making things a 'hole' lot better!

Some years ago, when in a charity shop, I came across a modern punky interpretation of a woman's kilt in a dark grey, black and cream tartan. A heavy full skirted affair cut across the bias with a multi layered handkerchief hem.  

I loved her. She twirled and swirled and hung with a weighted and rebellious charm.

Then, for some reason she seemed to migrate to the back of the wardrobe. Quietly becoming invisible and then forgotten.  

One winter we had a terrible infestation of clothes moths and several items of clothing were rendered as holey as sieves. Some were given careful repairs, others thrown or repurposed and one or two mended very visibly with joy and defiance.

Couple of years later, now that I am at home and feeling feral and free (although my freedom slightly curtailed by truculent weather) I decided to continue with my 'operation de-clutter' and targeted my wardrobe. EVERYTHING was hauled out and piled on the bed, then the space was given a wipe down and refresh. 

Now I was ready to go through each item of clothing.

I was honest with myself - would I really wear that again? Does it still fit? Do I actually still like it? Did I like it in the first place? By the end I had a large pile for the charity shop, a small pile for the bin, a clean and surprisingly well arranged row of clothes ...... and my skirt ... which had inexplicably been missed when I did the clothes moth check.

My skirt seemed to have been feasted on by the clothes moth caterpillars and created a rather 'fetching' network of holes on one side. There was only one thing for it - reach for my embroidery thread and repair all the holes with love and defiance.

Randomly selecting a colour then enhancing each munch hole and adding little seed stitches around kept me busy for a couple of evenings (especially as I had to unpick several embellishments coz I stitched them inside out - duh)

15 holes later - I was done.  All my skirt needs now is a wash and a light press and she is good to go! 

I might just be wearing her again a lot more this year!

Have you been mending?
It is certainly a form of rebelling against fast fashion.

Did you also get 'mothed' a few years ago? - I remember the infestation even made the news!

Is it still raining where you are?

It is here and us three - Pan, Willow and I are heartly sick of it. We do all still go out but - enough now!

What to do when it is too windy out

Knowing today was going to be bitterly cold with a sharp wind and leaden skies I decided that, other than "Willow walks", the day was going to be spent decluttering. 

When my boys were little and they had to tidy their bedrooms, they would become overwhelmed so I devised a "tidy up zone" plan. Choose a section and just do that and do it well. Admittedly the sections they did were quite small but they were left nice and neat and as they grew so did the tidy up zones.

Using the same psychology on me, I started in the north corner of the dining room and selected the shelving unit to launch operation declutter, and to increase the 'accountability', I took before and after photos as further incentive.

Willow was NOT sure about this - surely she should get out and have her walk FIRST? Well that was the plan and no sooner than we crossed the road and the wind hit her little red ears - the snarky collie side eye she shot me over her shoulder was enough to make me chortle. Still we managed just shy of a couple of miles before we both called time and sped our way home to warm up and get out of that WIND!

With her wrapped up in her bed and her sleepy eyes watching me, I decanted the contents of the shelves onto the dining-room table, cleaned the unit (we have a wood burner and everything needs a regular wipe down). I worked my way through each book - with several not making the grade and then the ornaments, cones of carpet wool, crafting tins and sewing tubs all were removed, cleared and moved to their correct homes. Pictures were removed, a tatty basket demoted to the greenhouse and twisty witch sticks burnt in the woodburner.

There is now a 'charity shop box' nicely filling up - and it has made me feel positive about giving the whole house the 'tidy up zone' treatment a section at a time.

And despite Willow's disapproval  - don't worry she has had two good walks - we've just returned from our second and she is fast asleep in her crate. We have left it up and she uses it when she feels the need and I suspect after hurtling around the playing fields sans her lead has tired her out, in fact I think I can hear her snoring right now hahaha

I was inspired a couple of years ago when I heard about Swedish Death Clearing and planned to do it but with working and life in general, I never found the time to get round to it - however today at 'Operation Declutter' - I have started.