skirting the issue

07/2/22
It’s February , which means I’m taking part in this Instagram based challenge .

Each day in February @jayneemersontextiles gives a textile related prompt.
You can see some of my efforts so far here
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/mcanaraksfabricrecipes2020/

For “day 5. #pleat” I posted some photos of customised skirts I have made in the past, and they got a great reaction.

Someone asked if I had any for sale.
My heart sank.
I knew I had some somewhere, and I suspected that that somewhere was in the wardrobe in the spare room, protected by a fortess of cardboard boxes.
In my defence, I read somewhere that there is a worldwide cardboard shortage, and I have been doing my bit to help out by filling my spare room with so many saved cardboard boxes that it no longer functions as a spare room, or even a room, really.
Time to do something about them.
I broke down some so they are now flat packed, and filled a box with them.
Enough to see me through this decade.
The rest I recycled. A whole blue binful, and enough left to refill it once the bin men have been.
I sorted out my bouncy castlesworth of bubble wrap and offloaded some on a pal who sells delicate stuff on ebay.
I then rebuilt one of the boxes I had flatpacked and filled it with random objects that are heading to the charity shop, and put the box in the van so that they might actually make it there.
I have a large jiffy bag containing some used jiffy bags , but that’s good because when I have enought to stuff a “small parcel” sized bag to the gunnels I send them to Clay Richard in Wales

He uses them to post his delightful little houses.

12/02/22
It is the time of year for challenges, it seems.
Tomorrow is the start of the 100 Day Project
I’ve taken part in it  for the last few years, the first 2 years I took the easy route and just shared a photo of work I had done previously for 100 days on the trot.
In 2018 I staged some photos of my buttons, brooches, bits and bobs, you can see them here
In 2019 I went to the opposite extreme and organised an epic project that spawned 9 blog posts, which you can read here .

In 2020 I made 25 brooches , you can read about them here
https://www.mcanaraks.com/100-day-project-2020-woah-were-halfway-there/
https://www.mcanaraks.com/100-day-project-completed-in-100-days-a-personal-best/

In 2021 I drew 100 faces, you can read about it here
https://www.mcanaraks.com/100-days-help-me/
https://www.mcanaraks.com/face-up-to-it/
https://www.mcanaraks.com/100-days-of-faces/

I’ve been thinking about if I want to take part this year,
and if I do, what do I want to do.

I had a couple of ideas, but nothing that thrilled me.
Last night I listenened to this episode of a podcast I follow
Izzy & Gina in stitches : Decluttering
It’s by textile artists Gina Ferrari and Izzy Moore
It struck a chord with me, they said that decluttering your workspace can also declutter your mind and encourage your creativity. Maybe this is what I should do for my 100 day challenge this year. Every day for 100 days I could do something that makes my working environment more conducive to actually doing some bloody work!
It would be my most challenging challenge yet. Being tidy and organised does not come easily to me.
My other half Steve says my basic unit of organisation is a pile, which becomes a heap, which becomes a mountain.
I have mountains of fabric, yarn, garments waiting to be customised.
Do I need it all?
Will I ever make garments from scratch again?
Maybe, if my workbench was clear enough to hold a roll of fabric.
Do I want to carry on customising jackets, and if I do, do I want to customise the ones I have accumulated over the years ? Should I get rid of them , and only do commissions?
What even am I ?
Aaaaaargh, I knew no good would come of this, now I’m having an existential crisis.
Anyroada, think that settles it. This year I’m not doing any kind of 100 Day project that will result in daily photos on FB and Instagram. It might result in a clear workbench, maybe.
Oh, and here are those skirts I found….