I used to have lots and lots of magazines and books. I started purging them by taking them to retreat. I do have lots of patterns on a shelf that I intend to make. My largest stash of patterns are digital though. I have an external drive that I save them on.

I have a few magazines left but haven't looked through them in a long time. I have books, too......not that I use them, or need them but did give away the ones I knew I would never use. I also save pictures of quilts I think I'd like to do.....especially easy ones. I rarely print them off anymore unless it's when I start to work on it because it might end up being purged. What I need to do is delete the picture after I've made it. After the top is completed, the picture usually goes on my Pinterest page so I can still see the pattern. I think about my age, too, but you're sewing rings around me, Theresa. You're doing great!

I've bought a couple of books and I save a few magazines. I do print some and put in a cabinet, but mostly I save them on the computer to my favorites. I would like to get them more organized, but I see that as taking away time to sew. LOL

Sharon, I just noticed that your reply has a "Best Answer" designation. I've never noticed that before. How does that happen?

I wondered about that best reply thingie. It is fairly recent to the site and I think houzz does the selection. .???? As far as I am concerned, they are all ‘best answer’.

Theresa

Remember the padded, fabric covered notebooks from the 80s? I had a bunch of them full of knit, crochet, and quilting patterns I'd cut out of magazines. Recently I went through them all, pulled out a VERY few that I may still make someday, and threw the rest away, along with the fabric covered albums. I also culled a lot of the books I'd collected over the years. I figured if they'd been sitting on a shelf for years and I'd never made anything from them, I wasn't ever going to.

Donna

PS - I have to admit that the boxes full of culled books are actually still sitting in a closet waiting to go to Goodwill, so they aren't really gone yet. LOL)

I have boxes of quilting magazines that I haven't looked at in years. Maybe I should do that... or not! I have another box of books that I inherited and have never used - I keep giving away, but most folks don't want them either! I do have a 3-ring binder with patterns I think I really like, but I also keep several patterns in the cloud for future reference.

Too many patterns, not enough time!

Sue

Remember ladies, all these notebooks were collated before the Internet. I know because I have a dozen recipe 3-ring binders! Now we just Google a recipe.

I don't buy quilting patterns, but I do have lots of sewing ones. But books and magazines, guilty as charged.

I don't see a 'best answer' anywhere. How do they know what the best answer is? All the comments haven't even been made. Crazy. Sorry.

I went searching........here are some comments: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5902005/eeeewww-best-answer-why#n=15

I'm usually on Gardenweb and not Houzz

I wonder if it only shows up on some devices. It is on my ipad but I haven’t checked my laptop.

Theresa

I have about fifteen linear inches of books and about a two inch stack of patterns. I bought some of them myself, but was gifted quite a few. When I see a photo on line of a quilt that I might want to make, I copy it into a digital "quilts to make" file on my computer. A friend gave me a stack of magazines several years ago, and I tore out the patterns I liked and put them into a binder along with other patterns or pictures I have collected. In this binder I also have every thank you note and thank you email or text I have gotten. I've also saved a few voice message thanks. I have many more patterns than I'll ever make, that's for sure.

I started thinking about how much I have in my sewing room the other day. I was leafing through a few 3-ring binders of downloaded patterns looking for easy straight pieced quilt patterns for my sister. I realized I will likely never make most of them, but instead of purging, I reshelved the binders. Maybe I'm not ready to purge anything just yet?

Pat Sloan is doing a thing every day for this month on purging. She's got a good idea going on that I'm sure fits all of us. The goal is to purge every day for the whole month - at least one thing a day. I have quilting magazines from way back when they printed templates for regular pieced blocks that you were supposed to trace onto cardboard - LOL! And they didn't even explain step by step how to put the block together - you were supposed to be smart enough to figure it out! So I still have these magazines stacked in a cabinet that is hard to get into and I haven't a clue why I don't get rid of them. Hey, I have five bins of scraps that I can't get rid of on top of all my closet full of yardages and I keep using them and they don't diminish. If I live long enough to use all this I'm going to be so old when I finally kick the bucket. LOL!

I fo as you do and take screen shots of quilts I like and that look doable. trouble is I have to search through 1500 photos to find them. I don’t have a lot of patterns except for some I printed off quilters cache years ago. They are in a loose leaf binder along with other useful tips Truth is I always go back to my favorites.

I look at quilts online a lot - many on the Missouri Star Quilt videos. I just love what Jenny Doan does in such a short time in her videos. I do get one quilting magazine and sometimes do one from that. I've done a couple that I've seen on TV quilting shows. When I have a hard time figuring out what I want to do I do what I call the "organically emerging" quilt. It just happens. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not so good. This one that I'm doing now is one of those. It started with the HST's that I had cut off of some stitch and flip blocks that I did last time. And I just kept adding stuff. I'm getting ready to sandwich it, when it gets done I'll post it.

Rita, I like the plan to take the date and purge that number of items. So on the first, purge one. On the second, purge two. etc. I've never made it all the way through the month. Sometimes I just decide to purge and look at the date I'm on and purge that many.

Rita, kudos to you for being willing to make those stitch and flip blocks. I've done it very rarely, because it seems wasteful. Not that I will ever miss those scrap triangles!

Today's dilemma, on which I would appreciate advice, is a request this morning from a neighbor to make masks for her granddaughters, who arrive today.

I have made two masks each for her and her husband. One problem is I used up my good elastic. The other is, they are clueless how much work this involves. Should I drop everything and do it?

Do it for the kids. One each should be good, they can be washed. I use tee shirt ties for some of mine when elastic is hard to find. They can even be used for loops to go behind your ears.

I save pictures of quilts I like and think I will make, then I can Google the pattern.

Bias tape, Or the same but made with wof can be used instead of elastic. I made quite a few that way when my elastic was used up. These will get tied behind the head.

Theresa