Decluttering Guide For a Cleaner Home.

Talk about Hoarding, Kashmiri's are masters in it! Talk about Decluttering, it is a blasphemy!

We Kashmiris hoard about everything and anything. We love to stock things that we need not. The list can go on and on, utensils, clothes, furnishing are just few examples.

Why am I writing this?

I am on a Decluttering drive and  it is driving me nuts and also recently I saw two of our next door neighbors roughly constructing garden sheds and cupboards under their ground floor verandahs ( in addition to the warehouses ) just to accommodate the junk that was littered all over the place! We need serious organizing here! Seriously!

Therefore I compiled this guide to help anyone who is trying to make their homes a bit cleaner.

What is clutter?

The clutter is anything you’re keeping around you in your house that firstly doesn’t add value to your life, secondly, doesn’t benefit you ever! Decluttering means making room for yourself and things that matter in your home.

However you may define clutter, it is bad for your health. According to Psychology Today, people tend to feel like life is out of control when they surround themselves with more things than they can manage. The mess causes stress. If you’re not taking care of the clutter in your home, you may not be taking care of yourself either.

Why Declutter?

Because it relieves stress and provides some sense of control and accomplishment. Cleaning the junk and freeing that corner of your house gives you extra space and satisfaction. It is enjoyable and your home feels more like your home! Whatever the reason, I have compiled some tips to help you declutter your highly hoarded Kashmiri house.

Don’t discuss that with your Kashmiri mama, you will be thrown out before anything else!

Jokes apart, let’s begin!

Step 1: Set Goals, Make a Plan.

Before throwing everything out or sitting in a mess from every corner of your home, make a plan. No matter how much you have to get through, set goals and try to accomplish them one by one. This will reduce the frustration and confusion while you are at work.

Make the list of all target areas (rooms, cupboards and under the bed’s in some cases). Consider the severity of the clutter they have. Some places are loosely cluttered and are not stuffed with excessive mess, these are easy to handle. This will help you manage your time effectively.

You should understand that this is a work of few days and not one day so set completion times and dates for the clutter areas.

Step 2: Sort the things out.

Make two sorted lists. This is for the organization of things that you find during decluttering. The first list is of the things that “you need”, “you don’t need”. The things that you need will go into the spaces just emptied and the things that you do not need will be further sorted as “Recycle”, “Sell”, “Donate” and “Thrash”

The things that are no longer needed by you must belong to any one of the above. There are things that are entirely rubbish and will provide no value to anyone and hence must be thrashed. However, some of the things can be donated to the needy. One man’s clutter may be another’s need, so, decide wisely. Maybe those extra sheets or clothes, or those extra pieces of carpets, bedding's or utensils will fill up need of someone poor. Try to give out things that are in good condition.

And yes, that plastic and paper is better recycled than consuming space in your home. Doing this, you are helping the planet earth a bit too.

Lastly, if you happen to have some items that could be sold like furnishing, decoration, electronics etc. that you no longer need, you can sell them at some second hand market place and make some extra money too.

Additional tips.

1.       Be committed.

Everyone has some junk lying around, there can be no denying. And there is certainly some junk that we adore and simply can’t throw away no matter how old and useless they turn. Talking about myself I too hoard so many things that I seriously don’t want to part away with simply because I love them or have spent a lot of money on. They are not junk, they are memories!

This is the hardest part of decluttering, deciding what needs to go and what needs to stay. These are real and valid feelings that make it challenging to part with our stuff.

One must be mentally prepared to part with the things that one hasn’t used in a long time.

2.       80/20 Rule.

When it comes to clothing, we generally only wear 20 percent of the clothes we own 80 percent of the time. This rule hold true for other things as well like books, kitchen stuff and other house accessories.

Our mission must be to get rid of things that we don’t use 80 percent of the time.

