Decluttering Update

 

As expected, this 21-Day Decluttering challenge is taking me far more than 21 days. 

I missed a few days due to aches and pains, and also discovered that doing this according to her categories wasn't going to work well for me because I have everything everywhere in my sewing rooms.

 I started with clearing off the alleged cutting table.  I got it down to just three small piles before calling it quits one night.  The next day, I got those three piles where they belongs, then picked a box off the floor and started sorting the contents into their various homes.  This is working!  I've emptied three boxes of mixed stuff and cleared out at least 10 sq feet of carpet!  I have a large box for donations that is now half full, and can actually see most of the cutting table.  

                                                   A second load plopped onto the cutting mat.

One of the things Karen (Brown) mentions in her decluttering videos is that a sewing room works best if you have a work triangle of sewing station, ironing station and cutting station, and none of these should be more than 12' from the others. My sewing station is in a different room....soooo, once I get a little further along with putting things away I will be moving my sewing cabinet in to the north room where the cutting and ironing tables live.  I'd like to put it all in the south room because of the better lighting, but I just do not feel like moving an entire wall's worth of Elna shelves and their contents. I sew most at night anyway,

Am I thrilled with this decluttering journey?  No.  It's slow going, and I'd like it to be done now, please.

Am I satisfied with my progress?  You bet!  I've been spending at least an hour every-other day up there unearthing treasures and getting things stored in logical and tidy manners.  I've found at least 6 kits that have been "lost" in there for months and months (and years...), and two I forgot I bought.  I have a solid plan for moving forward.  It is well.

de-cluttering?

 

   This year I am taking part, again, in Just Get It Done Quilts' 21 day declutter challenge.

Now, I am fully aware that this is going to take me at least three rounds of 21 days because I've been hoarding so much crap in my sewing rooms.  There is literally not a flat surface that isn't piled with stuff...except for my sewing machine cabinet, which currently has only my machine and a few tools sitting on it. 

   I've started in the North room. My cutting table and ironing table are (allegedly) both in here along with my Cricut and my Scan n Cut and my serger and a bunch of bins of fabric. 

These were taken on Jan 29, and some progress has been made.  Not enough, but at this point any progress is a good thing.  Many of the cardboard boxes are empty, ready to hold like objects as I discover them so I can then put them where they belong- things like scissors, pins, marking pens, measuring tools and other notions. 

  You can see a glimpse of the South room through the doorway.  It's in better shape as I did quite a bit of purging in there before Halloween and haven't been up there much to mess it up again. 😼  Hubby and I moved my loom to the garage, wrapped up in moving blankets and plastic.  I still want to sell it, but nobody seems interested in buying it at the moment. 

  I still have a vision of the wall in the lower photo lined with nice white cabinets that will hold my fabric and my serger when not in use (but with a space to sew with it). I thought that might happen this year, but I needed to have a stairlift installed in able to get up to this floor. A 3 flight, heavy-duty stairlift that goes around 3 curves is surprisingly expensive. (if you're thinking about $5000, you're too low.). When I'm upstairs, the chair parks where the loom used to be, so I still don't actually have more room, it just looks more open.  

My chapter of the smocking guild has been working on a group project called "Just Pin It", which is a sampler of various smocking designs meant to be framed and used as a place to keep our convention pins and the like.  I am spectacularly behind on this project.  I think this is month four, and I'm still working on month one.  Maybe I can catch up before the meeting on Jan 12th!  (ha. fat chance)

I have the borders done and have started the bargello unit ( top center) twice.  I decided I don't like the colors I was using, so went out with a friend and we picks out new ones that I liked better but will still coordinate with the borders so that I don't have to pull those out and re-smock them.  This project was designed by Carol Kick and is available to members of The Smocking Arts Guild on their website. 

Halfway Through the Year

   It's  July 1, and the beginning of the second half of the year already.  It's also my son's 42nd birthday.

I still find it hard to believe I have a son that old, until I try to climb all the flights of steps up to my sewing room.  We've decided to install a stairlift, and I'm excited about that. Less strain getting up the stairs. might mean I start stitching more!

