January Memories

I was cruising through my photo archives and wondered what I did during January over the past few years. In 2025 I also made a big beautiful basket out of scrap yarn -- obviously one of my favorite projects to crochet.

In January 2024 I was working on an art quilted tote much like the one I'm making now for my calendar project, too.

2023 saw me repairing this Fabscrap sample sweater in January, which I later donated to the church thrift as I don't often wear sweaters. I have some trousers I thrifted that I'll probably alter this month, too.

Finally in 2022 I took these two pieces from a cut-up crazy quilt and repaired them to make a pretty mat holder for my vintage brooches. I have another damaged crazy quilt piece that I want to use to cover some gift and storage boxes this month.s

I often do the same projects over and over, I admit, which may seem boring. I am limited on the complexity of projects I take on; they usually involve making something useful for my home, arty for my soul, repairing or restoring things to give them new life and making something unique out of what others consider trash. I say my materials always inspire me but there's an aesthetic I have that also repeats, and it's never about new things, only making the old into something new.

Happy to see I'm on the same track with my projects in 2025. :)

Comments

T-minus Day

This was our little Thanksgiving dinner last year, when it was just the three of us. Time keeps whittling down my favorite holiday; this year it will be just me and my guy, and we likely won't even have a turkey.* That will be a first in 35 years. I feel about Thanksgiving the way other people do about Christmas, and while it's a lot of work it's my favorite holiday. Of all the Thanksgivings I've had in the past sixty years, only three were truly terrible: one when I was a kid that I don't talk about (#1 most miserable); the time I roasted two turkeys together and hosted fifteen people whom I cooked for and served with zero help (the largest and #2 most miserable); and the one I spent in basic training (the #3 most miserable.) I have no pictures of any of those, thank heavens. In addition to doing all the cooking I'm the one who takes all the pictures, washes all the dishes and puts away all the leftovers. I suppose no one else cares because to them it...

Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.

Old Loves & Such

My guy kindly bought me my favorite Chinese take out the other night, and my fortune cookie offered up an interesting story starter: This sounds sweet, right? Only the first thing I thought of was an old love coming back from the dead . . . . must be October. In other lovely news, my favorite hand-dyed thread artist, Lorraine from Colour Complements , is moving her business from Etsy to her own web site. Many of my favorite sellers on Etsy are leaving due to the whole "free shipping" coercion debacle, which has also soured me on the site. To show support I did a little shopping at Lorraine's web site and got in these: I love her threads and trims; you simply can't buy anything like them anywhere. Her work makes my specialty thread box look like a treasure chest: At night I'm spending just as hour working on quilting the scrap project runner, and I'm making slow progress: I'll keep quilting the runner while I try to decide on a design for t...

Valerean

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