Pour Paint No More and Konmari #sustainability

I’ve been a bit more occupied with the Konmari activities of house cleaning of which many of you are also engaged. I’m more motivated now than before because I am considering if I want to stay in my house, or move to a place in a maintained community. In the recent years I have been occupied on other things and haven’t organized much. I like being organized and am always looking for ways to work more neatly. I feel like I lost a couple years because health sapped my usual gung-ho approach to things (allergy desensitization therapy). I also turned my house inside out a year ago to replace all of the floor covering. The year before that it was a porch renovation. Honestly, I am still recovering from last year. I moved things into the garage to clear the rooms and have not dealt with everything out there. I’m also seeing that the way I structured some of my storage areas inside the house are less functional than they could be. I put shelves in closets when cabinets would have been smarter. I think I knew this a while back, but my former cat enjoyed a custom bunk in the upper closet and I knew that I would not take that away from her while she was living. I have bookcases in my living room where a credenza or hutch with doors would have made more sense. That’s okay. It’s never bad to discover solutions or enhancements. This is especially true in my case because my initial investments were affordable, and I could do the labor myself. But now, it makes more sense to invest in a few pieces that will work better with my lifestyle.

Creatively, I have moved past my pour painting interest. It was fun, but this is another hobby that other people do more brilliantly than I. I did achieve my goal of having three blocks of color above my television unit. It’s a modern look that goes with the rest of the great room. This hobby, for me, is in the same category as paper crafts, or card making. With those, I struggled to turn out something I liked. When I was a card maker I would be up in my craft room all day to turn out a card, yes one, that I didn’t love. My friend, Ellie, can create a beautiful card, which pleases her and others, in no time at all. I had all the tools, just not the talent. I realized this when after dinner one evening I went into my craft room, pulled a piece of fabric, and turned it into a WetOnes caddy for my car, in less than 90 minutes. I was really happy with the results. That’s when I knew that fabric was my medium, and sold all my paper crafting items on Ebay. When I had a similar realization with the pour painting, that I was done, I knew that I needed to get all the supplies out of my house. I would not want to fill a landfill, but rather find someone else who would want to use these items. Fortunately, there is a store in Indianapolis called ReCraft Indy, which would take all my supplies. I was thrilled to learn that they had pour painting classes scheduled for the next two Saturdays. I dropped off a very heavy box to them the day before the first class.

As far as my beloved sewing, I continue to work on my muslins. Ready to wear clothing is just not working for me lately and I decided it was stupid to keep complaining about it when I know how to sew garments. It’s just that when I became a quilter in 2001, I totally stopped sewing garments. I’m finding a happy medium as I work on developing new patterns for myself. I make the dry run, the muslin, out of deeply discounted quilting fabric. I choose something that I might not mind wearing around the house or a quick run to the grocery store. If it turns out that I don’t want to make it work, then I cut it up for cosmetic bags or to go in a quilt. My last project was a sleeveless dress and the neckline was too large. I had already added the facing. I didn’t feel like removing it to cut it down. So, I sliced up the rest and stored it neatly. Now I know that the next version of that pattern will be cut to work for me. Sorry, no photos to share today.