Boxing Day

Last weekend a friend gave me a bag and asked if I could replace the broken zip. "It's just a cheap old thing, but it is a useful size. No rush" he said. I said I thought I had a suitable zip in the loft. Well I went up on Monday and after twenty minutes of Tetris with the boxes, I gave up.  In our loft space we have around 50 plastic storage boxes. Around half of them contain fabric, the rest have 'other craft stuff', teaching materials [from school and church children's work] Christmas decorations, and costumes...

Bob helped me lift down the fabric boxes. There were a lot! I spent all Wednesday sorting them out.

In the end I'd got all the fabric categorised neatly.

How did I come to possess so much felt? And a whole box of 'ethnic' fabrics - African wax prints, Indonesian batiks, and sari silks.

Christmas prints and random 'fat quarters'

I have been listing and making labels.

I found my wedding dress [which was shortened in 1989 for Steph to wear at her baptism] That's gone into the dressing up box now,

And I found this one. I made it when Liz was three, and a few years later Steph wore it. I spent hours  doing the smocking.I was so proud of my efforts. I cannot see Jess wearing a dress like this. I'm really not sure what to do with it,

And this was the project bag we made in school [1967?]. A long strip of evenweave fabric, we had to do about twenty different stitches - then fold it up to make a bag, and sew a strap. I think I shall wash and iron this, and fix the strap more firmly, and use it for my current knitting project. 

And I am definitely going to take some of my haberdashery supplies over to the Big C - I think their Craft Emporium is the right place for them, and it is a really good cause.

I'm sure the stuff is multiplying up there in the dark- after all, I got rid of my body weight in fabrics before we left Dorset!