On the Back Burner

One of the mendables from Fabscrap that I didn't try to fix last month was this lovely ruffled top. Lots of reasons for that.

There are no huge issues with the garment, but lots of little problems, like this tear in the top gauzy fabric. I could patch it with organza, or embroidery over it, but I can't decide which would look better.

Split seams aren't usually a problem to mend, as long as the fabric is sturdy enough to stitch. Here, it is.

Here, it's definitely not. I think this is called an armhole gusset. Anyway, this area of the garment gets more wear and tear than, say, a hem.

There are some unfinished hems as well, and I don't have a hem roller foot for my sewing machine, so I'd have to hem these by hand.

Overall it's a lot of detail work. The top is a medium size, which won't fit my weird body (I'm a medium in the waist, large in the shoulders, and extra large in the chest.) I'm also not a ruffles person. It might fit Kat, although she is almost as big as I am in the chest area. She won't be home until Christmas, so I decided to wait until she can see it and let me fit it on her before I start mending.

If she doesn't want the top, then I am definitely going to salvage the pretty fabric and repurpose it.

Comments

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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