  My smocking chapter's little retreat went well.  Most of us finished the baby bonnet (not me) and almost everyone had a finished Verdun blouse by the end of the second day. (not me. ) I had inadvertantly left the house without my pattern. One of the other ladies traced a copy out for me, but it turned out to be too small, and since I didn't have the original multi-size pattern with the grading lines on it I wasn't able to fix the problem.  I have since traced off a new, enlarged pattern and will see about getting that finished before our next meeting on the 14th.   The drawn thread bag was a bit of a debacle- I couldn't figure out how to do one of the stitches, and was having a really difficult time explaining the process to others, so one of the other members took over for me.  Most of the ladies have finished their bags in spite of my lousy teaching efforts. (not me)

We start another big project at the next meeting; a stitch along from Smocking Arts Guild of America called "Just Pin It".  This is a sampler that has several portions smocked with various stitches and some blank ones where we can display the different pins we collect at conventions and such.  I believe you can get to the page of stitch alongs without signing in, but might not be able to open the actual pdf. 

I watched the lightning bugs rise from the lawn this evening.  They came out around 9pm, and it was still pretty light out so the display wasn't as "good" as previous years.  Lightning bugs might be my favorite part of summer.     The water department has parked one of their big diggers in front of our house again, which means my least favorite part of the year "construction time" is about to rev up again.  I can not tell you how glad I will be for this lead remediation work to be finished in our neighborhood!

Enjoy your Fourth!  I'll be grilling something and attempting to avoid the mosquitos.

A long Friday

 

I had to get up very early (for me) today as the washing machine repairman was expected at around 8 am.  

He appeared at 7:59 and was out the door by 8:30, and my machine now has a shiny new belt and a clean drum.  Gosh, just can't wait to do some laundry!  (sarcasm)

I located some 32 ct linen at a local needlework shop- after searching the internets to no avail , I finally manage to find some within driving distance. The shop is only open from 10-2 4 days a week, so wasn't high on my radar but I phoned them on the off chance they might have linen in stock.  I suspect that as well as my fabric, I'll return home with some beads and fancy threads. Bee Hive Needle Arts specializes in counted canvas, so they carry threads and ribbons from all the best places.  I'd visit more often, but our schedules usually conflict with their opening hours, and it's a half-hour drive or so away; with the lead pipe remediation going on in Pittsburgh it can take an hour!  

  Progress is being made on the things I'll need for the upcoming retreat.  My muslin is all washed and ready for me to cut out a Verdun woven t-shirt.  The pattern has been glued and taped together, so that's ready to go as well, although I'll be tracing my size on to swedish pattern paper.  It's easier to work with than printer paper.   I haven't figured out what sort of fabric I want to make the Actual Shirt from yet.  

   The previously mentioned linen has been found, so I can make up kits for the little drawn thread bag. I suppose I should pull together the sewing supplies I'll need, too, just in case something has disappeared in the black hole that is my sewing room. 

   Speaking of that, if you were a length of pleated linen with about 4" of smocking done on it, where would you hide?  I took a class at convention last year for a pleatwork tunic. I've located the extra fabric from the kit, but can't find the actual tunic and instructions from the class.  It's here somewhere; I probably put it somewhere safe.  Perhaps I'll check the suitcase I used...

Still here!

 

It seems I've taken a bit of a blog vacation.  With Covid still rampaging around Pittsburgh, nothing much has been happening that is worth blogging about.  The man and I mostly hunkered down at home with a few masked forays to a local diner that we felt fairly comfortable about.  I've been going to the gym twice a week most weeks since I started up again in February, after taking off a month during a fairly high-numbers period. 

I've done a bit of re-organizing in the sewing room.  Unfortunately, it has just been enough to reveal exactly how much needs to be done.  I try to spend an hour a day up there, but arthritis in my knees has been preventing me from climbing the stairs every day.   

My age and physical condition have become those which encourage downsizing, so the husband and I have been looking at properties that are either all on one floor or that have a finished basement area that could be reached by installing a lift/elevator. One house we looked at was quite nice (although older than the hubby would like, having been built in the year I was born).  When we came to the basement door, I looked down those stairs, said, "Nope. That's not going to happen", and turned around. They were quite steep and narrow.  We'll probably go back to planning to build a home in a newer development.

