The "D" Word

I'm going on a stash diet.

This is not a decision that I've reached lightly. I know it won't be easy, but it must be done.

I did a little bit of straightening in the basement this weekend and I found at least half a dozen more of these.

This discovery has led me to an inevitable and frightening conclusion.

I have too much stuff.

And a short attention span, so I'm not really confident that the stash diet will last very long, but I digress.

I seem to have more unfinished or unstarted projects than I have finished ones. My discovery in the basement led me to start checking the rest of the hiding places, I mean closets. Please to enjoy - a small sampling of the things that I unearthed.

There's this

It's a half quilted map of the globe. I don't remember buying it. I don't remember why I would have bought it. It really doesn't go with my decor.

But I apparently did a fair amount of work on it before it crawled away to hide.

Let's see then, there's this.

I found it in a antique store in New Jersey. Every single piece in this quilt top was sewn together by hand. They wanted $40.00 for it. It was filthy and needed some repair and I actually didn't buy it when I first saw it. I kicked myself the entire week and spent two hours driving back the following Saturday hoping that it was still there. I was so happy to see it I didn't even try to haggle, and that's half the fun. I repaired it and washed it, by hand. And then folded it up and put it in a drawer.

There's this stuff. These are pieces that I've either started and put down and not picked up again or just haven't even opened yet. I must have liked these things and wanted them. (This isn't everything)

Then there are the books, the leaflets and the magazines. Who knows when I'll get to any of these.

And yet I keep buying more. Never ending, never thinking about it. There were about half a dozen things that I found duplicates of. That means that on at least six different occasions I forgot that I already had something and went out and bought another one.

I can't even explain these. They're all finished pieces. They were folded up in a box. I have no words.

So, in the next few days I will be making an inventory. I will be putting things into a rotation. Things that are almost finished will go to the top of the list. Things that are started will go next. Then I start working my way through the rest of the stash. It may not last long (remember the thing about the short attention span), but if nothing else, I'll at least have made room for more stuff.