Another Vintage Textile Haul Part 1

I don't have many white vintage textiles to use for my fabric journal project, so I invested in some that are damaged or otherwise unsuitable for practical use. This very old cutter quilt piece has wonderful texture to it.

Lovely cutwork piece. I don't know if I'll have the heart to chop up this one; maybe instead I'll fold it in half.

A stained and battered dresser scarf, but the fabric is still pretty sturdy and the crocheted edging is gorgeous.

The smaller pieces are just as endearing. I love this one on the left, which has the word Bread embroidered on it and was probably a basket lining cloth or cover.

I darkened this pic to try and show the hand embroidery, which is delicate wheat stalks in pale gold silk thread.

Not sure what this was. Maybe a table topper.

These two pieces are pale green rather than white, and utterly too beautiful. I'm not going to cut them up but will save them to make into a runner for my kitchen wall.

Two more little pieces that will make interesting pages for my fabric journal project.

I got started with laundering the new arrivals before I thought to take pics, so I have one more piece to show you that is soaking right now. Stop in tomorrow to see that.

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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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