006. Organization in the sewing/craft room

First off, I've been ridiculously busy with schoolwork and haven't been able to sew or even post for the past week or so. I feel terrible, and just felt the need to explain myself. Now, on to the topic for today!

I've recently been butting heads with my parents about my "sewing room" in the basement. I actually have a ton of space, and should be very thankful. However, I suck at organization and space utility. I'm also a procrastinator, hence why I'm writing a blog post instead of actually doing any cleaning. (Hey, I started!) I've come up with a bit of a problem that's going to need some crafty ingenuity, I guess.

I have a shitload, and I mean shitload, of storage drawers. I have this constant need to buy more storage drawers, but I don't seem to be making enough use of them. I have a bunch of different sizes, and they're mainly filled with junk, to be honest. I love Rubbermaid plastic drawers, the kind that come in towers of various sized drawers. The problem is that I'm not sure how I should organize everything.

I have some nice wide, but shallow, drawers that I meant to use for fabric storage. But then I had to ask myself, how to divvy up the fabric and somehow categorize them so I know where everything is?

Then I have a tower of 4 drawers, 2 shallow ones and 2 deeper ones, which fits very nicely under my cutting table. It's filled with old school stuff I need to clear out and get rid of, but then what do I do with it? I've got the top 2 drawers cleared, and I put my scissors in the top drawer. But what else? And how do I keep it from being a hazard to fingertips? hm.
I think I possibly want to use the second drawer to store thread, but how can I keep it from getting all tangled? I need some kind of rack. So here's my plan. Measure the bottom of the drawer, and get my sister (who's very handy with power tools and owns a table saw) to cut me a piece of scrap wood to fit in there. Then get some dowels and glue them or nail them to the board. Then I think I can put my threads on the dowels inside the drawer. I've seen other people hang thread racks on the wall, but I don't think I want to bother looking for studs behind the drywall. It's a nightmare in this basement.

I also need to figure out some ergonomic way to position all the drawers. Labels will be good.

I know I have a small set of 3 drawers that can sit on top of the filing cabinet where I can put smaller notions, like buttons, zippers, etc. Then there's the question of desktop items, like seam rippers, bobbins, pincushions, and replacement machine needles, and how I'm going to keep those. I have boxes on the table, but I don't like them.

I'll post pictures when I'm done! This is going to be more than a one day project, I'm assuming. Back to work for me.