Other than the sorting, nothing constructive has been happening in the sewing room.  I made a bonnet a while ago while participating in a sew-along from my Facebook Smocking Arts group.  That turned out well!  Of course, I can't find a photo of it to post.  It was completely hand-stitched, so I did it in the dining room. 😺

My chapter of the Smocking Arts Guild has planned a three day mini-retreat at an area hotel, and I'm looking forward to that.  We plan to make a small hemstitched bag, a joined lace bonnet and start work on a woven t-shirt.  The pattern is Verdun, from Liesl and Co,  and we'll (allegedly) be arriving with a muslin that we can work on together so we each get a perfect fit.  It will be my first foray into adjusting a pattern properly, so I'm excited.    

Don't Linger, 2021

 

Here we are on the brink of another new year. 

Remember last year, when we were sure that the Covid protocols would soon be a think of the past and that 2021 would be a great year?  So do I.  Perhaps 2022 actually will be better.

Things that got accomplished this year:

     We had a fence built across the back property line.  I am enjoying the increased privacy it gives us, and still planning some sort of floral display for it.  The area gets a lot of shade during the summer because there is a maple tree and a linden tree between in and most of the sun.  I've been looking at shade-loving perennial ground covers that don't need to be mowed as well as flowers.

   I hired someone to pull the weeds from all the garden beds in the yard.  This is a project that has been weighing on me for two years.  I feel that I should be able to do it myself, but... I can't get on my hands and knees to pull weeds, I can't bend for long, weather that is too hot or too cold will trigger a fibro flare, and I'm highly allergic to poison ivy. Given all that, I gave in and hired someone.  The beds all look pretty good now, and are ready for me to poke some bulbs in here and there. 

    We installed two 4x8' galvanized metal raised beds.  Three square meters of soil was not enough to fill one, so between that and my health being somewhat iffy, not much got planted.  I'm already looking through the seed catalogs for delicious things to plant. 

   My husband gifted me with a Viking/Husqvarna Sapphire 85 in October.  I have named her Sofia (pronounce soFYEah) and installed her in the north sewing room. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the room is in disarray, so I've not done much with her than turn her on, hook her to the web and read through some information on the JoyOS that comes with her.    

   Of course, projects in the sewing room, otherwise known as The Pit of Despair, are mounting up like snow in Tahoe.  Besides masks, I've also got a couple more dresses and two quilts lined up.  Quilts.  I saw one I fell in love with on CatPatches, ordered the pattern, started collecting fabrics (it takes about a thousand yards) and promptly became overwhelmed when I read the instructions.  It has no deadline, so that's all right.  It's called Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage, and is available from Crabapple Hill designs.  The other quilt is also from Meg Hawkey at Crabapple Hill.  It's a block of the month in a halloween theme.  I've purchased the base fabric, several black and white prints for the paper piecing and the Black Cat block instructions.   I'm very good at collecting supplies.  This also doesn't have a deadline. 

Not Quite Spring Enough

 

   It's been chilly here in the wilds of urban Pittsburgh, so nothing has been planted in my new raised beds.

Tomorrow I plan to sprinkle some seeds on the soil on the north/alley side of the new fence, just to keep the weeds down.  When the overnight temps have warmed up a bit more I'll plant some heuchera and some small variety hostas back there interspersed with vinca and some impatiens for color.  I have lily of the valley and some snowdrops to go in there, too.  People walk their dogs along that alleyway, and I don't really want to plant much that takes a lot of work to maintain, but I want it to look nice.  

There has been progress made in the sewing rooms!  Hubby carried my unused desk down to my "
office" for me and cleared up about 10 square feet of floor space.  I spent a few hours vacuuming and  putting various bits of clutter away in their proper places.  The room still looks like the remains of a tornado strike, but the basic idea of what it's supposed to look like is emerging.  (We shall not speak of what the other room looks like,  I literally can't get in to it because I shoved a couple of things into the doorway so Hubby could get through with the desk.)

  My smocking chapter is gearing up for a little midweek retreat and I've been spending time pulling threads in linen to make nicely edged fabric blanks for our project.  I'd bought a yard from one of the big-name fabric and craft stores that took me nearly 4 hours to pull 3 threads! Four HOURS!  The linen threads were not tightly spun and kept fraying and breaking, so I had to dig around to find the loose end about every two inches.  The other yardage I had came from linen-store.com and it took me less than 45 minutes to do the first two thread pulls.  I ordered more so I can replace the Bad Linen.  I did come up with one handy thing: using a fine crochet hook to grab broken threads is a lot easier than trying to pry the thread up with a needle.