I just went downstairs to retrieve the iron so I could work up here on DSIL's kilt, and discovered that one of the shelves above the sewing machine, where I had: 8 shoeboxes of patterns, segregated by type and size, a box of buttons, a bunch of zippers, a box of notions, laces and trims, plus two small boxes of silky fabrics, and a collection of sewing books...
had leapt off the wall and crashed down to the floor, spilling everything in a huge ugly pile.
I picked up enough to make it over to the ironing board, and started a load of laundry, but cleaning and sorting it all out will wait.
Sorting-and-tossing really needed doing, but I would have preferred to do it on my own schedule.
Probably my own fault, I put the shelves up in '83, and I think I missed the stud with one screw on one brace. It's probably a minor miracle it stayed up this long.
I have a terrible habit of over-buying patterns. I am pretty good about segregating and storing them, I just have too many. The ones form the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and
80s(ugh) are really going to have to find a new home, eventually.
And darling MingTu was upstairs, so I cannot blame him.
There's never a good time for storage disaster, but right now I just cannot do a proper job of culling. I'll be happy when the altered kilt is out the door.
QUICK!!!!! Everyone get to Beverly's house!!!! I bet you could have all the patterns you can snatch off the floor and run out with. (I suggest tossing small treats in Ming Tu's direction. That will distract him from any fearsome guard dog inclinations!!)
Beverly, mess handled. ;)
I really am sorry that happened. Terrible timing and one more project you didn't need....dropped on you right now. *sigh*
Very few of my patterns are "uncut" and most have been altered so I doubt they are of any use to others, but you are welcome to them.
Yeah, fierce dog alert, wear ankle guards. ;-)
Thanks for the sympathy, it never rains but it pours. I was hoping to start rebuilding my web site next week, but I'll need to clean up the sewing room mess first.
I USED to over-buy patterns! I have lots of (totally uncut!) costume patterns in different sizes, for example...
These days we usually draft our own because the customer wants something completely different, off the wall, or even over there in the next universe! But JD drafted patterns are bigger, thicker, heavier and more intricate than standard patterns... Current one is for a doublet: 28 pattern pieces (without patterning the pocket!), total of 53 pieces of fabric, and the left a negative mirror image of the right.
Oh dear, what a mess! I feel with you. I know that kind; a few days ago, I heard on the news about a woman who got struck dead by a falling tree, virtually out of the blue. No storm, and the tree had been previously considered solid by the city's 'tree inspectors'. Sometimes it just happens. A family lore on that topic goes as follows: My grandma and her sister had been making jam from rosehips in the post-war times when sugar, fruit, and jam jars were precious, not to mention the work of getting the fuzzy stuff out of the rosehips. They were done with their work and had put the whole batch on the appropriate shelf in the cellar or kitchen, when in the middle of the night they were woken by an almighty crash. Yes, shelf broke.
Ah no! You still have to bother with that confounded piece of work? That's really tough luck. And alterations have something frustrating about them, at least I think so. I have to admit, though, that I made a fairly pretty one recently: I bought a lady's spaghetti top from a thrift shop for -,50; hot pink or rather vermillion, just the colour for the demon fairy. It had a smocked bust part and already looked like a skirt for a little girl. I took of the halters, separated the smocked part from the plain, took out a bit of it to fit DD's hips/belly and reattached the plain part. She just loves it! I hope your aspiring Scotsman will appreciate your work with equal sounds and gestures of delight (although I strongly doubt that; nothing equals the delight of little children; it just warms your heart to see them dance and prance about.)
Anyway, I hope by now you have been able to clear away most of the mess. I really feel with you, with the new kitchen from IKEA lurking in the depths of my old place and the current one waiting to be thrown out, and the room totally redone, including floor and walls and a few electrical sockets.
On Tuesday, June 19, 2012 6:40:18 PM UTC-4, BEI Design wrote:=20
Poor baby! You have my sympathy; I am familiar with suicidal sewing paraph= enalia. I don't know if you remember my rant about a shelf collapse. I'd packed--ti= ghtly, I will admit--all my quilt battings into those space-saver bags, and= thrust them up onto wire shelving, which also held a bread machine, an eme= rgency coffee maker (Yes, lack of coffee constitutes an emergency);and vari= ous other breakable stuff. Some time later,from afar, I heard an endless crashing and banging, obje= cts falling, breaking, smashing more objects which were stored beneath...= =20 The re-inflated bags, having pushed up against the ceiling, ran out of e= xpansion room, and then went the other way--collapsing the shelf supports a= s if they were tinfoil.=20 Had to go back to the drawing board on batting storage.. Cea
I had to sorta cram it in wherever it would fit. And I did make 2 quilts. I may have a swap deal going with a new sewing friend. She's a quilter and a repair savant, and as I have some inoperable machines,we're working on a swap. Did you get all those buttons rounded up? It seems to be a month of sewing items on the loose. My 12 yr old GDD just told me her needle case has disappeared. She's fretting because she can't sew. I may have to make a 30 mile emergency run. She's my second convert of that generation to sewing. It is also time to intro the 6 y.o. Gboy to needle arts. Think I'll pick up some of those cardboard craft yarn kits for him. Cea
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