Valerean

Today I'm going to the diabetes doc to get my bi-annual check. After that I'm going to get started on a little quilt using these dragon novelty prints. I'm also going to try to make it entirely by machine. Wish me luck on both fronts. :) Sometime in the next few days we'll be heading into the city with our nephew to visit IKEA and have dinner out. His house build is going very well, and he's on track to move into his new place in June, so I want to show him some room designs I like (not that I think he'll paint black polka dots on his walls, lol.) While we're there I'm going to pick up another one of these hanging organizers for my yarn stash. This one has worked out so well I wish I had a dozen of them, but I have room for only one more.

You remember my messy pantry, yes? It took a few hours to pull everything out, wipe down the shelves and floor, and look at everything before I put it back to make sure it hadn't expired, but I got it done. The nice thing about having an organized pantry is now I don't have to dig through it to find anything; it's arranged the way I use the contents. I also weeded out a couple of cans of expired food and learned I really need to make ziti more often to use up a stockpile of that pasta. Some thoughts on the process if you're thinking about doing the same: Don't rush the process. I do one shelf at a time, and I take breaks after two shelves are done. That way it's a little easier to manage the task without wearing myself out. Take time to organize everything. Yes, I do alphabetize my soups, and categorize my canned goods, but that's how I like to keep my pantry. Store things according to your needs. I use egg noodles a lot because my guy lov...

My editor just approved the project I'll be working on this year for my day job, which is a great thing. Every day this week I'll be working on outlining the five phases of the project, which also need to be approved, and once I get the green light on them I'll be ready to start on the first. Meanwhile, I have other things at home that I'll also be working on, like cleaning out and tidying up my very messy pantry. It got like this due to a combination of the holidays and deadline week last month, and I can't stand it, so that's the first housework project of the year. My first crochet project for 2026 is coming along nicely; one more skein and I'll be half done with it. The first tote of my calendar project is working up a little slowly, but considering my limitations I think I've made decent progress. Once I finish sewing down the patchwork I'll begin embellishing it with embroidery and beading, and (hopefully) some hand-quilting. Jan...

Last month our nephew came to visit (hopefully he'll be moving in shortly) and we took him to the Winter Garden saturday farmer's market to walk around and see all the goodies. That included this one-ton pumpkin on display. On our way home we stopped at Goodwill, where I found some fun things. Here's how I actually spend money (versus dreaming about spending.) First was this brand new in the package Soho Loft 3 drawer closet organizer for $7.99. They retail for twice that, and it had never been taken out of the package. I'm going to use this to store crochet patterns. Next were two books; I've read the Linda Howard and own a copy but it's falling apart, so it's a replacement. It's OOP and costs $9.99 for a Kindle version. I've never read the Nathaniel Philbrick book and while I didn't much enjoy his last one about Custer, I would like to know more about the Mayflower versus the crap I learned in school, and he's the man for...

Since I had a lot of fun making a basket this month I decided to try another, this time a cube-shaped basket by Jayda in Stitches using three strands of yarn and a jumbo hook. I chose these three colors from my green stash and went to work. Working in straight rows rather than in the round was a bit of a challenge; you really need to count and keep track of your stitches and rows for this project so you make the cube shape. The fact that it was different from her other basket pattern was interesting, especially as the big X shaped piece of crocheting grew thicker. Definitely sturdy. Here's the finished basket (I opted not to make the side handles for it as I'm going to use it as a cubby shelf bin. It doesn't stand up quite straight, but one of the skeins of yarn I used was a softer worsted, and that may be the problem. The video tutorial was quite helpful, and it used up almost 3/4 of the three skeins of yarn. Although you do have to track your work mor...

You remember the messy yarn lot I thrifted for $7.99? If you want to know how I sorted it, check out my album of pics here .

