On a Mission

G & L (my in-laws) came and picked up the children a few moments ago, so they could have one last all-day Hu-RRAH before school begins again. (Though in truth, they might get another when Smooch comes!)

This means the house is EMPTY.

It ECHOES, for goodness' sake.

I am heading out now, armed with a "grocery list" of sorts (minus the groceries) and several 40% off coupons~and when I return I am going to spend the entire blessed day in the craft room.

Wonder what will come from it all......

any guesses?

Yoooooooou'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

Beautiful bits

Uncle Paul came out to visit this past weekend and chugging along behind him was a truckload of boxes for me to go through. As we have gotten to know one another on a more personal level, he has found out that I can and I sew and that I garden and this and that. He says I remind him very much of Nancy and he asked if he could bring "some" of her things.

What I did NOT expect was that it would be an entire TRUCKload!

Many things were boxed that are easier for someone less-emotionally attached to discard, like old magazines and old cookbook pamplets, easter baskets and such.

But some things were over-the-top amazing.

He brought me her canning jars (yay!) and lids and even a CANNER. He brought me a stockpot and some original Ball Blue Books. He brought a few baby outfits that Nancy had set aside as gifts for people (both boy and girl). He brought the children a handmade rocking horse that has been in the family.

And, after their children had gotten what they wanted of it all, he packed up Nancy's sewing room into boxes and plunked it down in my house.

I spent an entire evening going through those boxes and I can't recall the last time I had so much fun. I felt like a little girl, going through her mothers' sewing basket, except the "basket" was actually several cardboard boxes and the "little girl" was all grown up. (I will say there were plenty of little ones circled round, oohing and aahhing right alongside their mother.)

As I would unlatch a box or lift up a lid, I became more and more certain that it wasn't just the hugging and the kissing that made Nancy and I kindred spirits.

Is it me or can you actually "see" the beauty of another when you admire their things?

I would look at the spools of thread and saw her mending away. I saw knitting needles and practically heard their clinks. I fingered the fabric and wondered what she might have been planning to use it for. I dove my hand into her enviable button bin and could see the little hands of her children, around her feet, sorting and playing, those many years ago.

Such beauty, I thought I would share some of it...

~the enviable button bin~

~what looks to be an older-than-dirt button bag. Too old to be called "vintage"... "antique"seems much better suited~

~zippers, an entire bag full. Many, cut directly out of fabric. I guess I have a thing or two to learn about frugal, waste-not ways after all!~

~thread. A whole LOT of it. But SOME with wooden spools! (be still my heart!)~

~darning equipment, in the same baby wipes container as the Fun Fur~

~taunting knitting needles. WHY, oh WHY, can't I get the hang of it?!~

~trims, lace, ric rac, bias tape. I love the lemon one. It might be my favorite. Or maybe the red one below~

I am afraid my sewing room is destined to be cluttered. I just went through it all this winter, sorting, packing, giving away and selling stuff. Only to have this wonderfully thoughtful generosity poured down upon it. I am not complaining...

I will just have to sew MORE and MORE and MORE. That's all.

There was also sewing scissors, a strawberry pincushion and several other necessities of a working sewing room which, sadly, I already had.

I have been planning on making a sewing basket of her very own for my girl for her birthday in September. I remember the year my mother bought me my sewing basket. (I use it to this day!) It was undoubtedly my favorite gift growing up. I remember reverently touching the REAL sewing scissors, that were too big for my hand. I remember rolling and rerolling the measuring tape and admiring the seam ripper and fabric pencils. I remember wondering what exactly the metal ruler thing was with the red plastic bit in the middle. ;-)

I think a sewing basket might cause the same sweet memories for my Corynn, given her early infatuation with sewing.

Now I have a headstart on the basket stocking, thanks to Aunt Nancy.

But shhhhh! Don't tell!

Tuesday I.........

....tackled the horrific craft room I have been avoiding and shielding pained eyes from for about two weeks.

and then somehow found time to clean the church.

AND do three loads of laundry (folded, too, thank you very much)

Three rooms down. Eight to go. Thankfully, none are in as dire straights as the craft room.

Before:




I hesitate to show you these pictures because....

I am petrified you will think my whole house looks like this. Or that we ALWAYS live like this.

Both are totally false. Believe me when I say this is a one-time deal.

So this post is going to need some serious qualifications.

Qualification #1: My house is (almost) always tidy and when the craft room gets unruly it is rarely THIS unruly (or for this long).

