Have you ever seen a great tutorial for a quilting or sewing project from a blog or website and printed it off? And then you saw another one? And then another? Soon, you have pages flying all over your house and you don't know where you got them from and they are in no kind of order.
Well, if you're looking for help organizing your sewing and quilting patterns printed from the Internet, you have come to the right place. This article will show you how using office supplies can help you easily organize all that wonderful information.
Crib Sheets Organic
The first thing that you will need is a three-ring binder. Do not get one of those small ones. You will need a binder that has at least a two-inch ring. It should also have a pocket on the spine for an insert and a clear front where you can insert your own cover page. I'm thinking of the binders you receive at conferences. The binder should also have two pockets.
Once you have the binder, you will need to order a box of sheet protectors. Now check to make sure that you have enough ink in your printer.
Once you have these three items, you are in business. Every time you print a pattern from the Internet, slip it in a sheet protector and place it in the binder. Always, always, always write down the URL of the site where you printed the pattern, the name of the site, a contact email and any restrictions on use. By the time you want to use the pattern, you may have forgotten this information.
Follow this process on a regular basis and soon you have all your patterns in one place. I also place any patterns I like from quilting magazines in my binder.
If you are on a buying diet, flipping through your binder is almost like looking at a catalog. It is better than a catalog, though, because you already have all the patterns!
You will want to label your binder on its spine so that when you see it on the bookshelf, you can immediately pick it out. As your pattern collection grows, you might have a separate binder for handbags and wallets. Another binder may contain only quilt pattens. Because you can switch out the paper in the binder, you are not limited to what to choose.
The advantages of this system is that you keep your patterns in tact. Plus, you can find that perfect pattern more easily, leaving you more time for sewing! And isn't that what's important?