New Year = Clean Slate

I do love January 1 for one reason. The clean slate effect. It's all mental, of course, but that's good enough for me. I like to clean out the fridge, ridding ourselves of any nasty leftovers; pay all the bills; balance the checkbook; clean house so to speak. And this year, as a direct effect of all that stitching I got accomplished in a flurry late last year, I enjoyed filing away a large pile of thread I had caringly placed close to but not actually in my thread storage boxes. With each thread I filed away, I thought of the project it was pulled for. A happy little walk down memory lane.

I do love my thread storage system with each clear cd storage box (available at Target) housing a different varietal; one for six-stranded DMC (regular) thread, one for silks of all sort, one for overdyeds, and one for perle cotton and Caron threads. There is a family of ziplock bags that lives inside the DMC box. Each bag containing a certain series, the one hundreds live together, two hundreds together, so on. You get the idea. In the other boxes, metal book rings gather like threads together. To each his own, but this is a system that has been working for me for several years now. I've tried most thread storage systems (must be a Virgo thing), but had to come up with something that worked for me and the way my mind thinks (danger,danger) before I was happy. My Watercolours collection is growing so rapidly (darn it), I may have to add on and move them into a box all of their very own! However, a little stitching would help keep that population thinned down.

The work table photo is my idea of a clean slate. I can hear you laughing. You'll just have to trust me. As much as I love order and organization, I find that my work table is a three dimensional thing, with a length and a width and a height. I work in layers. Presently, there is only one layer of activity on the work table. And to quote Martha, one layer is a very good thing.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I felt a tug at my conscience, "remember me?", it said. "Me who?" I answered. "It's me. The Finishing with Flair correspondence course you were just dying to get your hands on, last August". "Oh." I said. Yes, I remember you. I hadn't forgotten you. I was just waiting for a clean slate to start you.