When one thing leads to another...

OH—after reading the comments this morning, I don't think I'm worthy of decluttering the books! Ever since I was little, my mom taught us that books are precious. And YES - they are, but that doesn't mean you need to own all of them. Or if you buy something, you don't need to keep it! ACK!! I'm in big trouble. 

We had two great presentations in the morning, and I can share a little bit of what I've been working on. One of my goals for 2026 is to finish Sylvia's Bridal Sampler. There are 140 blocks in the quilt, and I'm determined to make them all. I will make three lap-sized quilts from them. I do NOT need a large quilt, and it's easier to find a home for a lap quilt than it is for a large bed quilt. 

I managed to get FIVE made this past month, which makes me very happy. Some of these are prepped, but most were not. 

Block one for Sylvia's Briday Sampler.

Two more blocks for Sylvia

OH -- look at how that Glorified nine-patch got trimmed! I'm tempted to replace that corner - I'll see how I feel about it later. In the whole scheme of the quilt, no one is going to see that, but it does bug me a bit. I should NOT have been so slap-happy when I trimmed, as it would have been somewhat easy to fix. 

Two more blocks for Sylvia

That leaves 32 blocks to go, and the big debate in our group was, do you prep many blocks and then sew, or do you sew one at a time? I have a quilt retreat coming up at the end of the month, and I may just prep the rest of the blocks and take them with me. Then it will be easy to sew them, either at home or at the retreat. I want to get this quilt done! I am motivated since I'm so close. 

Then we had machine embroidery, and the entire group, including me, was like sponges. We couldn't soak up the information fast enough, and the show-and-tell is so inspirational. I love seeing people ask questions, show off what they have been working on, and get inspired!! I'll share some stuff with you another day. 

Then, because I had the day to myself, I decided to tackle more books. So help me god. 

We all know that starting a "small" project of one shelf a day can be deadly. It's hard to just tackle that one shelf, so I had decided to tackle the entire column of shelves. I think I mentioned that yesterday. 

As I was unloading the last shelf of quilt books, I spotted this. One end of the shelf was actually resting on the books below rather than on the little hangers. Hmmmm --- that's probably where that errant hanger came from that I spotted the day before. 

The shelf is resting on the books!

I removed the shelf to find that, yes, there were no hangers at that end, and the holes looked a bit stressed. 

No hangers to support the shelf

And that meant removing the books from the bottom shelf (the four bottom shelves are scrapbooking stuff), and there was the other missing hanger. 

The second missing shelf hanger

That resulted in removing all the scrapbooking stuff so I could sort and purge. I know—I still had not taken care of the quilt books I had removed. Sigh... this is one of my biggest problems. 

A few books are off the shelves.

Removing the books and magazines from the bottom shelves caused another problem. Several of the magazines were wrapped in biodegradable plastic, which, of course, was breaking down, and now I had a huge mess of this plastic stuff on the floor, the shelves, and the books. In case you are wondering, the magazines are about 12 years old. 

What happens to biodegradable plastic

I got out my trusty stick Dyson and have been madly trying to corral it all, until it died this morning, so it's charging as we speak. The darn thing gives you no warning that it's low. It just stops. That's a wee bit annoying. My Rowenta would slow down and then stop, so you had a warning. 

And there are the books and magazines spread out on the floor. At least on the floor, I have no choice but to deal with them. 

All the scrapbooking books and magazines

Now I want to remind you that you are NOT allowed to yell at me for how I'm dealing with this mess. It's going to take a while to wrap my head around purging books. Purging books is going to be harder than purging fabric. 

And I discovered so many books that I do not want to give away because there are things in there that I want to experiment with. I haven't had time in the past, and perhaps now I can get a handle on some of that. And if I don't like it, well, then I can let the books go! I have oodles of stuff on mixed media, which I love. 

I sorted the books into categories, and OH MY—there's a lot of stuff there. Putting them into categories will help me decide what to keep and what to purge. 

The great book sort

And then I started to put the scrapbooking stuff back on the shelves. DO NOT YELL!! As I go through it, I know I will find things I no longer want. But I need to go through this process. Once I get started, I know it will be easier, but it will take time for my brain to process. The good news is that the items will be sorted, and then I can whittle away at the pile. I may just start with the scrapbooking stuff because it'll be easier to get rid of. I hope—am I trying to delude myself? 

