Craft Supplies and Dangly Charms

Today is a snow day, the second of this winter.  I wouldn't mind but it should really be called an ice storm day and I'm not much keen on them.

Over the weekend Tom and I have been putting the basement back together.  All the stuff that was temporarily stored in boxes in the office and family room is now back down there, mostly in the right place.  While we were unpacking I went through all the kids craft supplies, games and Halloween stuff and filled 3 bags with bits and bobs for donation.

Craft supplies are something we have a quite a few of and I find it difficult to keep them tidy, it's not easy to make opened bags of feathers, sequins and pompoms look attractive but I've done my best and got it all to fit in this storage unit.

I found a lot of Rose's unfinished craft kits so this morning in the newly cleaned and tidied basement we made dangly charms.  Here they are and that's 1 kit down.  Only 4 to go.  And yes, that is a crop top, before you ask I just don't know.

That's what I do on snow days, how do you spend yours?
Kirstin

Garage Miscellany

Last week I cleared out the garage.  I put all of my gardening equipment in a big plastic deck seat/box, relegated outdoor toys to tubs outside the backdoor and stowed away the fold-able deckchairs in the cold room.  There was an alarmingly large collection of never used cleaning products (mainly speciality stuff that had been left by the previous owners) that went to the dump and quite a lot of odds and ends of timber which was donated to the next door neighbours, I hope they find it more useful than I did.

All that left was bikes.  Gary has reclaimed Jacob's bike because he never uses it and today we donated mine and Rose's old one to Recycle Cycles, a community project in downtown Kitchener.

I now have a weirdly empty garage.

While I was clearing out I discovered that we had managed to collect a whole load of car window cleaning implements:

• 4 snow brushes (1 broken)
• 3 squeegees (that spelling looks really weird)
• 5 ice scrapers

We only have one car.

Again I ask ask how does all this stuff creep up on you, I know we used to have 2 cars but still that's an implement to clean each window on each car.

In order to put a picture into this post I am now going to share a quilting innovation...

Can you guess what these are for?  All will be revealed on Friday, or whenever I get my quilt sandwich finished.

The Basement Part 2

Over the weekend I've been very busy in the basement as we now have less than 2 weeks until men arrive to frame it.  Arghh.  Will I get everything out in time?  Things are even tighter because I've set myself the 'goal of the month' with Elm Street Quilts of finishing a quilt top and that is due very soon.

Today's offering comes in the form of 3 lists.  First is the donate list, all packed up and delivered to the Salvation Army Thrift Store

• Set of green plastics in-trays
• 2 framed Dali prints
• Cranberry glass bonbon dish
• 2 small picture frames
• 1 pair curtains
• 6 pillow covers, not used since 2005
• dog lead, found in the garage when we moved in and doesn't fit the kids
• Ornamental toy car
• Plastic bag of clothes
• Shelf with coat hooks under it
• Brush and shovel set for hearth
• Assorted Christmas ornaments and lights
• Coffee machine
• Miscellaneous plastic toys from McDonalds

This list went out to the curb on garbage day.

• Broken iron
• Broken kettle
• Broken mason jar, broken since 2015
• Suit case with broken handle
• Half a pound of party balloons

And this lot has been packed into a big plastic box for a yard sale in the spring.

• 4 Christmas side plates
• 3 glass vases
• Set of 6 wine glasses
• 5 glass ramekins (kept 14 which is still pretty excessive)
• 4 matching mugs
• 2 cup and saucer sets
• 2 antique cups
• Assorted coasters with cats on
• 'Fashionable Coasters' 20 of them in a now very rusty tin

I also found these items and couldn't bring myself to bin them.

You just never know when a moustache might come in handy, especially an edible one.

Memory Boxes

Last week when my contractor suggested December 3rd as a start date for our reno's I panicked and spent a while flinging things at random into boxes in the basement.  After some deep breathing and a coffee it occurred to me that wasn't the best approach so I went through the kids memory boxes instead.  That took a while because some of the stuff was pretty cute, I particularly like the things they write about us on Mother's and Father's Days.  According to Rose I am a chef and a chauffeur, and my favourite thing to do is watch Downton Abbey.  Oh dear, so much for 2 degrees.

I threw quite a bit of stuff out because I couldn't remember why I'd kept it, but I also kept some pretty ridiculous things.  For instance I have all of their school reports from age 4 onward.  Maybe the time will come where you have to present a full education portfolio to get into University and my children will get into Oxbridge, Harvard or similar as a direct result of my hoarding.  Ha!  I'm sure I'm not alone in this kind of hoarding but it would be good to know that for sure.

