A Little Stash of Treasures

Ooh just look what I found in my Victorian Closet today  ~

these are just asking to be made into something new and lovely don't you think?

recycle   ~   rethread   ~   reuse

It's now the final couple of weeks of college so I need to concentrate on finishing my course work. After that I'm looking forward to making some new pretty things during the summer break, and I need to as I'm very pleased to report that I've sold a couple of things in my online shop.  How lovely! Lots of incentive now to restock the shop. 

Sharing The Love ...

I'm always on the look out for inspirational blogs and websites. I love Pinterest too. It's amazing that through social networking tools we can access stories, photos and tutorials from all over the world. How did we manage before! Today I thought I'd share just a few of my favourite things, so grab yersel' a cuppie and hae a wee browse with me:

http://suziqusthreadworks.blogspot.co.uk/

http://tristanrobin.blogspot.co.uk/

http://pinterest.com/agatheringplace/

a nice photo of a Victorian Closet - mine is of course just as tidy

And here's my Pinterest board for Sepia Moods:

http://pinterest.com/lindamckeen/sepia-moods/

I hope you enjoy ~ I find that one link leads to another and before I know it my coffee is cold! (by the way......I always use coffee to stain fabrics, lace or paper instead of tea, you get a nicer colour and it smells great!)

Books

One of the other things I collect is books. These are not kept in my Victorian Closet but are all over the house. I can't resist a good book and am always reading all the time. Now I confess to a new love ~ and that is my Kindle. Just about the best gadget I've ever owned, I love my Kindle!

As part of my spring clean I've decided to clear out many of my old books. This would've been unthinkable in the past, but now I know for sure that I'll never read them again - if I wanted to revisit any I'd just buy them as ebooks. In our household the number of books runs into the thousands rather than hundreds and I think we are very overdue for a cull.

One of the few exceptions that I couldn't bear to part with, and definitely not suitable for Kindle reading, is my collection of arts, crafts and sewing books. I always have these types of books on my Christmas wish list, they are usually hardbacks and always beautifully illustrated, and above all so inspiring. Each one is a visual feast and I can't really say that I have an out and out favourite, I love 'em all!

Clearly my bookcases are in need of a spring spruce up ~ no cull, just a tidy! That is a bunch of Honesty seed pods that has fallen down the back ~ I wondered where they'd gone!

I was having a  rainy Sunday morning search on Amazon.co.uk and I found this book which I thought looked really interesting:

Lace in Translation 

Book Description

Publication Date: 25 May 2010

For "Lace in Translation", the European designers Tord Boontje and Demakersvan and the North American sculptor Cal Lane were commissioned to create site-specific installations recasting traditional notions of lace and its making. These three internationally renowned figures deployed unexpected materials and technologies that range from a hand-woven raffia curtain and laser-cut fabrics, to lace filigree cut into a steel oil tank and burned into grass, to a chain-link fence woven in a Quaker Lace design. 

Here is the link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lace-Translation-Matilda-McQuaid/dp/0615296432/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365943468&sr=1-4

I'm not sure I'll buy it, I wish it had the 'look inside' facility which many books have on the Amazon site. Perhaps I could see if the library in Perth would order it in for me, they're usually pretty good.
Does anyone have a favourite art or textiles book they can recommend? I'd love to know what other people's favourites are.

Spring Cleaning

Two weeks holiday from college and the sun is shining! There's still snow in the garden and on the hills, the daffodils have no flowers yet but it seems like a good time for a spring clean and a clear out. After a good spruce up in the rest of the house I started on my Victorian Closet. It was like a game of chess .... everything came out, then got organised, then moved around, then removed altogether, and then it all went back in the closet again!!!  How can I possibly throw anything out. But at least I had a good look at what's hiding in there waiting to be reused.

Whilst rummaging in my drawers I found quite a lot of old buttons. I've started colour matching them and putting them in little jars. I love button jars, they look like sweeties. Here are a few of the white ones:

Then a friend emailed and asked if I had any pink silk ~ answer yes ~ so I've made her up a little package which I'll put in the post for her tomorrow. So that's one thing away! :

Back to playing with buttons now ~ these are the fun parts that I love about spring clear ups.