Here are my excuses:

*It was the holidays
* I had lots of last minute gifts to run around finishing
* I had a one year old at my feet the whole time
* Said one year old loved nothing more than to roll hotglue gun sticks around the room, unfold fabric and wrap it around her head/neck, undo everything that was still left done
* said Mother allowed this because it kept said child occupied while she hastily tried to finish said gifts
* I tried to keep the house tidy everywhere else---but the craft room door was a serious temptation to shut out the horribleness for another day. and another. and another.
* I had recently "come into" some serious fabric (explained below) that I had not been able to sort through before the holiday rush happened

Qualification #2: I have a ton of fabric. DO NOT THINK I SPENT MONEY ON IT. 75% of it was given to me. MAYBE more. In December alone my Mom passed along a huge black garbage back of fabric that had been my Oma's AND the librarian, who always notices all the sewing books I borrow, asked if I might be interested "in a little bit of fabric since she no longer sews". That little bit of fabric turned into what equalled FOUR garbage bags of stuff. That on top of a whole wall cubicle set FULL of fabric (mostly given to me).

I never turn down hand-me-downs, and am always grateful for the givers' thinking of me and being so generous. But, as I cleaned this room tonight I realized that there is a WHOLE lot of fabric that is so NOT my style (think deer prints) and that I am storing up all this fabric I will likely never use. (Hey! Anyone want any deer fabric?!?) Not to mention wasting space. Not to mention appearing at best a packrat and worst a spendthrift. Not to mention getting all sorts of stressed out at the STUFF I have accumulated.

After:






I cleaned the room out today and got everything as tidy as I could but I realized I need to make it a goal for this winter to sort through with open eyes as to what supplies I ought to keep and what I ought to get rid of. This MUST be a January or February project.

So it is going to be.

yuck

The sweetest kind

Before I get to posting about MY projects, I thought I would share my girls' recent sewing project.

I have tried to encourage her to begin hand sewing rather than beg for her little sewing machine, just because, well...even though she still has all her fingers~I still get nervous. There wasn't as big an appeal to hand sew as their was to machine sewing....UNTIL her friend Millie did it.

Now~the girl is all ABOUT hand sewing.


I give in to begging when it has to do with hand sewing much faster than to machine sewing because there is less at stake and more ability to leave her alone with it, so when she begged to sew "in the circle" it didn't take much prompting on my part.

I asked what she wanted to make: "A toy for Adele'"
I asked what KIND of toy: "A ball"
I asked what she wanted to embroider on the ball: "A duck"

So she did.


The finished product was pretty great~ and she didn't sew around the edge a single time. Progress!



Of course, she didn't quite "get" how a square piece of flat fabric would turn into a ball-but she was pleasantly surprised as it transformed. (I sewed the ball together.) But even more fun, was watching her sort through my scrap fabric baskets and pick out eight pieces of "just perfect" fabric, fringe, ric rack, and all sorts of ribbon to make tabs.

Besides the machine sewing, she was start to finish the creator of this project. She even added a few jingle bells (for ringing) and a popped helium balloon (for crinkling) to the stuffing (her ideas, all).

SO---wondering how the reception was?




A happy baby and a happy big sister. Well done!

For anyone interested: a free ball pattern is HERE at Grand Revival.

My craft room, revealed

I realized the other day that I never shared the photos of my new craft room. I vowed I would, for posterity's sake, take some photos of it; not knowing how long I might have it for~ and knowing for certain it will never be this clean again.

This is the view from the door, coming into the room.

The red fabric is covering up bins of fleece, batting, stuffing and floral supplies.

On the other wall is my fabric stash. Yes, it is large. Much of it was given to me by a very generous, non-sewing Aunt who is in the craft advertising business and finds herself with lots of 1/4 yard samples. Can't do too awful much with 1/8 to 1/4 yard swatches besides quilting, and many are fabrics I wouldn't have chosen for myself but I am grateful for them nonetheless.

And then of course, my smallish bookcase (Matt built it in highschool) filled with some books and scrapbooking supplies. The basket on top is filled with sewing patterns and the laundry basket is FULL (to brimming) with WIP's. Yeah. I need to get on that...

One of my favorite things about my craft room now, is the use of an over-the-door towel hanger for ribbon storage. I bought it for $8.00 at Walmart, hoping it would work well for towels:but they never dried. I was happy to find another (useful) use for it so that my money wasn't wasted on junk. It suits me much better as a ribbon dispenser.

For the record: the photo below is what it looked like the day before I began work on it, though truthfully, it was FAR worse about a month ago!