still here...

 you may h ave noticed that I don't blog much these days.  The posts would get very repetitive.

Having days that are very samey if fine with me, but makes for uninteresting reading.

Actual. new things:

   They have finally finished doing all the random street work around our neighborhood.  Six blocks south and 5 blocks west is another story...those will be ongoing for a while.  So, even though we don't get woken at 6am by tractors revving up for the day, we stilll can't get there from here easily.

We had replacement windows installed in every one of our 33 windows.  After 14 years of literally being able to feel the wind come through our patio door joints, we decided it was time to do something permanent about it.  After all, plastic sheetinng taped down with Frog Tape isn't very fashionable even if it mostly works.  Our cooling bill has already gone down, which, in this heat, is saying something!

My smocking guild chapter is having a three day retreat this week.  I'm heading to the hotel tomorrow so I don't have to get up and drag my husband out at the crack of rush hour on Monday.  I'll be working on that same reticule that has been mentioned before.  With some intensive work, I should be able to have it done by Wednesday afternoon, or at least close to done.  We'll also be doing some group work on our charity gowns for the SAGA wee-care program.  

Lest I forget to mention it: the Great Window Replacement Project of 2024 required all furniture and things to be moved away from the window.  This means I was forced to spend several days shoving boxes and bags around in The Rooms.  There is clear floor!  Not much is actually organized, of course, but I can see my way clear to doing that.  First step will be putting the curtains back up as they're currently in the middle of the north room floor. I did manage to throw away a lot of "why?" items, get my scissor collection mostly in one place and fold a lot of fabric neatly into bins.  Patterns will likely be sold- I seriously do not need 120 child-sized patterns, many of which are so similar that I can likely alter just one basic pattern to produce any of them. 

Look!  Carpet!

   Clearing things away from the windows has also given me complete access two 1.75 of the guest room walls.  I may finally paint in there before we hang the curtains back up. 

Time for beddy-byes.  The Hubby is on new medication that makes him a bit dizzy and I might have to drive him to a massage appointment at 9am.  I am not good with any am earlier than 11. 

-K

January 1/3

 

  That would be 1/3 of the way through,  not third day of.  

  I signed up for Karen Brown's JustGetItDoneQuilts declutter challenge again this year.  I'm currently 9 days behind, so things proceeding as normal, there!  A commitment I had for tomorrow has been cancelled due to covid, so I'm going to use that time to catch up on at least the first 4 days (day one and day two I had done in December of '23, so shouldn't have to spend much time on those).  

Days 4, 5 and 6 may well take me several hours each. Patterns, archives and books.  i went through books last year and managed to pull three to offload.  They are still sitting in a box upstairs, I've decided on three books I can definitely add to them, and might be able to let go of a few more that are for things I'm likely not going to get around to.  Bobbin Lace, for one. I have a kit from Lacis and three books that I acquired in 2012, and have not touched since except to dust them,  Another is tambour work. I bought a hoop, hooks and at least one book in '13 or '14, and they have been languishing on the shelf above the bobbin lace stuff. Time to set them free!  I know the basics of both, but know I'm not very likely to put in as much practice time as needed to become skilled.

Patterns:  I have three large boxes of various brands.  Many are old Children's Corner garments that are now out of print.  A good deal of them will be offered in facebook destash groups.  All the littles I sew for now range from a kid's 6 to a woman's 14.  I also have many many other patterns that are scattered around in various shelves, bags or boxes. Most are for me. I think they might be easier to work with if they're in the same general area. 

  I'm exhausted just thinking about this process, and that's only from the first week!  Scissors and cutters, and pins and clips are two other groups that will take multiple sessions just to locate and centralize without even starting to declutter them.  

  I am blessed to have So Much Stuff---but it would be nice if I was also complementarily blessed with a tidy-and-organized gene.  

That's as far as I got with my cutting table last year. Three times that much was cleared off and put away where it belongs. (I'll never find it again)  

  I've started to get some sewjo back again, so will really work to make the rooms usable again.  There are materials for two quilts by Crabapple Hill Designs  whispering to me from pretty boxes as well as a metric shedload of dresses and daygowns.  I've sworn myself to a fabric fast until I've cleared out at least one bin of fabric by turning into wearable items. 

Enough for today.  The hubby has online gaming tonight, so I'm going to go do all the noisy kitchen chores before they get started.

May your sewing rooms be ever uncluttered!

-K

slow progress

 

There still isn't a lot of stitching going on around here, but I have been thinking about it more. I'm going to count that as a win!  Quite a few thing have been herded from various rooms in the house and corralled in a box to take to Kitten Scoop (my favorite rescue) over the weekend. Getting the last of the Cat Things given away is going to be bittersweet. I won't need them again, and the cats and kittens at the Scoop will certainly enjoy them, but I'll miss the occasional surprise reminders of my furbies. 

I was scrolling through my photos yesterday and discovered that it has been five years since I started Christmas dresses for two of my great-nieces.  (I now have 5 great-nieces and one great nephew on that branch of the family.)   I should check to see if there is enough fabric to make their current sizes....  I think the only thing I've finished in those five years is a bonnet with snail-shirred lace trim, and I have a hardanger bookmark 3/4 done. (somewhere. if I find it, I'll finish it up)

  I'm passing my collection of Tudor and Renaissance patterns and books along to the mother of the poor dressless girls.  They do a few Renfaire visits each summer and all enjoy dressing up for them, so I know they'll get another round of use.  I've discovered I don't mind relinquishing things to a new home nearly as much as i do just donating it to a thrift or re-use shop.  

