February Purge

[flowerseverywhere]

My quilt guild is having their annual garage sale. I had a large pile of books, fabric, and patterns to donate. 12 of us spent four hours going through bags and piles of stuff people donated to tag and package and we are not done. It was amazing. Fabric people paid $10 and up a yard, piles of it that people did not want. There were three kits donated for king size quilts that probably were purchased for $100+ that were opened, a few pieces cut and sewn then put on a shelf. Scrapbookers, knitters, quilters and other crafters can relate I am sure.

I was ruthless going going through my craft stuff. I recently had surgery, the first time I had been under anesthesia. Before I went in, I was thinking, what is going to happen to all this stuff if I am the one who has a crazy reaction and dies? I am sure I could make ten king sized quilts with all the stuff I have. And I make complicated quilts so finishing them in my lifetime is questionable.

Anyway, it is so much more organized and I can find what I want! Hooray. Plus my group is using the money on various charity quilts. We make beautiful quilts that organizations raffle for cash, and they make a lot of money. Except they can’t call it a raffle because of some laws involving non profits. But nonetheless they raise a lot of money to help foster kids and families who are trying to lift themselves out of poverty. Nice to have some beautiful new things in your life.

[sweetana3]

I have bought some interesting quilting kits off ebay for less than 25% of the retail cost. A couple I might even put up again since it was such a bargain.

We have had a couple of huge quilter estate sales. One took up two huge community rooms of a local church. Friends and guild members had laid it all out. The widower was there and so thankful for all the purchases. He would not have been able to deal with the hoard otherwise. I think I will write up some instructions for my will.

[beckyliz]

Cleaned out my buffet Saturday morning and have 2 boxes of serving dishes, etc. that I no longer need or want in the back of my car to drop off at lunchtime today. The buffet was getting too full to be functional, which drives me crazy.

[iris lilies]

I happened in to Goodwill to see them cleaning out the chinaware shelves. The Goodwill employee said they do that about once a week because so many dishes come in. I think they keep some things on the shelf theough several cleanouts, however, because I see them more than once.

This clean out did not make me anxious as a person who dances around the hoarding of dishes, so I must not be too far into in the dish-hoarding mindset.

so now in my flower show hobby, I regularly sign up for show classes that feature dishes.

I am sitting here at home thinking of some small, square Asian type appetizer plates I saw at GW that have character. They were 50 cents each. i think I need two of them for some future, as yet unidentified, flower show competition.

[frugalone]

Donating two books today. Books are always hard for me to get rid of. I love them so much!

But one of these in particular, I opened it up and realized I hadn't looked at it in YEARS, and there's a reason why: I just don't like it all that much.

[saguaro]

My quilt guild is having their annual garage sale. I had a large pile of books, fabric, and patterns to donate. 12 of us spent four hours going through bags and piles of stuff people donated to tag and package and we are not done. It was amazing. Fabric people paid $10 and up a yard, piles of it that people did not want. There were three kits donated for king size quilts that probably were purchased for $100+ that were opened, a few pieces cut and sewn then put on a shelf. Scrapbookers, knitters, quilters and other crafters can relate I am sure.

My mom had a bunch of quilting and knitting stuff. Fabrics, patterns, templates, tons of yarn. All of it went to charity quilt and knitting groups in my area. Heck I even threw in some of my fabric and yarns left from projects. It was nice to know this stuff was going to folks who will use it.

[rosarugosa]

DH & I combined have gotten rid of 19 articles of clothing net for the year (6 items in and 25 out). I have a few more that are definitely going out, but I haven't decided if I want to try to consign or eBay them rather than just donate them.
Two more books are also gone.

[rosarugosa]

One of DH's t-shirt discards (Alice Cooper) is in good shape and seems to go for pretty good money on eBay, so I listed that as well as an Alice Cooper bandanna. Nowadays we try to avoid the merchandise and just spend our money on the tickets (and maybe some wine at the show).

[rosarugosa]

On the home front, we already have a $50 bid on the t-shirt! Auction runs through Monday, so it will be fun to see how this goes.
At Mom's house, it turns out that many of the clothes on the hall rack have stains that need to be treated. So now she has a huge new pile of laundry in addition to the several piles she already has, and she absolutely refuses to let me help with the laundry, which has me so frustrated! She keeps saying that she likes to do laundry, but I told her that actions speak louder than words. She is incredibly fussy about laundry, as with many things, and I think sometimes her standards are too high and she gets tired just thinking about living up to them. Most people would think I am pretty fussy about laundry, but I might not be up to Mom's standards. Mom would not let me use the washing machine until I was 24 years old, so I would say she is a little weird about laundry, and prides herself on her laundry skills. The laundry room is her domain! She is quick to let me help with other things, and I would say they are things in which she doesn't particularly take pride or feel a strong sense of mastery. I'm pondering at what point do I just do the damned laundry and say "sorry, you are just not managing this effectively?" It's a bit of a balancing act and I'm going to just monitor the situation for now. I don't want to encroach on her sense of autonomy any more than necessary. She also has enough clothing to go a good long time without doing any laundry. That was her strategy when we were kids; everyone had like 30 pairs of underwear, lol. That might partially explain why my sister and I tend to acquire way too many clothes.

[Tybee]

It sounds like she has too many clothes. Can you persuade her to cull the ones with stains and pick a number of items per category-- x shirts, x pants, etc. that are in line with her current lifestyle, and then cull out 75% of the clothes. If she had a manageable number, then laundry might be enjoyable again for her (and I too enjoy doing laundry and ironing, so I get where she is coming from.)