Un-hoarding…mostly

Good morning and happy Sunday! It has been some summer so far, and today it is going to be Really Hot. Be careful, stay hydrated, don’t leave your kids or your pets in the car, wear your damn mask when you’re out in public and cannot maintain a safe social distance.

Last Saturday I mentioned making some progress on cleaning out the basement. Over the course of 18 years of living in this house, it has become the repository for tables, chairs, rugs, dishes, dog crates, books, and a host of other things that we wanted to hang onto for some reason. I don’t like sending things to the landfill if they are going to be useful either to us or to someone else in the near future. The trouble with that is, more stuff gets moved down there than leaves this house entirely. The accumulation of stuff over time has turned the unfinished but usable basement space into an almost hoarding situation.

My intention was to have part of the basement to have space to use the great wheel I acquired with the Cardarelle that I eventually refinished and sold, and the floor loom in need of TLC that was given to me several sears ago. Over time, another great wheel and another floor loom were acquired, and more unused stuff from upstairs found its way down there too, and…you get the idea. That usable basement space became to full of stuff to actually use. 

Upstairs, my craft room has become more multi-purpose than before, mostly with the addition of my work-from-home setup. While my violin has been neatly stored on a wall hanger making it easily accessible for use throughout the day for practice, a music stand has become a permanent part of the room and I have had to shuffle some other stuff around on various shelves to make space for a metronome and some other accessories I would need for practice, as well as space for a growing collection of related books and other materials. Managing all of that within a 10’ x 1o’ room was getting challenging, and a lot of stuff has been getting packed into the closet where my yarn and fiber stash is stored. 

One of those things stashed in that closet that would constantly have to be moved to make my stash accessible is my Lendrum spinning wheel. It folds up nicely and has a has a nice bag for storage, and is really rather easy to move in and out of that closet, but the fact that I haven’t used it in years forced me to make a really tough decision. Yes, it was time to let my Lendrum go. Some of its accessories (the bulky flyer head and the quill head) have been living with the guys at Hickory Hill Fiber Farm for some time, so I offered them the Lendrum and the rest of the accessories at a very good price and they accepted.

I also offered them the in-need-of-TLC floor loom and one of the great wheels from the basement for free, which they gladly accepted, and they came last weekend to pick up all of those things.  That left me with one great wheel and one floor loom for when that basement space finally becomes usable again. But wait…there’s more.

I recently treated myself to the heavy duty jumbo ball winder that I have been lusting after for some time. Joe Wilcox had been bringing his to every men’s knitting retreat for years and everyone who has used it has fallen in love with it. One of my acquisitions from the tag sale table at last year’s spring retreat was a standing squirrel cage style swift, which I like so much more than my wooden umbrella swift, so I gave the umbrella swift and my plastic ball winder to a friend. I’m not sure if she or her husband was more grateful for that gift. Since she has started knitting, he has become her swift, patiently holding her skeins in his outstretched arms as she winds her yarn by hand.

I have a long history as an enabler when it comes to knitting, spinning, and weaving, and I wear that label like a badge of honor. Passing on the equipment and tools I’m not using enables me to more fully enjoy the equipment and tools I do use, and helps keep my already small space from becoming overrun by stuff. 

I’m going to close this post by admitting that I sat down to finish writing it early Saturday morning with the intent to publish it then too. I was distracted by Jade’s and Halo’s excitement over the activity at the house next door. The previous owners’ adult children were setting up the remaining contents of the house in the driveway to sell off. I was curious, so I went over to take a look, but mostly to chat. After a few minutes I found myself out of the $7 that has been in my wallet for months, and lugging home a box full of various colored thread and sewing notions, and a telescope and tripod setup. I felt a little odd continuing to write a post about un-hoarding after bringing more stuff into the house that I probably don’t actually need, but given the amount of money spent on them, they’d be handy and fun to have. 

Thats all for today. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and the week!