3.       Get over the costs.

Ya Ya, you have spent hundreds over it and simply cannot throw that away. But that costs have been already incurred and cannot be recovered back so what is the point? These things should be considered as the sunk costs except in some cases where the value of the thing may have increased. You will not get the money back you spent on that thing, but you can get your little space back and a cleaner home.

4.       When was the last time you used it.

They say if you haven’t used it in like 6 months, you don’t need it. So, do you think that the things that you have accumulated over some 10 – 15 years? If you pulled the item out and said, “I’ve been wondering where this was!" you should probably get rid of it. And if you didn’t even know you still had the item in question, you should definitely get rid of it –you didn’t miss it enough to warrant keeping it.

5.        Be strong.

After you have made the decision, stand strong on it. If something is not letting you sleep, you can still pull it out of junk the next morning but try not to do that otherwise you will end up amassing more than you had planned.

I hope this was insightful and helpful. I will be posting more guidelines about how we can declutter bedrooms and study rooms effectively and how to find time for it.. Maybe a small post on organizing things too. Till than Bye.

P.S. Comment what you think about decluttering and what do you do about it. 

Crochet Scarf - Free Pattern.

Hi there my lovely friends! I'm so excited to show you all my Gradient yarn scarf.

This one took quiet some time to complete not because it is complicated or anything (Its basically a beginner pattern) but because I would crochet few rows and leave it and then come back to it some other time.

I noticed that I hadn't made any scarves or mufflers as a tutorial on my blog so I decided to do one. I chose a Zebra Gradient Yarn from local yarn store. It is manufactured by GANGA acrowools. Check out their website for more yarns and free patterns. I chose their Zebra 1322 shade for this project. It is 100% acrylic wool and each ball is approx 217 meters (or 150 Grams) when packed. It is a bulky yarn!

The best thing about this yarn is that it looks good on both men and women.

For this specific project I used a little less than 2 balls of this yarn as my scarf is approx 5.3 foot in length(without the tassels). The more the length of the scarf, the more yarn will be required. But I suppose 2 balls are enough to make a nice and long scarf.

Did I enjoy making it? Yes, I did. I loved how the gradients came to life. Follow this pattern and make one for your self too.

Hook size: 9G / 3.50 mm aluminium hook.

If you are new to crocheting or don't know how to please visit Crocheting for beginners to get the basics covered.

Pattern:

1. Chain 30.

2. Leave the first two stitches and make a row or double crochet stitches. (Stitch count 28).

3. Round 2 - 3: Double crochet in each stitch.

4. Round 4 - 227: Single crochet in each stitch.

5. Round 228 - 230: Double crochet in each stitch.

6. Weave off any loose ends.

7. I made 4 large and heavy tassels to hang at four ends of the scarf.

You can follow the tassel tutorial here and make them chunky tassels all by yourself.

It took me longest to get this photographed but as usual my sister came to my rescue and together we were able to capture it perfectly.

The project is easy to follow and the end product is fabulously warm.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post and about my unisex crochet scarf. If you happen to make one, do share your pictures with us.

Happy crocheting.

P.S. Subscribe to our mailing list and don't forget to pin it.

Bye!

Note: This pattern is original pattern by Hobbiesinn. Please do not claim this pattern as yours. If you wish to share it, you may link to this pattern but please do not copy on your site. You can use it for personal use but DO NOT sell the pattern/pictures or distribute it.

You can however, sell the products of this design but do credit the design to me  @hobbiesinn. Permission is NOT granted for mass production or factory manufacturing of any kind.  Thank you for being respectful and for your understanding!

DIY Crochet Round Sling Bag

Hi guys, lately I have been working on this little sling bag and today I'm going to share the tutorial with you all. It is far more easy than you think it is. It is a beginner level and looks quiet trendy with those cute outfits. It is large enough to hold all of your cards and money, maybe a small card holder and your phone too.

Skills required:

Crocheting
Stitching

Materials needed:

1. T-shirt Yarn (You can basically use any yarn but then the number of stitches and the rounds in it will vary)
2. Faux leather or Rexene.
3. Tapestry needle and thread.
4. Magnet buttons.
5. Chain String.
6. Gluegun.

