that does get stored in that room, since he sees me go through this sorting process on a particularly regular basis. With a retired husband lurking about, it’s bound to happen…that inevitable pronouncement: (say it with me friends) “I think you could open your own fabric store”.

Recently, I have made the daring declaration that I am not going to purchase any more quilting fabric, except for the occasional backing fabric that I might need for the many quilt projects that have accumulated over the years. Yes, I have plenty of projects from which I can occupy my desire to be creative, probably, until the day I die. Ha-Ha! All good intentions, right? Until you walk into that new quilt shop that you happen to come across on your most recent travels.

Well, thank goodness, I have my sewing/guest room with its assortment of plastic totes. They surely will be able to handle any recent purchases and will blend in quite nicely with my current inventory. And my husband can keep his nose out of MY ROOM!