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Refuge in Lace

This was the scene in my sewing room last month while I was making my second mini-quilt of March. I got out my boxes of vintage laces, bits and bobs to get some inspiration, which oddly took a while. I'd struggled a bit the week before with the one I made as a visual poem, so I wanted straightforward and uncomplicated. Which for me, of course, it never is.

My inspiration for this mini-quilt came from some of the very vintage colors 14carrot used to make these three quilt tags. I love sepia and cream and gold. I wanted to put my own spin on it, however, so I went for the lace (I have lots and most of it is too old to use on anything but art pieces that won't be washed.) It's often difficult to work with antique lace, however, and I really wrestled to get it to stay down where I wanted it.

Here's the mini-quilt as of the writing of this post. I'm not finished with it, but I'm mostly happy with my progress.

As I've mentioned I've had a bit of a rough year so far in 2025, and while the drama is over and I don't have to deal with the miserable people who create it at the moment I'm tired. It's an ongoing struggle to get everything I'm supposed to do finished every day. I'm not sleeping well, either. So I'm focusing on me and my wellness, making lots of healthy meals, and taking lots of naps. I trust myself to bounce back; I always do.

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Other Stashes

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Downsizing

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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...