Rayen

In June I thrifted for a minimum bid a bundle of clothing that included two dresses, two turtleneck shirts for winter, and a designer jacket. Let's see how I did. Anne Klein dresses like this one retail new for $140.00. I love turtlenecks, and this one will be nice to wear when I'm walking the dogs this winter. It's Talbots, and retails new for $44.50. I really love this one, too. It's a 24/7 Maurices that retails for $20.99. This JM Collection dress is in new condition, and retails for $29.50. This Calvin Klein blazer will cost you $149.00 if you buy it new, and it's in mint condition. Altogether the clothes would have cost me $383.99 if 'd bought them in a store. I thrifted all of them for $7.99. Savings: $376.00.

Now that I've finished the Swedish Death Cleaning, the house sometimes feels a bit empty. There's no more clutter anywhere, even in the closets. Everything is neatly binned and organized. I have accomplished all my house cleaning goals for this year and then some. While doing so I've also posted a ton of things to the blog to publish in the future. As I write this, the date is June 24th. This post isn't scheduled to publish until August 16th. Between now and then I have a family gathering to host, a birthday, a new work project to begin, and lots of summer art projects to do. I didn't mean to get so far ahead of myself, because it's always possible my health situation will take a sudden turn and I really won't be here anymore. I'm not indifferent to my health situation. I'm having some blood tests this week, and seeing my doctor next month. My diabetes appears to be improving a little. My arthritis is getting worse. I have two new i...

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

For the second week of creative August I decided first to repair a UFO crazy quilt piece of mine from the scrap bin so I could make it into something. Fromy my UFO bin I took these two blocks, which I put together from scraps to make into a gift bag, so I could finish what I'd started. Another UFO I worked on was this orphanned patchwork block, which was already quilted and just needed binding. I got out a box of beautiful materials I collected in an inspiration box years ago and finally got to work with them. Some mini totes and a stack of orphan patchwork blocks turned into two projects. I also did a scrap bag challenge, which was to use this bag of scraps and patchwork from my stash to make as many things as I could in one day. Now that I'm halfway through this month's challenge, some observations: I'm definitely happier, and much more motivated (I'm also keeping up with my calendar mood crochet project.) It feels great to accomplish so mu...

I am a big fan of anything Park Bo Young does, but I hesitated to watch Daily Dose of Sunshine on Netflix, as it's a story about a nurse who transfers to a psychiatric unit, which is the role Bo Young plays. I don't like these kinds of series because I'm not a fan of mental disorder drama as entertainment. It also starred Yeon Woo-jin as a doctor with a mild case of OCD as the male lead, but I still haven't quite recovered from watching My Shy Boss , the last thing I saw him (that series really upset me by how it handled the entire concept of being shy.) Still, I'm always willing to give potentially problematic shows a one-episode watch to see if I'm wrong, so I watched it and decided to give it a go. It's a well-acted and interesting series, and I think all the actors did a stellar job with their roles, especially Woo-jin, who had a particularly tough characterization to act. He made it work. The patients and staff go through fairly limited situati...

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor. And this is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to reconcile my feelings with my capabilities, and pass along the excess of what can be used to other creatives. ...

Since I've shifted to the thrift-everything-possible outlook I've tried looking for bargain and remaindered books before I go to the bookstore. Luckily on our last trip to Ollie's I was able to find two cookbooks I wanted, plus a Victorian gothic mystery novel that looks promising; all three were $17.97. The cookbooks are to inspire me and the food I'll be making now that we'll be having family over at the house on a regular basis. There are a lot of good ideas as well as time-savers and short cuts in these books. I'm going to try some of the simpler recipes first and see how they turn out before I get into a big party spread.