Tuesday, August 31, 2010

a time capsule in the closet

The year was 1996. It was summer. Brita was given free rein to paint her closet. This is what happened:

This closet is going to be repainted and outfitted with new shelving, but I just had to document what life was like for a 16 year old girl that year. A happy girl with good friends and clearly an inner artist just waiting to blossom! There's even glitter paint mixed in there, not sure how well that's going to cover! This space was crammed full of "my stuff", meaning supplies for knitting, sewing, cross stitch, paper making, soap making, dying, weaving, unfinished projects, gifts, batting, rubber tubing, upholstery fabric,chenille, clothing patterns since ~1971, etc., etc. A bunch of that stuff has been sorted out for donation and give-away, re-allocation to other storage areas, and a bit of garbage, too. The shelving in there was minimal, so a lot of things were piled on top of other things. As you probably know, this does not make for easy access to that thing on the bottom of the pile. Those become the forgotten things, which occasionally elicit something like this: "Oh, that's where that is! I knew I had that suction tubing in here somewhere! I was afraid I had thrown it out."

Two more blocks done for the Farmer's Wife--
Block # 4 and #9, respectively. I discovered that I had already done #4, but assembled it differently, so this one is done as the author intended. I am anticipating a lot of time to do handwork in my near future, as I will be taking a road trip to Colorado in a couple weeks. So I have been organizing and cutting pieces for more of these blocks to take along. Choosing the fabrics and cutting out the pieces is easily done while tuned into a movie or recorded book, so I am accumulating little baggies of pieces to be stitched at a later date. Maggie and I are putting together our plans for our Farmer's Wife class starting this fall at Bear Patch, we hope to have some other handwork groupies to lend us support!

At our employee meeting last Friday, we had a little sew-along to learn the zipper technique for this little bag--
It really makes it easy to get a great finished look, not so much that dorky-homemade-look! Pattern by Atkinson Designs. Good instructions. After you make your first one, you honestly can make one from start to finish in 30 minutes or less, and they are like potato chips--can't make just one! Isn't it great that I actually get to attend an employee meeting that includes sewing!

Missing Gracie this morning, she went to her proper place with Brita and Ben, after a month and a half vacation at her country house. I know we will get visitation now and then, so I can give her a scratch and stare into her pretty eyes!
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"The most important things in life aren't things." ---Anthony J. D'Angelo

3 comments:

Nancy said...

Is that the cash and carry pattern? Cause I love all those Atkinson designs and this looks like it would be fun for some Christmas Presents...

Daniel said...

What an awesome time capsule!

Pam said...

Yes, Nancy, Cash and Carry it is! You should also check out the new Groovy Girls club that we will be starting at Bear Patch, info coming out this weekend on our website. It is from Terry Atkinson and is spin-offs of her patterns, Cash and Carry being first with some cute modifications.