Inventory

Today I began the process of taking inventory of all my craft supplies and projects.  As I surveyed my studio, which is a very small extra bedroom in my house, I tried hard to keep breathing.  The efforts of Chinese New Year housecleaning were apparent.  Boxes were stacked in corners of the room, each containing the attempts to organize my raw materials.  While looking at the fabric box stack, I began to feel a knot in my back start to crank tight.  I turned away and surveyed the raw wool bags and boxes, evidence of my fascination with turning stuff that looks like cotton candy into beautifully posed animal and people.

I continued to move my head, lighting first on paintbrushes then the doll house I began for my oldest daughter fifteen years ago.  I finally focused on my desk.  It is a hand-me-down desk from my father-in-law.  It is solid maple with seven drawers. I began to fill those drawers eight years ago, while making costumes for a play that my class was performing.  I have never emptied those drawers.  Hmmmm..... it was time.  I began to unload them into a cardboard box and bring the contents to the dining room table.  After a half hour of transporting, I began to sort.

I threw away alot of old dried out paint, snipped threads, worn out paintbrushes, and bits of paper from old projects.  It felt great and as I puttered through the stuff, memories of intentions that were years old came into view, triggered by a collection of wooden finger puppet bases that I planned on making into a nativity set that my older two children could actually pick up and play with.  My older children are eighteen and twenty years old now.  Oh well, maybe someday they will have children that will play with that nativity set.

When the job of emptying and sorting was done, I had a desk with neatly organized drawers and a surface that held one of my most favorite appliances - my extremely wonderful Bernina sewing machine, that if there was a fire in my house, I do have a plan on how to save, after the kids and the dog, of course.  Now, I have to decide what projects to begin to work on.

Here is my first draft of the possibilities:
-that nativity set, carving stamps, wee felt and flower fairy folk, needle felting a cast of animals for my youngest daughter, wet felting those mittens for my oldest daughter, painting that unfinished furniture for the doll house, finish the large doll house, knit the shawl for me, knit the little opera jacket for my youngest, make soap, make lotion, finish the various embroidery  projects started, string the pearls brought home from China into necklaces, bobbin lace (hmmm... what is that you ask??  Later, later....), two quilts envisioned, soft dolls, hand painted games on canvas, wig and dress those darned bald and naked porcelain doll house dolls, use up all that broken pottery for stepping stone mosaics, knit those "toe-up" socks, paint the plaster fireplace for the aforementioned doll house, transform those beautiful hand marbled papers into books and cards and lastly take that twenty or so yards of wool roving and transform it into angels to grace every season.

Where to begin - it makes my head spin!!!  Oh, and by the way.... I found 27 bottles of glue and glue sticks in that stash......