Swedish Death Cleaning vs. Sparks Joy

Regular readers of the blog will know that every now and then I enjoy a bit of organisation, usually spurred by procrastination. Previously, I have read Marie Kondo’s book about how your belongings should “Spark Joy” and I have briefly folded my clothes accordingly until I can’t be bothered anymore. The problem is that I have a reasonably capacious old house and a love of junk shops, and if I am honest, could be a bit of a hoarder. 

The term “Swedish Death Cleaning” has piqued my interest - the idea that you should start clearing out your belongings before you die so your children don’t have to. I have no intention of shuffling off my mortal coil just yet but I do have far too much stuff. Freya will soon be bringing all her worldly goods here as she is being evicted from her Glasgow flat and has not found new digs yet. That means this house will have 3 pianos! 

This week I made some space for storage in the summerhouse which is reasonably dry except for the corners. I finally got rid of the Raeburn cooker after a bit of a palaver with a Man and a Van involving car jacks and wooden pallets. I have sold some hair clippers, rustic apple crates and a badge making kit on Facebook Marketplace but this is not even skimming the surface. My plan is to start with the easy stuff that I have not touched for ages but ultimately the kids will have to muck in and they seem to be even more sentimental about “stuff” than I am. I can either sell a surplus piano or two, losing money, or accept that they will have to be stored here until my children get their own houses. Which may be never, according to the latest gloomy news about the property market in the UK. 

One of my biggest problems is obviously quilts - many are getting foosty in one of my damp cupboards. A coracle hangs in my workshop and a 12 totem henge gathers dust on shelves. I have many, many boxes for sewing machines that I have to keep in case they have to be couriered somewhere. I have been ruthless before, occasionally ditching something that I come to regret but I can hardly move in my workshop and I am sure it is blocking my creativity.

It has been an admin heavy week, apart from a customer quilt that looks 3D if you stand far enough back. 

It was really nice to meet a friend on Friday and go for a photography wander around Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen. I have a cute new second-hand Pentax with interchangeable lenses and far too many clever settings for me. I just kept it on Auto and hoped for the best. I have also been working on projects in Art and Stitch, not necessarily according to the manual. I think I lack the patience required to become a digitiser but as a teacher I have to know how it all works and it is not exactly straightforward. 

I am weeks behind on a Quiltalong that I signed up for - the Tula Pink Butterfly quilt. I decided to go by the book and use the same rulers as the group leader but there was a debacle about their delivery and Creative Grids wanted to charge an additional £30.00 for postage. I re-ordered them elsewhere but they still have not appeared. I could crack on without the special rulers but that defeats the point of ordering them. I will just have to fill my time with decluttering…

The Long and the Short of it

I have said it before - Time in Norfolk is elastic. The days pass quickly doing very little. Nella and I had a couple of wanders in the City, admiring the spring blossom. We stumbled upon a textiles exhibition in the Forum, including an entire knitted model of Great Yarmouth!

I took my Mother on an outing to Southwold, despite the squally weather and spotted an amusingly titled beach hut (Star Wars reference).

I did not even open the sewing box that I took with me but I did some of the slideshow about Q-Matic that I am working on.

My fringe was getting in my eyes so I cut it ludicrously short with some annoyingly blunt scissors.

It was a LONG solo drive home so I broke the journey at Freya’s flat in Glasgow, probably for the last time because she is being evicted due to the landlady selling it at short notice. Fergus came to visit and I am relieved to report that he seems to be enjoying life in Glasgow, bunking down with pals and writing songs. Nessie always likes attempting to chase the squirrels in the Botanic Gardens. 

It is very quiet at home now with everyone away but I will crack on with some work and hopefully get started on the marathon cutting for the Tula Pink butterfly quilt…

What was I meant to be doing?

 

Yet again, I have had a week when what I was meant to be doing (on paper) was not what I ended up doing, not that those things were not valid in their own way;) I did get 2 customer quilts done before Nella pointed out that she would like to spend some time with me in the last week of her Easter hols. The custom quilt had to have a few thread tails sewn in and the red flying-geese one was a bit of a challenge because the customer wanted the echo quilting to look exactly as it did in the magazine that the pattern came from. Horizontal straight lines were not a problem but diagonals are very difficult to do on a longarm without a lot of palaver. I started off just doing the diagonals that I could reach but that involved a lot of stops, starts and sewing in thread tails. In the end, as it was not a huge quilt, I decided to do the diagonals on my domestic machine with a walking foot and that was far easier. 

It looks like I have finally sold the cast iron Raeburn stove that I bought years ago that has just sat unused in my garage. The new owners live 300 miles away and want a courier to collect it so I had to track down a pallet so it can be picked up using a fork-lift. I seemed to do a lot of time consuming wee jobs like that - I went to the Vet to pick up cat anti-flea medicine to be told that I had a supply that should last until June but when I double-checked at home there was none and I know that was not my error. I sent my old phone off to be sold for scrap but the company tried to wriggle out of the online quote that they had offered then wanted £8.95 for my broken phone to be sent back to me special delivery. 

Evri seems to have lost another parcel - I ordered a new cutting ruler to tackle the marathon cutting involved in the Tula Pink butterfly quilt but it is still not here after 3 weeks so now I am way behind with the Facebook Group involved in the quilt-along. Meanwhile I got totally embroiled in researching old Pentax cameras and lenses that I can mostly only import from Japan and have now watched ALL of the Youtube videos and read ALL of the reviews. Honestly, it is like a form of addiction when I start looking at Tech online. I need a new quilt project to get me off second-hand camera forums;)

I am in Norfolk this week, splitting my time between visiting Nella and my folks. I might borrow a pressure washer to scrub Nella’s backyard then go to a garden centre to buy some fairy lights and plants. I brought a piece of the quilted coat with me to work on but I don’t suppose I will even look at it…

If Only I Could Get Up Earlier

I have huge admiration for people who get up super early and crack on with their days. I wake up early in order to make a cup of tea to take back to bed then waste time reading the news, checking social media and browsing Ebay for vintage cameras that I don’t need. If I could get my days off to a brisker start then maybe I would find time to keep on top of my To Do list or even make some more Lego plants. 

In my defence, this week I have had some late nights, spending time with Nella and Fergus who have been getting along better than they have in years. We went shopping to get him some essentials to stay in Glasgow with his band mates. Hopefully, he will soon get a job then think about getting a flat of his own. It is quite weird to think about him moving out. He did not go off to Uni like the girls and had a bit of a hiatus with his music career due to Covid. He was both excited and nervous to “leave home” but it is time that he has a taste of city life. 

I have been trying to clear my diary to knuckle down and thoroughly plan the retreat that I am teaching in Devon in June. It will be 4 days of intense software learning, using the Q-matic system and I need to be prepared for all abilities.

I had a challenging customer quilt that took me more than 4 days to complete. It was beautifully pieced with large on-point blocks but there was something a bit off-kilter with the borders that I had to work out. As there was nobody here at the weekend I just powered through to get it done so I can start the week fresh. I need to get my retreat programme sussed as I will be taking Nella back to Norwich next weekend, staying with my folks for a week and I won’t get any work done there;)