Done!

Between the studio and the garden, I have been out of pocket a bit of late.  The cleaning out and sorting that began months ago, however, is done!  Remember that this studio is approximately 1/3 the size of the former studio, and you will understand what sort of job it has been.

We found an animal shelter Thrift Shop that was interested in sewing items (Good Will doesn't put this sort of thing out, so I don't take fabric or sewing supplies to them any more), and the manager's positive attitude made me very glad I took these things to the shop.

And my friends from Knoxville, when they came to Studio 508 for the May meeting, were kind enough to help me with the last of the cleaning out.  There was fabric, buttons, some thing-a-ma-jiggys and wool.  The felted wool was a large part of the parting-of-the-ways materials.  It is the tiny particles that break off of woolen items that makes working in that medium difficult for me, unless I do this in the nice weather and sit outside, cleaning myself with a lint remover as I work.  I have set aside a small amount of wool to try working with later, after I have the allergies better under control with weekly allergy shots.  If this doesn't work, there will be more felted wool, wool fleece, and an embellishing machine that will need to go.  Fingers crossed for successful de-sensitization to wool!

This post started out to show you how neat and clean the studio is.  That was before I decided to work through Gwen Hedley's Drawn to Stitch.  This is an exciting book, but messy in the hands-on department.  So, I have a mess on the embroidery table.

Now, in my defense, this mess is a lot of ideas that are beginning to percolate.

It's just that I don't do clean, neat things.  And I am intimidated by white pages in sketchbooks and cleared-off tables in my studio.  The blank pages and clean tables seem to be an accusation, my studio's way of being disappointed in the fact that I'm doing nothing.

So, pardon me for not catching the studio at the moment of its most clean-ness (which would have been five minutes before Jill and Margi and Beth arrived on Tuesday).  Martha Stewart doesn't live here.  If she did, the Queen of Clean and I would have some long, soul-searching discussions that might extend into the night.

(*sigh*)

It isn't easy being clean.