Stuff

Claire August 10th, 2007

Second post, and this isn’t so scary after all! Thanks for the lovely comments you gave me on my first post, it is appreciated.
Thought I would get the camera out and have a play with a little bit of the stuff I have acquired recently. I go through phases of getting stuff then droughts – if anyone is a seasoned charity shop addict/thrifter like me then you will probably relate to that.

I have a lot of stuff (scary but exciting to think of taking pictures of it!) and it drives my housemate Rach to distraction at my clutter everywhere. It’s part of my nature – I am naturally messy and something I cannot fight against.
David, my other half helped me sort out the tiny box room that holds my craft stuff, fabric, craft books etc a while ago – I discovered that I loved my life being organised into clear plastic boxes that stack really neatly on top of each other – I could see the contents, and the dust was kept out. Most importantly of all when the cats do a bit of orienteering around my box room (it’s a favourite sport for Stella in particular), they can’t knock the boxes over. Genius! The trouble then is, I have to keep buying boxes to put what I have recently acquired into, and I never seem to have enough boxes for my stuff, so it always looks a mess. And I struggle to get to stuff.

Take, for example my room at the minute (I am too embarassed to even take a picture) – it’s full of stuff for the craft group that we have recently started, stuff I have acquired from charity shops and worst of all, the amount of stuff I have been given – I cannot say no to anything. It will get better, I tell myself when my friend Angela is given the pile of stuff that is for her (big pile) – she recycles anything, and organizes the most brilliant craft supplies days. I will post about that at another time. But then deep down, I know I will just acquire more, and it will be back to square 1 again. Ho hum.

So, on a brighter note I thought I would show you the bag I made from my grandmother’s curtainsI don’t know how this piece of fabric survived, but it did – it was just big enough for this bag. The phot doesn’t really show much of the beading – maybe the light was too strong.

Here’s the reverse.
And a bit of a close up of some of the flowers
some need repairing and re- beading, but considering I made this 2 years ago and have used it constantly I don’t think it’s that bad. When I started it I used some of the beads I had from being a child, and didn’t have enough to use for anything else, so I am pleased I used them up. The lining is from a Rose and Hubble fabric I bought when I was 17 and made a lovely long wrapover skirt (which I still have alhtough cannot fit into right now). It’s only since I have been writing this that I realised the fabric on the outside is Rose and Hubble. Coincidence or what?

As Pamela said she was looking forward to seeing my doilies I mentioned in the first post I thought I would put them on too – the sunlight was quite bright so maybe they aren’t as clear as they could be, and the stitching certainly isn’t, but considering I was either 8 or 9 I don’t think are too bad!

and

The use of colour has developed (I hope) in some of the stuff I will post later – quite a lot of orange in these. I clearly remember the day we bought them. It was a visit to Haworth (best known as the home of the Bronte sisters) in West Yorkshire. My mother lived nearby for about 15 years, when she worked in a woollen mill, and my parents, as they put it, did a lot of their “courting” round there. My dad had instilled a love of steam engines in me, and I was becoming obsessed already with the Bronte sisters – after watching Jane Eyre on TV, so this was a fantastic day out. When you arrive in Howorth on the steam train, as you walk out of the station, to get to the village you walk uphill through a beautiful park, and at the edge of this park, in what must have been an outbuilding for the station was a haberdashery shop run by 2 little old ladies. I had been given a sewing box my brother made for christmas that year, and wanted to practice my new skills on something other than hankies, so my mam bought me these. I was so, so excited and spent hours trying stitches, pulling them out til I was happy with what you see here. My mam kept them and used them for years, and when we cleared her house out after she died it was one of the first things I made sure I kept.

When I was taking the photos, Boo came along and wanted a fuss, and made sure I couldn’t ignore her by parking herself on one of the doilies. This is one of the few of her “helping” out.

She’s so sloppy she just wants to be picked up and fussed. As soon as I picked her up to take her off the table she started purring… who could resist?

Anyway, after a very long post I will leave you with one of my many works in progress – a baby blanket in the very addictive ripple stitch.

• crochet , furry things , sewing and crafting
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