Just to Give You an Idea

 Just to give you an idea....

Last night at 11 p.m. I was sorting through two tubs of stuff. I made a donate pile that included those 9 patches I've been dealing with for months.  I'm tired of dealing with them and neglecting other possible projects.  I also put in things I saved because "I might use them someday" which is never.  A real conglomeration of unsentimental stuff.

Then I uncovered things like this:

Do you remember this? Probably not, you're too young. Those prairie point pieced into stars?  I distinctly remember my mom coming over to our house and I had some friends over so she could show us how to make these. This is an embedded memory.  Note the cardboard templates.  The dusty rose color is a dead giveaway to the 1970s. I hate dusty rose. There were two of these completed to this point but not completed as a finished anything in the tub. Now, 50 years later they might be back in style.

Two pieces of cross stitch.  I haven't done cross stitch since 1980.  This is finished, on very small linen stitched over two threads.  I looked at it closely and marveled at my eyesight back then.

And this, I believe this was Aida cloth?  Again, I was impressed with my careful working (that temperature tree project made me realize I lost my touch for cross stitch.) Unframed because back then I wanted my cross stitch projects framed but didn't have the money to buy a pack of paper plates much less take this to a framer.  So it sat.  For 40 years.

I moved on from cross stitch to needlepoint.  This was a little "L" that I intended to make into a seat cushion for our daughter's rocking chair she received for her first birthday.  Fifty years ago. 

I bought this shirt at a garage sale for 25cents when our son was maybe three?  Four?  I absolutely loved it and when he grew out of it I tucked it away.  It was my favorite favorite thing and he looked so darned cute in it.

That was 44 years ago.  I'm not giving up on this one.  I saved it because I want to use it "someday."  Now that it's unpacked from the tub I'm trying to think of how best to do that so am open to ideas from you.  Right now as I stare at it I'm thinking of NOT cutting it up and using pieces but leaving it whole, sewing it shut along the buttons and seams and using the whole shirt as a medallion like center. 

Is this the sign of a hoarder? Hoarders can't let things go.  I'm more sentimental than a hoarder but I do know it's time now for those 'maybes' that turned in to "nevers' to go.  These things?  They'll stay (see what I mean?)