My MIL is moving into a senior’s apartment come the beginning of April. From what we could see of the outside I’d be excited too because it looks quite spacious with just over a 1,000 square feet of living space with a balcony and lots of nice big picture windows. Once she’s in there she won’t have to worry about the maintenance that comes with owning your own home, quite a chore when you’re 88 years young.
Anyhow, mum has been narrowing down what she wants to take into the apartment and what she needs to part with so that things will fit her new living space. I being the crafty one in the family was to inherit her excess stuff, which I did. Quite a collection and as my title suggests what’s “one man’s treasure is another man’s junk”. I wonder what my kids will think of my stuff when the time comes for me to go through the same process. I thought I was bad but…..
Bags of fabric scraps…hmm…wonder what is in here?
I was hoping for a bounty of cotton fabric scraps and had visions of making memory quilts from the material but much to my surprise I’ve found that I am a fabric snob. Lately, I had come to the realization that my MIL didn’t much care for working with cotton prints but I was hoping for at least one or two in the pile. What I found was a pile of fabric that…well quite bluntly I don’t even know what kind of fabric it is and not in a million years would I be able to quilt through it.
Okay, what is this stuff?
Looking at this pile the question comes to mind “How small a piece of fabric should you keep before you deem it useless?” I read this question on another blog (sorry can’t remember who’s) and there were a variety of answers. LOL, I don’t think my MIL ever threw out any of her scraps and I’ll post a picture where she tied up the little bundles of leftover’s with fabric scraps. I think the mentality was “someday I’m going to make a quilt out of that”, hence my fabric snobbishness. I’ve never considered making a quilt out of anything but cotton. My MIL obviously came from a more frugal era where quilts were made out of any leftover material and indeed some of the fabric scraps that are in my pile are leftover clothing. It goes to explain why the stitches in the few quilts that she does own have huge stitches, I don’t think the material was thin enough for fine stitching.
Tied fabric bundles of scraps – one way of keeping them together.
It was interesting to listen to her talk about how her aunts were fine sewers and would make themselves nice dresses out of good material. Having five girls in her family my MIL’s mother was grateful to receive any hand-me-downs from the aunts. The children being smaller in stature, mom’s mother was able to cut these dresses down and make outfits for her girls. It was a peek into an era where material was hard to come by and people didn’t have much money to waste.
Fluorescent pinks and corals…is this the 70’s?
This is typical polyester material that the pantsuit era used. I absolutely hated those pants. Two huge pieces, I probably shouldn’t have taken this, oh well.
Quite a large piece of heavy duty cotton almost looks like Amy Butler, I score!
The larger pieces were from the various boxes that I also carted away, also full of more scraps but I haven’t the heart to post pictures of those as well. Some of the material in one box is from bridesmaid dresses that she made for her oldest daughter’s wedding – coral material and filmy stuff that goes over top. I have visions of making a little girl’s dress out of these scraps. My hubby’s sister was married…hmmm…about forty some odd years ago?
Karen
Bunks' Blog 