Season's changing, Textiles and Tea, Laura Strand

This morning, just for a moment, I caught this. The kitchen is west facing, so the sun doesn't come in till afternoon. But it's the time of year when, just for a few days, the sun's angle catches the bedroom window across the street and bounces the light into my house 

Into the kitchen

And through to the stair hallway

Five minutes later, gone, and soon it was shining into the east facing  living room. 

Yesterday's Winnowing went on till my shoulder explained she'd done enough for now. I had managed to restore order to this drawer, which acts like a kind of runway to current work, temporary home for completed work and dumping ground for materials that need to go upstairs.

Now I can see what's what. You can detect at the top  the wired butterflies, and miniature woven books and stitched pockets. 

And the collection of sewing threads and cutting tools.and crowded needle homes. A lot of materials joined the upstairs drawers and the downstairs paper piecing department. Today I'll sort the paper piecing stuff.

Nothing for donating yet, but there will be soon, from upstairs, sewing notions, things like most of the SIX tape measures I found, or the many tiny scissors, or the snaps and bias tape and reels of thread, which can be shared. That might be a Freecycle deal.

And one of the pleasures of sorting is the reunion with past work. Like this pin, of which I made and sold many in the past. I pinned it onto my sweater and there it might stay. 

It's a wood base, painted in acrylics,with a pinback attached. I did a whole range of tiny art on these, painting, stamping, drilling designs, attaching brass chain hangers. They were quite popular, and I only have a couple left. Once in a while I make jewelry, woven glass beads, handmade paper and clay beads, and they do well. I've also incorporated them into my exhibited art.

The woven bead pieces tend to interest crafters who want to make their own, so that's good, too. I've been invited and paid, yay, to demo several of these skills to groups, great fun.

Anyway all this strolling about down memory lane tends to hold up progress with the Winnowing, but that's okay. Mainly because it also triggers new ideas and ways to combine materials and methods.

When eventually I exhibit again, which has to wait till the venue, the library, is open again, I will include in the setup which will be a kind of diorama, the miniature books I unearthed yesterday, for the figures to hold.

Longer readers will remember my learning to spin paper, which I then wove into book covers, the pages being my handmade paper.And the wired butterflies will fly again in the display. One of those stitched pockets might become an inside pocket on the new corduroy coat.

I also found a miniature heddle, weaving item, I made from a piece of plexiglass, which is a cool tool. It's now back among the weaving items. And several tiny crochet hooks I'd used as tools, when I made the figures which are going to be the main event in the diorama. They're now with their friends upstairs. And needles, needles everywhere, now corralled into needie books. 

So this works like a kind of art review and idea process as well as a clearing the decks operation.  And it's a surprisingly aerobic activity what with heaving drawers in and out and carrying stuff upstairs and down.

I got in a bit late yesterday to Textiles and Tea, and I'll fit that in to tomorrow's post, if'n the crick don't git up. 

I always seem to have plenty to say, not wishing to trigger the tl;dr* response.

*For the benefit of those lucky folk who haven't encountered this, it's "too long; didn't read". Bloggers hope it doesn't apply to them. So I'll stop now.