Crafty

Crafty Storage Progress Update

I wanted to wait to post until Tuesday so that I could report more progress, but now it’s already Wednesday, so this post won’t be wordless, but I’ll post some extra pretty pictures in a separate post later. I have discovered all the lovely spring flowers in my yard. Fancy has rediscovered the joy of rolling in wet grass. She’s helping me find all the flowers and chasing the huge squirrel out of the yard.

I did make something crafty this week for my new counseling office, but got so excited to take it there, that I forgot to take pictures. I will have to get pictures  of it on Thursday when I am there again. My office is shades of cream and brown with blue accents. I already have one candle holder that is brown and needed a blue one. This one is a blue Ball canning jar with brown and white twine and bronze tone scrapbooking charms hanging on it and it’s filled with blue glass beads. I need some more of the beads as I realized I can’t reach the votive without tipping the jar. I am using the fake battery candles, definitely not real candles, but it’s still sad. I have some brown fish tank gravel that may work for it as well, so I may try to use a mixture of the two.

So I started sorting out my fabric in my big cream colored trunk this week. It is something I can do in pieces, as the fat quarters in the trunk are in separate boxes. I can just pull one box out at a time. I haven’t really gone through it with a realistic eye for what I’m actually going to use in a while. It was buried in the storage unit at the last apartment and I let it get messy.

So far I have a little pile of fabric that is a yard or more, which needs a new home, and another pile to get rid of. I have donated to the church quilting ladies in the past, but may try to spread this around. I could probably donate a bunch of my scraps to a local community art center for their materials box as well, or see if my friend’s girl scout troop needs them. I could also add them to my therapy art supplies, which I may do, if I have a lot of clients who like art.

I sorted through my pinks, purples, reds, and blues, and am in the middle of my browns, yellows, and black fat quarters. The reds, pinks, and purples fit in one container for right now with some room to expand. I know I have some more of each if these colors in various places which will be added as I find them. I tried to fold everything the same width so that they would all fit neatly and did a pretty good job. The container is the top tray for a different container holding my interfacing. I have a second one as well that currently holds pot lids in the kitchen. This might be viable and neater storage solution than the random collection of boxes I have now, but I’m not sure If I’ve seen too many sturdy trays like this lately.

Here is the blue box, which will probably need to be switched out when I get all my blue pieces together again. You can see it’s already bowing out in the middle and blue is my favorite color.

I have more motivation now to actually get things cleaned up. I have a couple of projects for other people to finish and have found a place to donate most of my finished quilt projects. My friend, who is an occupational therapist in a hospital, has a sensory room with lots of things that quilts could be used for. I would rather have my quilts go to a place or person that I know can and will use them. Not to say that the national charities I was looking at couldn’t or wouldn’t use them, but I’ve been looking for ways to help locally, either geographically, or with those I know personally. My goal is to spread as much kindness as I can and use my stash as much as I can to counteract the negatives. Do you have any favorite charities or causes that might need fabric for projects, or completed quilts? If so, please let me know!

Well, that’s it for this post. I have a whole day of errands planned for tomorrow, but will make some time for more cleaning and organizing.