In October, I wrote about our journey to buy a house. Of course, as you can probably imagine, I got very busy with packing, then work, and then packing some more, closing on the house and moving. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but they were pretty close. We originally thought that we would close a week or two before Thanksgiving, but we actually closed on the Monday after Thanksgiving. While that may not seem like a big difference to some, we both work in retail, and it really sort of threw a crimp in to our plans to be out of the old house by the end of November. From Thanksgiving to Christmas is just really difficult in retail. Throw in a move and it becomes mind bending.

We just finished moving most of our stuff yesterday. We have a few things left to pick up this weekend, and someone is coming to clean the house early next week, but then we will be done with the moving part, and on to the “settling in” part. Honestly, we keep going back and forth between the new house looking great, and it looking like a bomb exploded in here, in large part because we have too much stuff.

Let me correct that. I have too much stuff. Chris has some stuff, and we have too much in the kitchen – which is due to us both. But I have way too much stuff in my studio, and I’m feeling the strain. I am going to have to make some changes, and make them fast, just so my studio is useable space. Never mind that I’ve actually ADDED a couple of things since we moved, I need to reverse some of that AND sell/donate/toss some things just to get myself out of the bind I’m currently in.

Let’s start with fabric. I have a ton of fabric, and a fair amount of it is garment fabric. Why do I have garment fabric when I rarely sew garments? Good question; I don’t really have a good answer, though. I will say that I frequently tell myself that I’m going to make myself new clothes, but the reality is that isn’t where my interests lie, or where my talents reside. I am a quilter, sometimes an embroiderer, but rarely a seamstress. It’s time to quit kidding myself and let most of this fabric go. I say “most” because I do have about three pieces of knit fabric that would make super cute t-shirts, and those aren’t difficult to make.

The next thing I need to let go is my sewing machine obsession, and some of the machines I’ve purchased over the years, starting with the Singer Rocketeer I have. While it is a very cool machine to look at, I don’t have a place to display it, and I don’t particularly enjoy sewing on vintage machines. I will be keeping my treadle, at least for now, though my mom said that if I wanted to sell it, she was fine with that. It was a piece that she picked up in an antique shop herself, so depending on how I’m feeling … it may be going out the door soon, too.

It isn’t just vintage pieces that have to go. I have the Viking Sapphire that I am considering selling as well as the small Bernina we bought last year. I also have a serger and a cover stitch machine that I just had to have. Once I got it, I think I used it once and found it to be cumbersome. I think all of these can go; I just do not have the room for them all.

The one thing I’m really on the fence about is my garment patterns. Yep, I know I said I don’t sew garments, and when I do it’s usually from a pattern I bought on the internet and downloaded. So I don’t think I would miss them at all, and they take up a lot of room.

Maybe it’s just time for me to get rid of the things I don’t use, and thus, probably won’t miss. New year, new house, new outlook on life?