A Year of Stitches, Part Two

While laundering my rescued linen I was reminded of how important it can be to wash first with some fabrics. After a brief soak in cold water, I hung it to dry, and it still shrank a full inch (luckily I allowed a little extra for shrinkage when I cut it.) On the plus side, the soak brightened the fabric and got rid of all the old water stains. I then hemmed the strip, and rather than use the sewing machine I did all the stitching by hand.

Here's the end result, with 3-1/2 days of stitching as I worked on it tonight (I'm writing this post on January 4th.) I'm just stitching whatever I like, in colors that reflect something about my mood that the day. If my hands hurt I'll probably do a simple running stitch, like I did on day three.

I will probably have to add on another linen strip later this year, as I don't think what I have will be long enough, but we'll see. I'm also not sure if I'll always do a straight row of stitches. I'm trying not to overthink the project; I just want to stitch a little every day. :)

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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.

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.

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

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