Tag Archives: organizing

Geometry and Junk Drawers

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Two free photo apps and a quilt picture and I could fiddle all day (PicFrame to combine images / Prisma for filters).

Monday, I like to get some cleaning and straightening done (is this how we’re referring to procrastinating these days?). I hadn’t intended to go on a tear but ended up organizing the kitchen drawer — the one we call “the vitamin drawer” even though it’s also the chap stick drawer, the dental floss drawer, and the spare key drawer.Most items were keepers, like the coins and rusty bits above, but a few items had to go — like the Teen Multi Vitamin with a “use by” date of 2010.  Found all my silver bracelets, which I had been vaguely missing, as well as a number of watches.

There were LEGO guys and a miniature warrior, as well as a Playmobile broom. And look at that tube of BB’s! I suspect that dates back to my husband’s childhood and I have no idea how it arrived in this drawer.

Next up was the blanket chest in the corner. Inside I found cloth, of course, and on top: a lot of paper (printed out chapters with beta reader comments and one of my research notebooks). None of it’s particularly essential at this point but the pile was a reminder of the dangers of shoving shit into closets and drawers when company’s coming — you may not see those things again for another couple of seasons!

Damp Stretching

damp-stretching-on-yew by dee at clothcompany

Well, OK, I haven’t exactly been the ‘best’ student in Karen Ruane‘s class. It’s not that her stuff isn’t completely and wildly inspiring or that she doesn’t share well. Not at all.

But, I was busy with CB2 over at Spirit Cloth and I struggle to create all-white or even monochrome pieces, and I am still mildly obsessed (can one be ‘mildly obsessed’?!!) with cloth weaving,

and there were summer activities, and I got my first indigo vat going… and… and…  In any case, nobody is yelling at me, and I WILL get to the Chinese knots (can’t wait) and the cut outs and the nontraditional use of hexagons… and my supply of antique lace and linens.  It’ll be fun.  (Did I mention that I’m looking for a job?!)

But for now, I am very happy to have just watched the lesson on damp stretching. The first photo and the one below are the Noah’s Ark piece…

Pressing a finished quilt that will hang on the wall is not as perilous as trying to apply heat to a two-sided piece, like Karen’s. And, I don’t, here, have to worry about scorching antique, white, irreplaceable linens, the way she does.

Nevertheless, pressing a finished wall quilt squashes the batting, ruins the irregularities so lovingly applied with hand-stitching, and can be a bitch to do uniformly, even if willing to make those sacrifices.

So I have pinned the unbound quilt to a piece of foam core board and spritzed it with water. It is out on our huge yew, to dry in the sun. I can see already that this will even things out nicely.

In the meantime, Son No. 1 is now home (though not at this moment) and we are, for a few short weeks, a family again!  Messes converge – backpack on sewing supplies, dirty clothes everywhere, shoes piled up near the back door, wet towels accruing at a hotel-pace.  Their having been gone makes me feel uncharacteristically tender toward their strewn things, and anyway, my preferred strategy, even when annoyed, is to deal with MY mess (which is generally sizable).  Today my paper mess is demanding some attention.  I’ve laid everything out, and left it there.  Not even a handsome face makes me want to touch the stuff.  But, I will.  I will.

At least I removed the mirror from the dining room table – just in case it was helping the mess multiply (think: Feng Shui).  Enough rambling for one morning, Bye!

Five Things, early September

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Five things — (to read about this journal technique, go to earlier post, here):

The weather today is cool, sunny, and absolutely beautiful!

wind-chimes

One thing I did well yesterday was clean out the sock drawer from the mudroom!  (The Clutter Campaign is on-going.  I have buddied up with a friend to check in with on Wednesdays.  Weekly check-ins are a boost not only because of accountability, but because it is always easier to be decisive about someone ELSE’s mess!!)

One thing I could have done better yesterday was to avoid the bowl of ice cream at bed time… I wasn’t even dying for it!

Two things I will commit to doing today are:  1)  get all the stray socks and put them SOMEWHERE (hopefully into the garbage); and 2) take Jack to the Upper Field.

sedum-by-stairs