Building a Backup Stash

Building a Backup Stash
Originally uploaded by lasassone

The other day we spent 4 hours moving our stored "stuff" from a 10'x15' unit to a 10'x10' unit and by doing this, my stash is now close to the front of the unit. However, it's all so tightly packed in, I can't access too many things. We had to bring all our Christmas decoration boxes, tree and the reindeer for the yard home and G plans to put them back into the attic. Or maybe we'll just sell them - who knows - we thought we'd be moved by Christmas!

I managed to snag a few things while we were moving boxes - like some supplies I had to make Christmas gifts for my grandkids. Silly me, I thought we'd be moved by now and would be making gifts in my new studio.

So, a crazyquilt friend, former student and member of our local stitching group asked me the other day if I knew that our local Hospice Shoppe was having a "Vintage Sale". She told me briefly about some goodies she found and I was intrigued. So, the next morning I managed to get to the shop soon after it opened.

Gathering all the laces and trims you see hanging there in the picture after their Oxyclean soak was a long process as most of them were buried in bins filled with doilies and other things like ladies gloves, etc. I don't believe I've ever seen so many hand made doilies in one place before. My Mum used to make fancy doilies and whenever I see large numbers of things like that I remember how many hours and how much concentration she used to spend on her crochet projects.

One of the best treasures I found was a little crocheted dress that you can see kind of laying over the top right hand side of the rack. It's ecru with pink trim. It was obviously not an actual doll dress, which is what I thought at first. It IS 2 sided but has no opening, only a little hanging loop on the back side of the neck. It must have been made as a kitchen decoration. As a hot pad, it wouldn't do very well; it's very lacy! I plan to save it for embellishment on my planned doll-themed quilt. I saved some of my daughters' doll clothing in a box SOMEwhere, so I'll add it to that eventually. (If you'd like to see closeup photos of the little dress and some of the trims, click on the picture of the rack and you can see 2 additional photos in my Flickr pictures.)

A couple days before my trip to Hospice, the couple we do our morning walks with returned home from their month-long vacation. Diana, who used to work with me at the doctor's office brought me back a packet of awesome tatting that she and her daughter found in an antique shop in Seattle. Such a lovely thing when you see something like that and realize you know exactly who will love it SO much. I've done the same for her on trips as she is one of our Katie's "other mother's" and cares for Katie when we travel if she can.

So I am sort of tatting & crocheted edging rich! Now if I could just find some motifs! Perhaps I need to go out to the storage place by myself and see if I can manage to reach some of my stash. The other day when I had to go pick up something non-cq related, I actually was able to pull a couple of my embellishment drawers open and fondle some ribbons & such before I to leave.

Did I tell you that I ordered a half yard of most of the new line of fabrics designed by Judith Baker Montano? They were waiting here for me when we returned from Arizona. It's time to make dinner, so guess I'll leave that for tomorrow, okay?

Stitch On!