Putting books back on the shelves

I doubt that I'll ever become a scrapbooker per se, and if I do, it will be digital. So a lot of the basic scrapbooking books can go, but I'm not quite ready to make that happen. I have a plan. What I need now is to set aside some time per day/week and focus on processing this stuff. 

What I really need to find now is someone interested in scrapbooking who would like some books. Otherwise, they will go to the thrift store. The problem is that you can't overload the thrift store, so it'll be a few at a time. And I'll save some for the Mississauga Symphony book sale. 

However, I did find some duplicates - of course, there are duplicates. I think I have found them all, but there might be another straggler that I'll discover as I continue my sort. There are two more, but I couldn't access their pictures this morning, so those will come tomorrow. 

This is a Canadian Scrapbooker magazine (quite thick) and filled with wonderful ideas. If you are just looking for inspiration in the craft world, it's a good one. 

Canadian Scrapbooker up for grabs

And here's a pretty thick book filled with tips and designs. Again, the ideas could be used for any sort of paper crafts. 

A scrapbooking tips and design idea book - up for grabs

And finally, this one is about making journal items from natural elements. This one is fun!

Up for grabs

Remember—those three are duplicates, and they are yours for the asking. (elainetheriault@gmail.com). Once I have a better look, I will either donate my copies or keep them, as I see fit. 

My goal today is to get all the scrapbooking stuff back on the shelves. That means the rest has to be sorted into categories, and if there is anything I don't want -- it will go on the blog tomorrow. 

In the machine embroidery club, I reminded everyone to ensure they were pursuing their goals for 2026. That reminded me of a few things on my Visual To-Do list in the machine embroidery category that I haven't touched. Since I have a quiet month, I decided I had better dig out at least one project and get it done. 

That involved digging through another closet and pulling out stuff. Oh crap --- I found this Kimberbell pattern (CD) that is a duplicate, so if anyone wants it, you can have it. If you don't have a CD player, I can transfer it to a USB for you. 

A duplicate Kimberbell CD

I found the embroidery patterns - I think there are 24 small projects in total. Yikes!!! Two of them are completely done, and I have bits of two more completed, and I can't find one that I know was mostly done as well. I will have to be on the hunt for that. But since all 24 are separate, I can work on the others and hopefully find the March project before the end of the year. Where the heck could I have put it? I have a picture of what I've done, so I know it's real, but I don't have the actual project. 

It's very interesting to go through all this stuff. So many hopes when I bought the patterns/fabric. So much anticipated fun and then poof -something else more exciting comes along. I still love all this stuff I bought, and since it was good quality and exciting, I'm still excited about it now! 

I will have loads of things to decide on, whether I actually want to make them when I get there. For the moment, my focus is on finishing what I have started. Anything new? Well, that may have to wait a bit. 

OK -- I will say that the girls are super excited for me to be home, and I'm super excited to be home as well. My last day on my own. DH is supposed to arrive this evening -- one of his planes is delayed, but since he's with a couple of golf buddies, I'm sure they can amuse themselves. Although I suspect all three of them will be on their phones with work. 

Anyway, the girls sure are annoying. They want in, they want out, but never at the same time. And yesterday, during my Zoom call, I could hear Lexi banging on the back door, wanting to be let in. When I finally finished the call and let her in, she was pretty indignant and sent a message to her Dad that she was being mistreated! The nerve of her!!!!

After I washed their blankets, Miss Murphy was happy to go lie down, but Lexi? She didn't like the clean smell and was mad! 

MOM, Thanks for washing my blankets.

It's Monday Sewing today!!! I've been away for the last four weeks, so we (I) have a lot to catch up on!!! I might just start prepping those 32 blocks for Sylvia's Bridal Sampler. I want that done! And all three quilts are on my radar for completion by the end of the year. Once the blocks are done, putting the quilts together will be easy. 

That's it for today. So much to do, so little time, but I'd rather my life be that way than get up in the morning and have nothing to do but clean the house or do errands! We each have our priorities!

Have a wonderful day!!

Ciao!!!