I have kept a few of the kids tiny clothes, like Rose's teeny, sparkly dance shorts that she would still be wearing now if I'd let her, but I think these might be my favourites, Jacob's first pair of shoes.  How did he get so grown up?

Books

This week I have had some news which has put rather a rocket under the clearing out project.  We are having some home improvements done, did I mention this in any posts yet? I can't remember.  Anyway, it's been a bit of a trial but I finally found someone who can do the work and he can start rather sooner than I anticipated.  I need to completely clear the garage and basement by December 3rd.  Gulp.

On Wednesday I cleared out and bagged up 169 books.  I have found this a bit hard because I do like books, but if I'm being really objective there are a lot of them in the house that will never, ever be read again.  For instance, textbooks from my first degree, I graduated in 1995 and haven't opened them since so I think it's probably safe to let them go.

I've also had the kids go through some of theirs.  Jacob has been very good and decided to donate almost everything he owns, all he seems to have left is 'The Game Maker's Apprentice', which is so old and dog-eared he can barely read it and 'Calculus for Dummies'.  How did I create such a nerd?

Tom has also done his bit and thinks he can live without such riveting reads as 'Exploring Corporate Strategy' and 'Affiliate Program Management - an hour a day'.  I fear he went though hell to get his MBA.

Rose is going through a big reading phase at the moment and finds parting with her possessions difficult so we put the stuff she doesn't read in a box and I'll take it away when she's forgotten about it.

We still have quite a few books but I feel that a house isn't a home without at least a few.  I went through the house and estimate around 250 remain.  Some more can go if I can figure out e-readers and how to own or borrow e-books.  If anybody reads this and has any observations on that I would be very interested to hear from you.

One Finished Top and a UFO Inventory

If you read any other posts on this blog you will notice that there isn't a whole lot of sewing going on.  This is because Mrs Parker's Blog is a motivational exercise for me as I try to clear out my house.  So far it's working quite well.  I post twice a week; on Tuesdays and Fridays and for each post I must have cleared out and organised something (be it big or small) in my house.

Today's organisational challenge is my big box of UFOs.  I have decided to get them all out, post them here and set myself a time limit for finishing them, so here goes.

Here is a top I finished around 5 years ago and this is my Finish it up Friday.  It's made from a batik jelly roll I bought because I loved the earthiness of the colour pallet and is supposed to be a sort of abstract representation of satellite images of Southern Ontario that you can see on Google Maps, the black lines are roads, small green blocks are wood lots and the strips are fields.

The reason I never got further than this (apart from laziness and lack of staying power) is that I couldn't decide whether to put a border round it or not.  I had the idea to use a mitred border to almost make it look like a framed map on a wall, I even made the fabric pieces for the frame.  If I do that it will look something like this...

So what do you think?  I am still really not sure what would look best and would be very grateful for any feedback.

My next UFO is actually leftovers from another quilt, you can see the original one in this post from The Parkers Abroad.  It is based on Elizabeth Hartman's Xylophone quilt pattern in her book A Modern Patchwork.  I totally over estimated the fabric I would need for my xylophones and ended up with all these strips to use up.  I'm pretty happy with them and I love the happy yellows but I've not found a background I like yet.

Third is this scrap quilt I started for my nephews, I'd better get on with it or they will receive it when they're teenagers and not be impressed.  The train blocks were designed all over the floor by Jacob and Rose one day when I left my scrap box out.  This quilt is my One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts, my goal is to finish the top by the end of November.

And finally, this is my most recently started quilt, I blogged about it here.  It is also inspired by an Elizabeth Hartman design, Bird Bath, from A Practical Guide to Patchwork.

So now I just have to get on with finishing them all up.  I am going to see if I can motivate myself to finish some aspect ready for Finish it up Friday each month.  My aim for November is to have the scrap quilt top done.  If my 'proper' sewing machine is back from its spa break I would like to have the whole thing completed so I can post it off to England in time for Christmas but that might be a little ambitious.

So now I'm all done I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts , Can I get a Whoop Whoop and One Monthly Goal then I'd better get sewing!

Scrap Metal?

This is a complete cheat's post and comes to you courtesy of my husband and father-in-law.

I've been quite busy over the last few days getting things ready for Rose's birthday party, making llama bags for favours and prepping jewellery for the girls to make.  As a result I've had no time for de-cluttering.  The men on the other hand have been busy going through the big pile of tools in the basement.  They have done very well and this is the resulting pile of things that will be going.

On the whole I am very impressed.  However, I did find this rather humble looking bag in the keep pile.

