Valerean

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.

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...

This is my home office, which I've just tidied during spring cleaning. I spend as much time in this room as I do sleeping in our bedroom. I've just hung pictures of things as I've acquired or made them, so the walls are covered with a hodge podge. I've also not minimized this room, as a lot of these items on the walls were gifts or things that added greatly to my inspiration. The problem is there is too much in here now, and it's become more of a distraction. I didn't clean off my inspiration board from last month so you can see how chaotic things can get. Anyway, now that I've finished the main goals with spring cleaning I can do something about the office. Right now I'm just figuring out what I can part with now, and how I want to display the rest. More to come as I get the room under control.

It's not all writing and quilting with me, you know. Last month I tried a couple of times to recreate the pepperoni bread my dad loved, using my own recipe and some ingenuity. I blew out a seam on this loaf, but otherwise I'm pretty close. Once I've nailed it I will post and share my recipe, because even when I fail it's really good bread. I'm also still on the spring cleaning. Last month I unloaded Kat's bins from high school, sent her the pics, and then had her tell me what to keep, discard or donate. The system is working pretty well, and by the time she comes back from the islands she won't have to do this herself.

While I'm working on the emergency pantry, my day job, my regular housework, etc. I'm also spring cleaning as I go along. Part of reorganizing the emergency pantry was cleaning off the shelves in my laundry room directly opposite it, which I did to get rid of some old cleaners we don't use anymore and clear the top shelf for our non-food emergency supplies. You can see I had enough room leftover to store some empty gallon jugs for emergency water storage. Today I'm planning to spring clean the downstairs guest room; I keep that ready for hurricane season, in case our nephew and grandniece need to come and stay with us. I keep it tidy year-round and we never use it, so it won't take long. I just change the sheets on the bed, dust and vaccuum. If I have enough time I might finish tidying up my office after that. Then there are all the closets, which have gotten messy and overpacked again. Experience in years past has taught me to tackle little jobs first durin...

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 int...