I’m having a sort out. Ha! If only the process was as short and simple as that first sentence. I moved home recently (well I say recently, in fact it was several months ago) and of all the 12 moves I’ve done, this has taken the longest. The reasons are various: firstly, the older you get the more clobber you acquire, especially if like me you’ve had different careers, worked for yourself and/or upped sticks and moved abroad; secondly, running your own business leaves little energy for box-unpacking in the evening. (I’m sure you’d rather I open boxes of luscious new fabrics that I’ve ordered rather than my own goods and chattels and dusty tax returns!) And lastly, since moving back from Sweden, much of my life has been in storage, and boy, had I forgotten what I owned.
On my last-but-one move in Helsingborg, we did it the Swedish DIY way – choose a Saturday, grab a load of friends, hire a van and go for it. Friends were amazed at the piles of books, quilts and fabrics that kept appearing from shelves, walls and cupboards. It was like a magic porridge pot that never emptied… However by 4pm we’d finished and were downing beers at the harbour in the late afternoon sunshine.
Fast forward to 2015 and it’s a whole different story. As each box is unpacked, I’m determined to have a prune of my possessions. However, as the many books, quilting magazines and forgotten fat quarters see the light of day, they all need reassessing before the big cull can begin. Just for starters there are 12 years of Quilters' Guild magazines to flick through, plus files of quilting and teaching resources dating back years. There are more patchwork books than most publishers and enough fabric to act as Hometown’s own supplier should Makower, Moda and Michael Miller ever run short.
The good news is it’s as if I’ve inherited a whole new library, and what tempting possibilities for all this fabric. So if you want to help me and my new streamlined self (deluded, but hey...) the pile of second-hand books and magazines at the shop is pretty impressive and continues to grow. All the money raised is being donated to the Macular Society www.macularsociety.org , so come grab a bargain and help me with my unpacking!