Gathering Dust

A Valentine's Swap Art Quilt and Why We Make Stuff

In January, Laurie organized a Valentine swap. Everyone sent six 3" embellished squares to Laurie, and Laurie swapped them out and sent everyone six different squares.

When I got my squares from Laurie, I couldn't wait to make them into a little quilt.  I sewed them onto a piece of felted wool, and started playing with stitching and embellishing.

I got the squares on a Saturday, had them sewed onto my backing by Sunday, and spent the rest of the week stitching, sewing and playing, and I had finished my quilt by the next Sunday.

I know, I pretty much stitched this into the ground- I just kept adding. If you want to see what the squares looked like before I embellished and surrounded them, Laurie has pictures of all the squares made for the swap here.  (There were 13 of us in the swap, so you'll see more squares that I show here.)

(These are my squares, and somehow I missed getting one on my quilt.)

It was a really fast and fun project- especially since I had talented friends who did most of the "heavy lifting"- making the squares.

As much as I enjoyed playing with my quilt, I think I was even more touched by the emails that my fellow swappers exchanged after everyone had received their swap boxes.

One of the gals Laurie had invited to play passed because of a medical issue.  A couple of other swappers had the idea that if we each made a square for her, we could let her know we were thinking about her.

Laurie shared an email from her, and the Valentine surprise did cheer up our friend.  I'm so glad for that, but I was also really touched by some of the responses from some of the other swappers.

I am so happy to have been a part of this gift... and am so glad we all did it together.

It was a blessing to me to be able to contribute.

It is wonderful when we can do such a small thing that makes someone feel special through our art.

These emails led into another related subject-  how important it is to all of us to be able to create, make things, and how lucky we are to be able to share this passion with other people that "get it".

This isn't the first time I've posted about this, and many people have written about it more eloquently than me, but I think it bears repeating.  Being creative and making things, whether stamping, doodling, sewing, knitting, stitching or painting or any other pursuit that engages us, makes us feel good.  Scientific studies have shown that those "feel good" chemicals in our brains are released while we are "doing art".

It doesn't matter if we're making our 70th necklace that we might never get around to wearing, doodling in a journal no one but us will see, or casting on and knitting stitches we know we'll pull out tomorrow; it's the process of making art that engages, encourages and enlightens us and brings us happiness. 

(Jenny Doh has written a wonderful blog post about "the process".)

Swaps like this remind me of how lucky I am to have art in my life and friends that I can share it with.  Thanks to Laurie for organizing the swap, and to everyone who played along and added to the email conversation.

Missed It By That Much...

My very first blog post was Feb 9, 2007; I missed posting on my blogiversary by two days.  In honor of seven years and two days of blogging, I'm doing a post about what I've been doing lately, which isn't really all that interesting, but what the heck?

Trying to "bust my stash" of yarn, I've made two small afghans, lapsize for watching TV or reading.  I divided up my extra and half used skeins into blues and pastels.  The afghan on top is the blues.  The pastels are below.

Button thinks I made them both for him.

I found this great gooseneck lamp, but the plug was old and scary, with only a little piece of cardboard holding in metal wires, so I put a new plug on.

(I did warn you that this wasn't going to be the most interesting post...)  I used to rewire lamps a lot, and in theory, it's easy, but in practice it takes time and patience.

Estate sales have been few and far between lately.  I think the weather has something to do with that.  I did go to a great auction and I bought even more than the "auction I went to when my dog died".

At the auction I indulged in my fondness for silver vanity and desk items that no one would use today.  Button hooks, metal nail files, metal tools to dig at your cuticles- no way!  I didn't get all of these at the most recent auction, I just added to my collection.

Two of my favorite new pieces- fancy scissors and and a fancy knife that wouldn't cut much more than warm butter.

So there you have it, my two days late anniversary blog post.  I thought about doing one of those "how blogging has affected my life" but it just didn't feel quite right.  Maybe that's because my goal for 2014 is to be mindful of the present, instead of reflective of the past.

But I will leave you with some pictures of the recent past- like last Friday when I hauled a ton of stuff from that auction into my antique booth.

Junk, Box Lots, Organization and Guest Rooms

This is a shelf in my guest room.  This is what I'd like my WHOLE guest room to look like.

This is also in my guest room.  Unfortunatly, more of my guest room looks like this Ace Hardware red plastic sorter full of junk, I mean cataloged treasures.

I've talked before about how I LOVE auction box lots.  You just never know what you might find.  It might be treasure, it might be trash.

For example, about a month ago, I bought a box of....I don't even remember what, but  these little ceramic trains were in the box.

They ended up selling for $165 on Ebay.  I didn't buy the box because they were in the box, it was just luck.  Having great luck like that with box lots makes me hesitate before I throw anything away.

That's how I started using my ugly red sorting plastic drawers.  Believe it or not, I actually have THREE of these things, and up until a few weeks ago, they were full.  I'm in the process of empty of them, selling some of the contents, or finding a prettier place to keep the treasures inside.

Want to see what's inside some of them?  Not surprisingly, the picture of the flags at the top of the box was in a box with a scrawled piece of masking tape labeled "Flags".

Guess what was in this one?

Yep, mining tags- and some tools checks.  I think the white tags are for numbering your cows.

This box wasn't labeled, but it should have said "Diaper Pins".  Before Huggies....this was what held that little cloth diaper on.  The blue horse at the top of the picture is a candle holder for a cake.  Obviously, mis-sorted!

And this one, labeled "Advertising".

 

I'm not sure if all this qualifies as advertising, but I spot a Dragnet whistle, a Heinz pickles, celluloid holders for Morton salt that slipped on a pencil and some flags...another mis-sort.

I have over 150 drawers to empty, but I have a goal.  I'd like my guest room to look like a place someone would actually like to stay in!

I've listed a few (new) old things- found in my Ace Hardware plastic sorting bins- in my Etsy shop.