Sliding into a new year.

 Hello my lovelies! 

Here I am trying to seamlessly slide into a new year. I shall completely ignore the recent festive season and forge ahead, tying up loose ends, as I go. The first loose end I need to tie up is finally showing you my 'Cat and the Comet' wet felted wall hanging beautifully displayed in it's new home. 

I have to tell you...my heart swells and I feel ridiculously proud when I see this piece. It's as if I didn't make it. I almost have to pinch myself. It's like the advert on the telly...'Me but on a good day!' 

I think maybe it's the shock of seeing the impact of the whole picture in one go, as when my felt pictures are being worked on at home, I'm physically very close to the work. Even when they are completed, I don't really get to see them finished and from a distance as they are usually whisked away to the picture framers almost immediately. Once back from the framers they're not even unpacked from their protective bubble wrap as they need to be sent off to a gallery or packed for a craft fair. 

So to see the WHOLE picture hanging up, not half draped over my sewing table kinda takes my breath away a bit. I think this year I need to take time to 'smell the roses' if you know what I mean. I need to get ahead so that I can enjoy my accomplishments for a couple of days before they take the next step of their journey.

And talking of getting ahead...see it's not just thrown together this blog...I've spent the last 3 weeks having a long awaited, mammoth clear out! 

YEAH IT FEELS GOOD! 

It started during the strange 'no-mans-land' few days in between Christmas and New Year. You know the ones, you're adamant that you're still on holiday but you desperately need something to keep you occupied that's not proper work. 

Well... I started to empty my side of the loft! I'll just explain... Wonderful Man and I have one side of the loft each and in between these separately accessed lofts is the attic room which at the time was being used as my sewing/work/studio/storage room and Wonderful Mans office/cardboard storage/car seat storage room. Are you keeping up? Attic room in the middle, loft space at either side, left for me, right for WM. 

Good. 

So as you can imagine, there is quite a lot of junk stuff up there. My side of the loft was not only full of the usual boxes that we'd shoved in there 7 years ago when we moved in, boxes of kids games, bags with spare curtains, old duvet covers, suitcases, my wedding dress, school art folder (I'll show you one day) baby walker (made by Grandpa, saving for future grandchildren) and two coffee tables. I also found an old TV (certainly not flat screen!) and a bag of VHS videos! VIDEOS! I ASK YOU! 

This was all stored right at the far end of the long, tunnel shaped loft, not high enough for you stand up in you understand. Crawl or crouch is the only method of getting to it all.

 Now then... in front of all this 'normal' loft junk, I had over the last 7 years carefully chucked stacked numerous large boxes of fabric, many baskets containing yarn, an assortment of boxes containing interesting things that might come in handy for a future textile project (a beaded door curtain, old leather belts and coats from charity shops, you get the idea). There was also enough feather cushion inners and bags of quilt wadding and toy stuffing to insulate the whole roof space.

PHEW!

Well girls, I sorted it ALL out! 

I repacked what was staying and successfully either re-homed, textile banked, charity shopped or binned the stuff that wasn't.

It was around this time that WM suddenly decided that it was the correct time for him to up sticks and move his office/cardboard storage/car seat storage area in its entirety down a floor into our smallest bedroom currently occupied by our absent but soon to return daughter (she's away at uni). This in turn meant dismantling all of the furniture in her room (plus teenage junk and a forests worth of posters), bringing it up a flight of stairs to the attic where all the furniture in there had to then be dismantled and taken down the same flight of stairs. Nearly forgot...there were also 2 six foot tall bookcases (full) to be moved from the bottom of said staircase before every thing else would go past.

I hope you're keeping up as there maybe questions at the end?

No problem, you may think.

Apart from the fact that all the furniture in the attic was full of my sewing/work/studio/stuff! 

As you can see in this picture, daughters bed has already arrived while I'm trying to empty and sort my wardrobe full of fabric. All the time I was trying to sort and empty; items of furniture and teenage crap belongings were being deposited all around me!

See! The white wardrobe is now a brown one. There was much to-ing and fro-ing of screwdrivers and alan keys, much huffing and puffing but we got there in the end. 

Wonderful Man is happily situated on his own in the smallest bedroom. Uni daughter came home to be re-bedroomed in the attic room and I managed to get ALL my sewing/work/studio/storage stuff repacked and into my loft space!

A round of applause pleeease!

Thaaank you. (curtsy, curtsy)

And the picture of the patchwork blanket?

Well... the very first box I took out of the loft was full of old woollen jumpers that I'd fulled (felted) in the washing machine and saved over the last few years. I couldn't bare to throw them away so I quickly cut them into squares and machine stitched them into a lovely warm woollen blankie, originally made with the dog in mind but latterly claimed by grown up son!

So to sum up...it's been a busy start to the year.

Maybe next time I'll have some new art work to show you.

Pip-pip for now.

love Fi x

Oh...and if your wondering why WM stores car seats... We take all three rear seats out of our car to make room for my pictures when we're doing craft fairs. The attic is the only place we have to store them. Don't worry, uni daughter hasn't got them at the bottom of her bed. No...WM managed to squeeze them into his side of the loft! Now there's another story...