Still at it. Nothing very interesting happened today, but I’m sharing so I can look back in a week or two and remind myself of the tiny improvements that are adding up day by day.
I used to work with a friend named Sharon at the post office. She passed away suddenly in her early 50s, shortly after learning about her rare blood disorder. The world never felt the same without her in it.. We were complete opposites, and perhaps that’s why we bonded so well. She regularly reminded me that “something is better than nothing,” a perspective I often struggled with as I leaned towards “all or nothing”.
Today I found myself reflecting on a conversation where I had asked her if it frustrated her to see me charge headfirst into obstacles. She replied with a warm smile “absolutely not”. She said she’d always admired my passion for things I chose to pursue and wished she had the same determination. I remember being surprised she valued my approach to things just as much as I valued her patience. As I thought “gee, I didn’t get much done” I could almost hear her say “something is better than nothing” and I felt better.
I consolidated the fabrics from the first cart, purged a few short strings, and took out some that didn’t belong there in the first place – mostly 2 1/2″ strips. Tomorrow I’ll begin working on the second cart.
These fabric will go into a bin for now because I haven’t yet decided where I want to keep them. A few oddballs on the left and remnants of a UFO, Surf and Sand, that I finished last summer on the right.
I’m not at all a fan of storing fabric or scraps in bins but I need to keep my focus on deciding what to keep—yes, no, maybe. The “maybe” fabrics tend to cause distraction so they’ll have to live in a bin until I cycle back around to them at the end.
I’m not ready to go through tools yet but these two caught my eye. That pink thing is a binding wider. It’s handy to wind the binding on and then put it on the floor and let it unwind as I’m stitching it on to the quilt. There’s just never a good place to put it and, letting the binding twist up out of my lap is easier than digging this thing out.
The white thing on the right is a stand for using thread cones at your sewing machine. I never seem to feed the thread through the eye at the top properly and it’s annoying when it gets stuck there. I don’t want to keep either of these things so they’ll go on the de-stash table.
This is order I intend to follow as I go through everything in my sewing room… and I do mean EVERYTHING! It could change but it’s good to have a plan.
- Strings
- Scraps
- Pre-cuts
- Kits
- Tools
- Other “stuff” in my sewing machine cabinet and cutting table drawers
- Books / Patterns
I organized the fabric on my shelves but didn’t check each piece to decide if I should keep it. I might do that later, but I want to first sort through the items that are harder to manage and easier to donate.
