Doilies and dishcloths...

It seems, at the moment, I can only manage a Year of Projects update every other week.  This past week I finally finished my Autumn Splendor doily:

Nothing much to say, really.  Except that I kind of want to make another one, in a different color.  Why?  Just because.

I'll wait a couple of days to see if the feeling passes.  

~~~~~

I snapped the picture below back in May and I thought I might finish up a bunch of knitted cloths by the end of the month:

 

Nearly 4 monhts later, I did finally manage to use up most of the yarn above.  These dish/wash cloths will go into my stash for some yet to be determined destination:

It seems a bit frivolous to be posting about such mundane things as doilies and dishcloths this weekend.  

Like most of us, I suppose, it seems my mind is continually on the chaos and heartache of people desperately wanting and trying to escape from Afghanistan, and now on our own country's southern shores today Hurricane Ida is threatening people's businesses, homes and, no doubt, lives.  

All the while COVID continues to wreak havoc - in our small town we've heard that our local hospital is routing sick people to towns over an hour away, because there are either not enough beds or workers to manage the influx of patients.  Several friends of ours have gotten terribly ill this time around.  The COVID Delta variant seems to be lurking around every corner - more so than ever before.  

And we mustn't forget that the people of Haiti are dealing with the after effects of an earthquake two weekends ago - followed by tropical storm, Grace.  Seems like a ridiculous name for a storm, if you ask me.  But it prompts me to pray that grace abounds for survivors there who are trying to recover.  

If there is some other massive tragedy I'm not remembering at the moment, feel free to include it with a comment, if you like.  I'm praying for all in harms way.  It seems the very least I can do.  

I'm sorry if this is all too heavy for what is normally a lighthearted post.  Heavy is what my heart is feeling right now, but at the same time, I wanted to connect with blogging friends.

I hope you have a good and safe week ahead. 

Making Space...

I decided to go through all my kitchen cabinets and drawers this week, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I don't have a lot of superfluous stuff in there.  I imagined I would have all sorts of strange things in the deep recesses of a few hard-to-reach corners of my old kitchen cabinets, but I didn't.  Not much anyway.

That said, I did manage to painlessly purge some items that I never seem to use, or that are old and I have better versions of:

I'm not going to itemize everything, but I'd like to highlight a few things.  First of all, an old plastic ice cream bucket that's probably 20 years old (or more).  Normally, I wouldn't count garbage or recyclables in my Making Space challenge, but this bucket has been under my kitchen sink holding an odd collection of sponges, non-abrasive scrubbing pads, plastic scrubbies, rubber gloves (that I rarely use) and some cleaner I was given when we bought our glass top stove - 15? years ago.  I haven't used it since discovering how effective vinegar and baking soda are.  I threw away the old stuff, and put what I'm keeping in a nice rectangular basket I had in my stash so everything fits much better.  And I'm finally recycling this relic of bygone days when we use to buy ice cream by the bucket-full for our family of five.  

Also, there's a jar candle that needs disposing of. Again, normally, I'd just clean out and recycle the jar and not mention it, but this candle has taken a long time to burn down.  It's cause for celebration, so it gets counted.   The paper napkins are being removed from storage and put where we will use them up, but everything else is either being donated, tossed or recycled.

And I spent some time this week going through more Taste of Home Magazines...

And I culled through my recipe files and am recycling duplicates of recipes, or recipes that no longer look like something I'd fix.  I'm counting the pile of cards as one thing gone.  I have 22 TOH magazines above that will soon make their way to the library free shelf so added to the kitchen stuff in the first picture, I'm getting rid of 54 things this week!  

Making Space Week 45:  714 things gone!

Making Space...

I want to thank everyone who left comments on my last Making Space post.  I enjoyed and appreciated the responses to my question about any of your experiences in moving - whether you moved across the country or stayed in the same area.  There was some good food for thought there.  So thank you!

I'm getting to a point with books where I'm having to apply more thought than I want to (IOW, it's getting harder), so I'll probably be taking a break from them for a while.  While I'm sure books will show up again at some point, without too much brain strain I was able to get rid of 37 more books this week.

The picture is simply representative.  Some books ended up leaving the premises before I could get a picture.  That's just the way it goes sometimes...

And with hubs nearing the end of digitizing decades of slides, we're able to get rid of bunches of slide trays. We have found that a salvage store nearby (that specializes in vintage stuff) will take these items.  Hub informed me today that a couple of months ago he took around 20 trays there already (no one thought to take a picture), so adding the collection of the 25 pictured below to those already donated, we've gotten rid of at least 45 slide trays.  So far.  There are still some more that will end up leaving when Hub is truly finished with this task.

So adding everything together, I'm counting 82 more things gone from the house!

Making Space Week 44:   660 things gone!

More thread crochet...

Still making doilies...

This week, I finished two more small ones from the book, 99 Little Doilies:

# 85 - the second time I've made this doily.  

It's another accidental duplicate. I really don't understand how this happens since I'm trying to keep a careful record.  Not careful enough, evidently.

#84 

Okay, maybe this is what happened... Maybe I meant to make #84 when I accidently pulled the pattern out for #85.  And I was too far in once I noticed my mistake.  Yeah...  I think that's the story.

And now I'm making a larger doily.  I've made this before as a gift (twice, I'm thinking).   It's close to finished, but not quite.  Hopefully, by next week, I'll be posting a picture of this wrinkly thing transformed by its final rounds and a good blocking:

This pattern is called Summer Splendor - only mine is going to be Autumn Splendor.  I'm loving this autumny color called Ginger.

In fact, I pulled out some more autumn-colored crochet threads this week as I straightened up my craft room, so watch this space for (hopefully) more thread-crochet projects!

Making Space...

A beautiful weekend here, I was up and out early (for me) for a spontaneous meetup with a friend for coffee (well, she had coffee, I had breakfast).  Sitting outside, downtown, across from the courthouse, I'm reminded what a quaint little town we live in.  We've been trying to decide if an eventual move will mean buying a house somewhere else in the county, maybe a little closer to the "city" (because there is a dearth of houses for sale here), or staying in Small Town USA. 

It would be interesting to hear from any of you who've moved from a home of many years.  Did you stay in the same area, or did you move elsewhere?  We're not interested in moving far away (like to warmer climes), but we're beginning to challenge the notion that we'll automatically stay in the same town we've lived in for the last two decades.  This is such a process...

Meanwhile, as we wait for the right house to appear on the market, I continue to whittle down stuff.  Today's haul is a hodgepodge, half-hearted attempt at decluttering.  

The posters I acquired many years ago.  I used a couple and the rest have been stored where they'd be safe from getting damaged, and where I would completely forget about them.  The zippers (all about 22" long), I'm sure largely came from MIL's stash last year, and I'm just now realizing that I'll not likely ever make something that requires a zipper that length.  The other things are just stuff I don't want or need.  An easy goodbye.

I don't know whether to be encouraged or embarrassed that, without much effort at all, I can pull together nearly 40 things to leave the house and I will never miss them.

Making Space Week 43:  578 things gone!