One thing that has gone very well this year is my fabric "diet".  So far, only 1/2 yard of fusible interfacing has made it's way to the Rooms of Doom. (We will not mention the notions or silk ribbon, m'kay?).  

I hope holiday preparations are going smoothly for everyone, no matter how or what you celebrate. Our decorating plans, such as they were, got postponed when Dearly Beloved dropped a king-size mattress on his foot. The toes are all sprained, so no ladders for him for another week. The offending mattress is currently lurking half in the guest bedroom, half in the hallway, plotting its next attack and being a general nuisance by its continued presence.  I suspect it's unhappy about being dumped. 

-K

Not so Stitchy

 

Once again, I've lagged off from blogging.   Partly it's because I haven't done much worth blogging about.  I'm still vaguely attempting to clear out the sewing room enough that I can work up there...but this is much like saying one is "going fishing" when all one really does is pick up a stick and poke it at the water occasionally.  There is so much stuff up there that it sucks the motivation out of me the minute I park my chair.

My chair? you may wonder...  Last spring the arthritis in my knees got bad enough that climbing the stairs was so painful as to be nearly impossible, so we had a stairlift installed all the way up to the sewing room.  This made is a 4-flight run with 4 u-bends.  It was spendy.  I love it, and it's the only reason I've been to the 3rd floor sewing room at all in the past 15 months.

Gardening has been pretty much out of the question because i can only stand for about 10 minutes, and when I bend, my right knee does this weird and uncomfortable shifting thing that makes me think I'm going to fall.  Don't even think I can get down on my hands and knees!!  (I have, once, about two weeks ago to plug in a lamp.  I still have the bruises and swelling) 

  I had a three week course of hyaluronic acid solution injections, but it doesn't seem to have helped much. I also got these sort of monster-looking knee braces that are difficult to put on and which I can't drive in, so they don't get worn often.  I should wear them more, at least around the house.  The few times I have worn them I felt as if it was easier to walk, and I was definitely more stable on my feet. 

I do hope to do more sewing soon, or at least some sewing.  A friend has offered to help me in the sewing room - I mostly need someone to be legs for me and take things from point A to Point N - so I may take her up on that.  I bought kits to make 12 Days of Christmas ornaments a couple of years ago and would like to get that project at least started this year.  

Nearly June

 

I really don't publish much.   

Some of that is because I haven't been doing much; my fibromyalgia has been acting up a lot lately and to add to that, I started new medication that apparently did not play well.  I'm hoping I can get on a lower dose or different type of hormone replacement, but until then I am just not taking the current one. (Dr Approved)

What have I been up to, when I'm up to anything, you may ask.

Well- I was contacted in April, I think, by a gentleman who was clearing out his late wife's stash and wondered if I would like to come and see what our smocking group could use.  Oh.... there was a LOT of stuff.  Two 10x10 bedrooms and part of the garage were absolutely crammed full, and that was after they had removed two pickup truck loads.   I've been going through several bins and boxes of thread, fabric, floss, magazines and books.,and patterns.  And more fabric... I called in reinforcements from our chapter, and she also acquired two SUV loads of fabric which she distributed to Dress A Girl and a couple other organizations. I think she still has unsorted boxes as well.  Obviously, I was not thinking straight at the time.  It isn't as if I don't have enough of my own stash to worry about organizing and using up....   Consequently, not a lot has been achieved in my own sewing room, which is still littered with patterns, boxes of threads and notions, small piles of fabric, and possibly a small car or bus.  Every time I go up there to find something I am reminded that I really really need to get back to work up there so I can use it as a sewing room rather than a hoarder's sewing annex.  *sigh*. There's really a lot. 

I've done a bit of hand stitching on a smocked sampler, have started a new project from Mary Corbet (Little Blooms), and wound innumerable skeins of floss onto bobbins. There has been a little bit of gardening and yardwork now that the fibro is backing off a bit. I spend about a half hour a day learning Dutch on Duolingo.  Mostly, there has been reading. I think I'm reading about a book every day: I've gone through the Dan Padanova  Wolf Lake Mystery Series and am on book 5 of the Thomas Shepherd mysteries.  The Raven Song and The Raven Spell by Luanne G Smith snuck in there somehow, and various quilting, sewing and cooking cozies as well as some instruction booklets and magazines.  Oh, yes, I'm also researching information on shell edge hems and writing an instruction leaflet as I'll likely be teaching the group on the 8th.  

  I suppose if you add in the reading and the weekly laundry and housework, I have been doing things. I'm not sure anyone wants to read about me starting to fold my tshirts differently so that I can fit more in a drawer, or the Quest For Jeans That Fit which my husband solved for me.  I have no idea why he can find jeans in my size online looking at the Same Site that I was just on and they didn't have them, but hey, I'll take em how I can get em.  (Apparently I no longer wear the size I thought I did, so we had to order two more pair in a smaller [yay] size.  The others are in the mountain of mending and alterations which I will get to as soon as I can find my sewing machine.). I'm working some very slow general decluttering into the mix, as well. 

Until Halloween... (probably), take care!

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.