Three Moves Equal a Fire

My mother said, "Three moves equal a fire. You need to settle down," to a co-worker that kept hopping from apartment to apartment. I know Mom understood that from having to move repeatedly as a child. Anyway... 

 Later this week, I will be loading a bunch of boxes into a U-Haul trailer and taking them to Burke, Virginia. I am moving out of Wisconsin. Yes, me. Myself. I. Not we or us. Just me. Sigh. Not a fire, but almost as good. I've gotten rid of all sorts of things. Still not quite as much as I would like, but I have sorted out my sewing stash into three different stacks of materials. 

Stack number one is the stack for quilts. I've got one quilt that's an actual kit and another that's a pile of well-chosen fabrics. This is my smallest stack. 

Stack number two is the stack for clothing for me. It's a larger stack than I thought, but the fabric is all stuff that I want to use for items I already have the patterns for. I don't plan on needing to purchase clothing for myself for a long while. 

Stack number three is the stack of stash that I can turn into items for sale that will become cash. This is the largest stack, but since I was able to connect with several women in the throes of their own de-stashing fits, it cost at most, $2/yard. For really nice quality fabric. An entire armload was free. I have been poking my toes back into the craft show scene. Mostly I do domestics as in kitchen towels, bowl cozys, grocery bags, and the like. Even better, I am getting the patterns from YouTube, so I don't pay for them. I've been collecting them into a book so I can grab it and look up the dimensions I need to cut to get sellable product from each piece in the pile. When I have a more permanent address in Virginia, I'll register my business. For now, in Wisconsin, I fall into an exemption class and don't need to do that. 

If the fabric doesn't fit into one of the three stacks, I don't really want to keep it and in most cases, I haven't. However, fabric makes great packing material. Pun intended. I am using fabric instead of paper to cushion my fragile items. I really enjoyed watching my delicate tea set get safely packed away at the same time a heap of fabric got used to protect it. I didn't have to pack the fabric, I used the fabric to pack.

Spinning Wheel

 This is my Pipy spinning wheel. I'm trying to sell the darned thing... Interested? 

Puppy pictures!

Well, Shit!

Yesterday, I posted on a forum that I'd been a member of for over ten years. I was trying to say goodbye, It's been great, but my head is just not into this craft any more. Today, I wanted to check in and see who had said goodbye, back.

Nope. I've been permanently banned from the group. All my comments, all those years of discussions, deleted.

Other People's Children...

Limp Pile of Pink Linen

I saw an ad for a Bento Bag that seemed to cost a heck of a lot more than it should. I looked up how to sew a bento bag and it is stupid simple, but still has plenty of room for getting fiddly bits wrong. You need to hem certain sides of the bag before assembly and if you don't do it right, you will have issues at a the very visible intersections at the front and back centers.

I've been sewing things for long enough that I did not have any problems. However, I chose to use a lovely, soft linen that I have far too many yards of. Sigh. I now have a bento bag that is a shapeless pile of pink linen.

I wanted to test the pattern and figure out if it would make a thing that I could use. The pattern works. My fabric choice does not. I have canvas that I could use to make a bento bag that would probably work quite well. Or I could create a lined version with not much effort. But not today.

Dog Harness for Bon Bon

Bon Bon needed a secure harness that didn't get anywhere near his trachea. I was working on sewing one for him, but didn't have the right hardware in my stash and couldn't find it in the size that I wanted. Hubby has HUGE hands and can't manage small clips and buckles easily. I was also failing to create a harness that I liked using fabric. It would gap in funky ways and looked awful. I had a set of criteria I didn't think I could meet in a single harness.

• Must actually have a clip to close, not close by having the lead clip on to it.
• Clip must be large enough for husband to open and close with his large hands.
• Must not get anywhere near the trachea.
• Must be made of sturdy fabric, leather or webbing.
• Minimal sagging or gapping.
• Must be small enough to fit. 

I spotted a harness in Wally World that had the exact hardware set up I had been looking for. The webbing wasn't too wide, but it was too large for my 4.5 pound dog.

I got out a seam ripper and a pair of scissors. After a few trial fittings, I was able to sew a harness for Bon Bon that fit him, is adjustable, has the hardware that we need and doesn't get anywhere near his trachea! Total cost was about $7.00 and 30 minutes of cutting and stitching and trial fittings. 

Now that we have one that's good, I'm planning on getting another harness, taking it apart for the hardware and sewing one that's not adjustable, as the sliders are not in the best spot for comfort.

I make lots of Bon Bon's things. I had to cut down his raincoat, as it was too large for him. I can find shirts that are small enough for him, but not much else. Frankly, I think even his food and water bowls are too large, but they are the smallest I could find.

Stuff Shifting

I did some decluttering of my needlework book collection. I also sorted my references and got them in order by both subject and size. I found several texts that I knew had to go. Instead of re-shelving them, I did a stuff shift and created a pile of texts that I wanted to get rid of. That pile has outgrown the space I designated for books I want to get rid of and is now a problem I have to solve.

I must now actually deal with the pile of books that I have created by stuff shifting. Stuff shifting is not decluttering. It is the shuffle that makes you think you are decluttering. Unless the clutter leaves your house, you haven’t decluttered.

But what about the things that are in a box, ready to go? Nope. Shifted stuff in a box. But I put the stuff in a cupboard (or wherever) because I want to use it for such and such project. I can’t see it any more. Isn’t that decluttered? No. You have done a stuff shift. Just because you can’t see it, if you know you want to get rid of it and it is still in your possession, it is still clutter and you need to deal with it.

In short, it ain’t over until it is out of your house. Period.

Some of your decluttering time has to be spent on using the things you have saved for a project on actually completing that project. If you can’t do that, you need to acknowledge that the project is a dream, and get rid of the shifted stuff you set aside for that dream project. Either that, or pay someone to do the project for you.

I have a lot of scrapbook pages that I want to scan, so I can save the digital file and get rid of the large, bulky scrapbooks. The scrapbooks are shifted stuff. I must set aside time to scan before I can stop shifting the scrapbooks and get rid of them. Many of the pages are too large for a home scanner. I will have to pay to get them scanned. Then the scrapbooks will not be shifted, they will be gone.