Smaller is Better

Last month I decided to give diamond painting another go with the sunflower kit that came with my Goodwill thread lot. I wasn't thrilled about working with all that yellow in my face, but I thought since I'd only tried the craft once I should take another chance on it. This particular kit retails for over $15.00 new, too.

It took about four days to complete the sunflower with the plastic diamonds, and I did work pretty slowly due to my stiff fingers. Since there weren't as many colors to deal with as was the case with the dragon I made the first time, it seemed a little easier. I also had a smaller area to cover than my first project. The only true annoyance this time was trying to keep the rolled canvas flat; I had to tape it down while I was working on it.

Some of the beads have an irridescent coating that adds extra sparkle, which I thought was pretty. The yellow of the sunflower was mostly a cheddar shade that I don't mind so much.

I found this shadow-box type frame on sale at JoAnn (nothing exactly fit the sunflower) and glued the piece into it before I used a coat of Mod Podge to seal the surface. All in all it was a much better experience than my first attempt. I'm still not tempted to buy any of these kits, but I did enjoy the process more this time.

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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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