Saturday, July 31, 2010

Dis/Organization



one corner of my storeroom....


I confess - I'm a packrat. My DH is even worse. Therefore it is fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your preference) that my tolerance for clutter is rather high.

But face it - in order to put things away, there must be a place to put them! And when your stuff outnumbers the places to put them there isn't much option left but to put the stuff in boxes and stack the boxes where ever there is room to stack them.

Which is one reason why I'm determined to use up some of my stash. No stash, nothing to put away..........

So it is that I am digging into the box in the foreground with the bit of white showing. This is the box with the painted soy protein and Tencel warps that I have been steadily picking away at for - oh it seems like months! In fact it probably has been months. :} And it will be some months yet because there are 12 more painted warps in that box, each warp producing 4 scarves. At a week (average) per warp, that's another 3 months before I'm done. Not counting the time I'll be away beginning in September.......

And then you see the box behind that one? The one piled high with more warps? Yup - another box full of painted warps destined to be shawls.

The shelves above the boxes are filled with mostly wool that I use in workshops. It's not enough I have my production stash, I also have my workshop stash. The yarns that I send out for the various topics I teach. And then of course there's my re-sale stash.

Then there are the binders full of handouts and bins of teaching samples to store somewhere.

Last but not least there are the drawers full of paperwork necessary to run a business. Not to mention various and sundry parts and pieces of booth apparatus for doing shows, a box or two of loom parts I daren't get rid of in case they are needed late some night for emergency repairs, tools, and accessories required for the weaving process etc.

Is it any wonder I close my eyes to the mess most times and call it 'creative chaos'?

5 comments:

barbara said...

Hi Laura,
I don't think you can be a weaver without "stuff & stash". You probably have a better handle on your "stuff & stash" then most. Good for you working though those painted warps ........ how nice to have a box or two of them on hand!!!! Onwards and upwards. Weaverly yours .... Barbara

Sharon Schulze said...

We have been steadily purging excess from our home for a couple years now. The kitchen is in great shape. The living room is now presentable about 95% of the time. The closets are mostly accessible and things don't spill out.

But the loom room? Sigh. The loom room keeps being messy. I'm using up stash as fast as i can (which is not fast at all) but as you note, Laura, it's not just the yarn and I'm not even pretending to try to sell my stuff (since it really isn't popular with buyers for some reason). It's the little sample ends and the extra shuttles and that handful of heddles and the towels that have a treadling error but still dry well but what do I do when the drawer is already full of serviceable towels with errors?

HA! It is the way of the weaver, I guess. And that part makes me happy - that I do something like a real weaver.

Annie said...

Packrat. So that's the name for it. I know one as well...
And because I not only weave, but also spin, knit, make (bobbin) lace, there is a stash for all that. And don't forget about the books.
But isn't is pure luxury to be able to dive into stashes like that and think: yes! I'll choose this today?
Now back to my lace: the jacket I'm making is growing, but very slowly!

Evelyn McQ said...

But Laura, if we didn't have stashs what fun would there be in life? I love to poke through my stash and remember when I bought something...like the wool from Condon's(the old woolen Mill in Charlottetown) my daughter bought when she was 3-she's now 25!
Enjoy your down-stashing! Someday I will try again too...

Jessica said...

Ah, Laura! It makes me smile to see that I am not alone in the world. My "stuff" is all there for a reason...and it rarely stays in it's place!

Good luck manuevering around it all and getting some of it used!