Well, that was interesting

Yesterday I took my knives and the one pair of sewing scissors that I could find to be sharpened. I was sure I had another pair some place, so I brought down the giant Tupperware bin of fabric I had in the attic. I didn’t have time to go all the way through it before my appointment for my contact-less sharpening, but when I got back, I did, and I found the other pair of scissors. Corroded – maybe hopelessly? Maybe I can WD-40 them or something.

Finding the corroded scissors was the annoying part. I had to unload the bin to clean because it was dusty on the outside, and the interesting part was going through all the fabric. I could so clearly remember what I had made with each piece. You know how in High Fidelity, when you like someone, you make them a tape? Well, I certainly did that, but when the relationship had progressed to a certain point, I made them a shirt, too. Sometimes more than one, if I knew them long enough.

So that blue woven fabric you can see bottom right next to the zipper was a shirt for Steve. We lived together for three years and broke up and got back together at least once. I thought this fabric matched his eyes. There’s also some plaid flannel in the heap that was a shirt for Steve, too, but you can’t see it. There are lots of pieces that were shirts for me, like the one I was wearing when I had my bike accident and broke my nose, that got covered in blood but miraculously soaked clean. That paisley piece you can see was my pregnancy romper.

That crumpled satin was something I thought I might screen print – it’s all cotton – and that print under the red was a dress for me. I had a tank top style hippie dress that I liked – lots of people had it, it had a pattern of purple clouds on the bottom and stars all over the body – and when it got worn out I used it as a pattern to make more dresses.

I thought the paisley was extra from the pregnancy romper, but when I unfolded it, it is the pregnancy romper. I think I got sick of wearing it, but liked the fabric, so shoved it into my fabric bin thinking I’d re-cut it into something else. It’s got fancy buttons from my grandma’s button box, see overleaf for closeup – glad I saved those.

There were also random odds & ends in the bin:

I feel like this toy should do more, but couldn’t figure how to make it open more. And what is that goggle-eyed blue thing? The Big Mac mold monster? Bet my kids could figure it out.

There was also the giant bag I made for carrying sketchbooks when I was an art school student. In that zipper pocket there was a small mirror, intact in a rubber envelope with the name of an auto glass company on it, and a Bic pen. Hmmm …

I saved lots of really scrappy bits because I thought I might make them into a patchwork sometime, and the happy ending is now the bin has been brought down from the attic, cleaned, and sorted. I put all the fabrics with small patterns suitable for patchwork on the very top, and there was even a sheet of interfacing we could use for making mask filters. Pretty much makes up for the wrecked scissors, and maybe I can fix them, too.