An Afternoon of Task Work

Sometimes I don't work on projects during my spare time (although I do work on the calendar mood blanket every day.) Now and then I devote my free time to organizing, sorting, mending and other tasks. One day it started with this untidy box of scrap binding, which I had pulled out for a mending project. I don't like untidy things.

Then I added a bunch of tangled yarn from various thrifts that needed separating and rolling from the spring cleaning I'd done that morning.

I already had a pair of capris to alter and a quilt to fix, so I spent my afternoon dealing with all of them.

Tidying the scrap binding box just took a few minutes. It also let me see how much commercially made binding I have left to use on some things I have planned for spring.

I like to keep my yarn tidy, too, and it's kind of soothing to untangle and roll yarn. Okay, I'm weird.

Since I don't care for wearing capris I altered a pair I got in one of my pants lots into pajama shorts for summer.

These are nice for when the nights get warmer.

Then came repairing the quilt -- one I made a few years ago from a mystery FQ bundle -- which the dogs had chewed on a bit. Usually I just let them have the quilt to rip up, but I like this quilt and I don't want them to destroy it.

Rather than try to do an invisible repair I put a Mickey Mouse print patch over the tear on the backing. I don't know why, I just liked how it looked. :)

Here's why I save even little bits of binding from my projects: the pups chewed off one corner.

I used a 5" scrap of black binding to fix the corner -- and that was my whole afternoon.

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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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