7. Scissor.
8. Crochet hook.

Method:

1. The T-Shirt Yarn.

First of all we need to make two flat circles using half double crochet stitch. If your are new to crochet or don't know hoe to, follow my beginners guide to crocheting here or you can visit my YouTube channel to learn the basic stitches.

I used a t-shirt yarn to make these circles and since it was quiet bulky my circles were made in a very short span of time. If you don't have a t-shirt yarn available around you, you can always recycle those old t-shirts into something useful. Watch needle pointers make yarn out of t-shirts.

2. Pattern For Circles:

Follow this pattern to make the circles.

Round 1. Chain 4. Join, Make a magic ring.
Round 2. Chain 2, make a 6 half double crochet stitches in the magic ring. (6 stitches)
Round 3. Chain 2, In each of the 6 stitches make 2 half double crochet stitches. (12 stitches)
Round 4. Chain 2, 2 stitches in first stitch, 1 in next. Repeat for whole round. (18 stitches)
Round 5. Chain 2, 2 stitches in first stitch, 1 in next, then in next again 1. Repeat for whole round. (24 stitches)
Round 6. Chain 2, 2 stitches in first stitch, 1 stitch in next three stitches each. Repeat for entire round. (30 Stitches)
Round 7. Chain 2, 2 stitches in first stitch, 1 in next four stitches each. repeat for entire round. (36 stitches)

You can increase or decrease the size of circles by adding or removing rounds accordingly, if the circle you made seem smaller for a bag add few more rounds. In each round (to keep the circle flat and nice) make an increment of 6 stitches.

The size of the circles also depend upon the size of hook used, I used a large wooden hook with the diameter of 6 mm. I made this hook myself, tell me in the comment section below if you want to learn my trick of making a crochet hook yourself.

3. Joining the Circles.

Take a tapestry needle and a matching thread and begin hand sewing the two circles together.
Why hand sewing? because it is too thick to come under the sewing machine.

Leave a gap of some 6 - 7 inches from one side. On the ends of this gap add small leather loops to hold the string. Refer to picture below.

On the inside of this gap, attach two buttons as a closure of the bag.

Our circle bag is done, now over to leather flap and tassels.

4. Making the tassels.

Making a tassel is very simple, check out my blog post about how to make a leather tassel yourself.

5. Making the leather flap.

Fortunately I had a matching blue lining for the flap. Okay. Cut the leather in a U shape. Width 6 -7 inches, height 9 inches.

About same size, cut the fabric lining.

You will also need three small strips of leather, two are used in tassels and 1 to hold them.

Fold the leather as in picture and make two small cuts in it as in picture.  Roll the little strip of leather and fix it using the glue gun.

Put both the tassels in it and insert its ends in the cuts made in the flap.

Secure with a cute cross like stitch.

With the right sides of fabrics facing each other, stitch the two. Leave a gap of few inches from one side and turn it inside out.

Now Stitch the border of flap once again to give it a finished look.

6. Attaching the flap with the circles.

With the help of tapestry needle and a thread, stitch the straight end of the flap to the back of the circle. You can also add a magnetic button or Velcro strip to keep it more at one place.

7. Take a steel chain and put in loops of the bag, Put your things in and enjoy.

My sister helped me with photographing this little DIY wonder and we took so many cute pictures of it.  

I hope you found this tutorial useful and insightful. Make your bags too and share with us.

Don't forget to pin it and share it.

Bye.

Note: This pattern is original pattern by Hobbiesinn. Please do not claim this pattern as yours. If you wish to share it, you may link to this pattern but please do not copy on your site. You can use it for personal use but DO NOT sell the pattern/pictures or distribute it.

You can however, sell the products of this design but do credit the design to me  @hobbiesinn. Permission is NOT granted for mass production or factory manufacturing of any kind.  Thank you for being respectful and for your understanding!