Slow creativity

You have probably noticed that there haven’t been a lot of creative posts lately. The malaise has set in. I have ordered two Koala sewing cabinets and a Horn cutting table. It will probably take about two months, overtime I walk into the sewing room it just looks like one big mess. Which it is.

Time for another purge. A couple bags like this went into the trash. I do this periodically. No I haven’t read Kondo or seen her netflix show. I am not a minimalist, I throw things away. As a creative person, a certain amount of ‘stuff’ is my palate.

A few years ago I organized my buttons. Then I received about twenty salesmen cards of buttons. Some I used but most weren’t functional. One of each size or color. A friend gave me her mother’s button collection. I decided that I don’t need to be the dumping ground for others. When I want buttons, I’ll go buy them. I kept some buckles as well as sets of buttons. Then I set about creating a decorative button jar.

I kept many of the mundane ones, as many as the sparkly ones as I could as well as some large glass beads. If I need one special button, I’ll check this out, otherwise, it’s off to the store I go. Meanwhile, buttons as art are always welcome in a sewing room.

The sacrilege! I threw away books! Nobody wants these books, don’t tell me to donate them to a school or library. Sorry, they are overloaded. Sometimes simply throwing something away is the thing to do. I wonder if Kondo agrees. A number of books were what I call Knitting magazines with hard covers. Others were art books I referred to when I was a docent, such as publications from LACMA. When my mother died she didn’t leave a lot, she had already moved to a one bedroom apartment. So we divided up what we wanted. I’m sure she would have wanted me to take the art books – she had some really incredible ones. I didn’t want them. So the Judaica books went to people who wanted them and the rest of the books, art and history went to a used bookstore in Jerusalem. The owner was very impressed with my mother’s intellect. I’m sure some of the books were tossed.

I gave this painting of my mothers’ to my son. It is now beautifully framed and in his office.

Btw, once the furniture arrives, I’ll do another very large purge and will get rid of as many of those plastic drawers as I can. Which will probably mean that I’ll go through my fabrics and threads and throw more things away.

I have been busy sewing for almost 4 hours every Tuesday at Quilt’n’Things

It has to be easy sewing so I’ve sewn plenty of pillowcases. I don’t think I need to share more pictures of those. Nona at The Valley Modern guild puts together kits to sew tops for charity quilts as well. I didn’t take a picture of the before, but you get the idea. She gave me a package with the center block as well as the other fabrics and said: go to town! I did!

Nona chose lovely fabrics. I made sure that the print in the first border runs in the same direction. That is one of my bugaboos, I don’t like mono-directional fabric! Another great choice was the checkered fabric. It really helps highlight the texture in the bunny. I am also glad that I used the batik in the middle and the multi colored print for the final border.

I will not be quilting this. Although once I get my new quilting table I will be happy to try and quilt some of the smaller charity quilts. It won’t be such a strain what with all the extra space for the quilt to sit on while I move it under the machine.

Leah

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