S.A.B.L.E.

It's an acronym that's new to me: Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy, but it turns out that that is a pretty good description of my fabric collection.

I spent from the 26th May to 7th of June getting all the fabrics, curtains [for repurposing], end-of-life sheets [for toiles, or cutting down], and far more mending and alterations than I could recall out of their various 'hiding' places and piled it all up in the dining room (a.k.a. sewing room/spare bedroom).

And then I put it all back away again!

But not like it sounds...  I filled Janet's wardrobe in the dining room with two piles in the hanging section: Alterations, and then Mending on top (on the right hand side), and "Projects" on the LHS.  "Projects" is the description for when an idea and the fabric have already coincided.  Those categories filled the hanging section.

In the drawer below, I have put all the bedlinens that the charity shop won't take, that I can chop up and use as 'toiles' - it will take longer, but by making a 'rough draft' of a garment, I can make sure I'm happy with it before cutting into the fabric I want it made from.

The wardrobe under the stairs has two shelves crammed with larger pieces of material, curtains-to-repurpose, bedlinens and tablecloths ditto.  There's is also a drawer of tweed/tartan fabric and offcuts, waiting for the right waistcoat/body-warmer idea to come my way.

The single wardrobe upstairs has a pile of duvets, that I intend to cut down to make 'sofa quilts' and a couple of 1 metre wide duvets, for my side of the bed in winter.

Smaller remnants, furnishing fabric samples and fat quarters are in a drawer of the one of Janet's chests of drawers, in another are damaged-beyond-use linen sheets and tablecloths.  There is also a part-drawer with clothes that I intend to sacrifice to the alter of "ooh, that will make a nice <other thing>".

It brought it home to me just how many things I have amassed!

I hope to be able to get around to doing one project a week, but first I need to tackle the sitting room [and all of Janet's stuff that is taking up all available space], so that it no longer looks like we should be on an episode of "Hoarders".

[I have never watched that, but I can see my own home, and understand that TV programmes have been made in less bad circumstances!]

Wish me luck! 

Darning may not *feel* like decluttering...

I've been darning this week: a Land's End nightie that really should have lasted longer than it did, leggings [that I use as pj bottoms], joggers, socks, and reinforcing weakened areas on a cardigan.

This may not seem like it's getting rid of stuff, but it has created some (much-needed) mental space, so that is seven things off my 'mental To-Do list'.

Result! 

"You're Aiming Too High!"

I saw a YouTube short [that I forgot to bookmark, so I can't remember who it was by], and he said that if you are failing, it's not because you aren't aiming high enough, it's because you are aiming too high; aim lower!

It was a persuasive argument: my aim had been "Do.All.The.Things", and I've realised that that particular aim has caused "paralysis"...  If I want to start to succeed, I need to start with "baby steps"...

I need to Aim Lower!

Since I started to declutter, we have emptied my mother-in-law's two-bedroom terraced house, in two phases: Phase 1 cluttered up our dining room, and prevented us from making good the wall [structural movement from 2003 that the previous owner hadn't dealt with, and that was worsened by another bout of heave, following Covid's lovely summer/wet winter combo].

We got Janet's stuff finally dealt with [shoe-horning in some pieces that we intend to keep (at least for now), and taking so much stuff to the charity shop (I can't tell you how many loads of clothes I washed, and how much kitchenware I scrubbed)], and then it was time for Phase 2...

If you guessed "cluttering up our dining room", I would love to be able to give you a prize, but there isn't one on offer, sorry!  We also "cluttered up a storage unit".

So that then added another delay, as we dealt with emptying the dining room once again. 

Thankfully, in the meantime, we have had the wall made good, and the whole room plastered, and tomorrow the plumber is coming back to re-fit the radiator; we may even have finished painting the walls by then - who knows?

I'm going to try and blog about the changes, as a way of keeping myself accountable. 

[Yeah, like that worked so well the last time?!  But: this time, I have been having some counselling, and am working on/willing to work on the shame I feel at not being able to keep my home clean and tidy, and I'm going to aim lower, so please keep your fingers crossed for me, anyone who stumbles over this?  Thank you, if you are out there and wishing me well.]

I cannot change the past, but I can start again, and (maybe) change the future.