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what's in it? No? 63 Allen keys that's what.  Please understand that I am only revealing this to prove that I am not the only person around here with a weak spot, see Drowning in Gloves and Winter Wardrobe.  I told Tom how many there were in the bag and in the name of accuracy and thoroughness he went round the house searching through untouched tool boxes, bedside tables and other likely Allen key habitat and found a further 18.  Wow.  That's a lot of IKEA furniture.  Here's a picture of some just to prove I'm not fibbing.

What on earth am I going to do with them all? Is there a special place where you can send Allen keys to retire or must they all go into scrap metal and be melted down to make new Allen keys?  Perhaps I could try to sell them all back to IKEA then buy some furniture with more free Allen keys.  Please help, all Allen key disposal/recycling/crafting ideas warmly received.

Winter Wardrobe

The weather here in Southern Ontario is being typically capricious for this season.  A couple of weeks ago it was a balmy 26 degrees, but now we are barely in double figures and it snowed on Tuesday.  Here's photographic evidence and more can be seen in my Instagram feed.

So time for the biannual wardrobe change over I think and a jolly good clean out while I'm at it.

I read quite a bit in my resource books about cleaning out your clothes.  One good technique is to take everything out of your wardrobe, get rid of 5 coat hangers and then put back only what will fit on the remaining hangers.  Another is to throw out everything you haven't worn for one year.  I'm feeling quite good about streamlining my possessions right now so I decided to disregard both of these methods and just go on a trashing binge.  I did pretty well and managed to get rid of all this...

• 8 summer tops and t-shirts
• 4 hoodies and sweaters
• 3 skirts
• 2 pairs of trousers
• 2 dressy tops
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 5 pairs of tights

Summer stuff has been stowed under the bed and in the back of the spare room closet and everything else is sorted into trash and donate.

My problem area in the wardrobe department is jeans and I'm only writing about it in order to shame myself into getting rid of some more.  I have 2 pairs of skinny jeans (1 white, really?), 4 pairs of boot cut and 3 pairs of gardening and painting jeans.  A grand total of 9.  3 pairs don't really fit, in fact I bought 1 pair 4 years ago after a few weeks of very strict dieting and they haven't really fitted since the day I tried them on in the store.  Also, why 3 pairs of gardening jeans? I don't spend that much time in the garden.

I fear that this is not the full extent of the jean hoarding and when I tackle the basement I will find more in my sewing stash waiting to be turned into something else.  They may be waiting a very long time!

Am I the only person who holds onto denim or do other people?  Do you have an irrational fear of throwing other items of clothes out?  Please tell, I'd love to know that I'm not the only one.  Tune in next week to discover if I have managed to part with some more of the Jeans.  After all I can always buy some more!

Drowning in Gloves

The front hall closet is home to baskets and bins of all the hats, mitts and other paraphernalia that help keep us warm, dry or shaded when we go out.  Everyone was available to help at the weekend so we changed over ball caps for toques and went through the giant box of winter stuff that vacations in the spare room closet in the summer.

I'm starting with a list of everything I found in all the closets.  There may be more that I've not found yet lurking under beds and in other forgotten corners but this is plenty for now.

• 26 toques (see this post for definition of toque if you're not Canadian)
• 38 pairs of gloves
• 9 neck warmers
• 11 baseball caps and summer hats
• 4 pairs of earmuffs
• 4 scarves that don't belong to me

That's a total of 91 items of outerwear between the 4 people living in this house.  These statistics suggest that I have 2 problems.

1. I don't seem to be able to pass a bin full of bargain Thinsulate gloves without buying at least 2 new pairs.  This goes for tiny stretchy ones in all different colours too.
2. I like to knit and have a knitting-itchy-hats-for-children-who-don't-really-want-one habit, might be in training to be someone's grandma.

If it's neither of these things then i think there might have been an outerwear breeding programme in the cupboard.

I found these tiny gloves that belonged to Jacob when he was 4, not sure if he's going to wear them again.

To illustrate the extent of my glove-retention issue here's a picture of the rest (except for the pair in Rose's school bag).

We've gone through it all and got 3 bags all packed up and ready to be donated to people who need warming up this winter but somehow there are still 62 items.  I could blame it on Rose who insists that she NEEDS 8 winter hats but really its me and my glove thing.  I've got 8 pairs in the closet and 6 'just in case' upstairs.  I think I need help!

I've reread this post and it has struck me how ridiculous it is that I own 14 pairs of gloves just for me, I shall endeavour to cut that further to 7/8 before I get to the thrift store.  I might regret it when the apocalypse comes and there is a world glove shortage but for now I'll probably be OK.