My sewing room scrap bag is overflowing, so I took a night last week to empty and sort out all the leftover fabrics I've saved. Here are all the scraps from the bag -- about 6 month's worth. I often raid my scrap bag for little projects, but twice a year it gets too packed and I've been dumping it in my scraps bin. Since I've already sorted and bagged the bin, I want to do the same with whatever I add to it. Here's the pile sorted. I put everything in piles of small, medium and large scraps, batting scraps, selvages and strips. I also set aside the Halloween scraps for use in current projects, and the bits that are too small to really use in their own pile. Before I've thrown away all the scraps that are too small to reuse, but this time I'm keeping them. I want to see if I can find a way to recycle them as stuffing for pillows or something like that, as I do save my batting scraps. The latter I cut up to make my own fiber fill stuffin...

Real time Valerean here. Well, I'm a week ahead on double posting (as expected.) Today is August 2nd; this will post on August 9th. In another five weeks I will catch up to the end of my supply of pre-written and scheduled posts on the blog and have nothing more to rely on, which is when I hope to begin keeping posts just a week ahead of real time (and keep it that way!) It's distressing, mildly. I am a strict by-schedule writer and I always want to be way ahead of deadlines. My current project for the day job is due on August 7th; I've finished it and after a thorough read-through on paper and final edit, I should turn it in on the 4th or 5th. That's cutting it close for me, by the way. Is it telling that I've already planned and printed my schedule for the next day job project? Probably. I want to be more spontaneous, really I do. I respect writers and artists who are that way. It's just not an aesthetic that is natural to me. I know in part it...

One thing I've noticed while I've been doing Scrapping Saturdays over the last two months (results to be posted in the future) is that it takes me forever to find what I want to use for my projects in the bin, which is just a big jumbled tangle of fabric strips, scraps, blocks and pieces. It took me an hour to dig out enough strips to piece a quilt top last night during a one-day challenge, which finally covinced me to spend today sorting the bin. It took a whole afternoon, but now everything is sorted, folded, bagged together and labeled. No more mess, and I can find what I need straight away.

One day back in April I had a memory blip that left me a little upset; I thought I'd accidentally thrown away my medic alert cuff and a vintage bracelet I thrifted and really like. I made myself dig through the garbage can, all the while kicking myself for being so careless. I actually didn't throw them away; I finally discovered the missing items next to my laptop in the sewing room. I had absolutely no idea when I put them there, and still don't. That upset me even more. To just heap more depression atop my worries, this was also the same day I had to say goodbye to our last living cat Jericho some years ago after losing his brother Jak a few months before then. It's part of ageing, and being a pet owner, but I got very depressed, so I decided I needed some junk therapy. I asked my guy to take me to The Old Packing House in Umatilla, my favorite place to find vintage fabrics, household items, and art pieces like these two painted wooden cats ($5.00 each) tha...

Somedays my guy and I go out window shopping and just walk around; other days we find lots of bargains. Back in January we started with a mall walk, during which I got this lovely calendar for $3.00 at BAM. We then hit a thrift store. The first yielded nothing of interest, but at the second we found lots of bargains. He wanted a t-shirt he can work in outside, and as a former surfer this one caught his eye. $3.60 with Goodwill's Monday senior discount. Although I usually buy plastic containers at the dollar store, this one was much sturdier than the kind they carry. $2.70 with the discount. I've been looking for a lidded basket for my latest embroidery thread haul; this one was perfect for my needs. Also $2.70 with the discount. I didn't plan to buy any yarn, but this bundle contained two jumbo Caron ombre skeins, which I have recently fallen in love with, and run about $13.00 new, and two Wool-Ease that are $6.00 new. All of the colors we...

Be careful what you thrift for is my new mantra. I bid on and won this storage chest of sewing supplies, which I wanted to use for my own needles and sewing things. It arrived leaking pins, beads and buttons, with several drawers jammed by the same. I spent an entire day unloading it, sorting out the contents, and then unsticking the drawers. To my relief nothing was broken or permanently damaged by the poor packing job. Let's look inside some of the drawers while I tell you about it. The original owner knew what was good thread, and kept a colorful supply of Sulky and Gütermann on hand. These spools run between $1.24 to $3.99 depending on the type of thread. Like me the maker also saved old thread, bought thread on sale and otherwise practiced thrifty purchasing. There might be a few spools in this drawer that belonged to an older family member, as they date back to the 70's. Lots of buttons. The little collection was mostly for repair purposes, and...

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.