Another Treasure Chest

I think the first week of NaNoWriMo went well for me. I got my words down, and fell back into the groove of the story. I only had one time where I didn't make quota, and made up for what I lacked in the next session. I'm not feeling any burn from working on work and fun stuff each day. Quite the contrary. What I'd hoped -- that this would help recharge me creatively -- is one of the side effects I'm enjoying. It's also just nice to be me again on the page.

In other, unrelated news, this arrived:

I bought this vintage sewing basket from eBay, which I plan to clean up and turn into a holiday gift for my daughter. She likes retro, and this is definitely that. It's in good shape, and stuffed with notions.

A lot of notions!

She won't need all this stuff, so I get a couple presents too.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

Fabulous treasure! I inherited my aunt's sewing basket some years ago now. She had several spools of pure silk thread that were the most beautiful colors. I've only used a couple and not much of those, but what a joy to sew with thread like that. Your daughter will love this, I'm sure. And the basket as well!

November 8, 2019 at 12:34 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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