I'm cleaning out 25 years' worth of kid's memorabilia from this house and with every box I sort and purge new found space is left behind. The more stuff I take away, the less remains and the bigger the resulting space! Addition through subtraction!? Magic!
In addition to resulting in a compact archive for each of our kids to take and tote away after our funerals, (hopefully) many years hence, I also hope to "make" enough room for a car in our garage much, much sooner than that!
Photo-documentation is a great tool in this process. One shot can capture the contents of a box of bulky once loved items (trophies, stuffed animals, favoured items of clothing) into a single 4x6 picture. More magic!
This all sent me off on a parallel project - assembling and sorting precious baby items, many of which are hand knits, into a manageable and meaningful collection of their own.
I took a snap of each item and printed it "credit card" size, making a little label of sorts.
On the back I wrote the date the item was made, its' origin, material, washing instructions etc..
Where possible I'm including any "provenance" I can, such as the card or note that came with the gift and a snap of the knitter who crafted it - I'm able to do this because of the great garage purge of 2015 (see above).
In some instances I need two snaps because both Darling Daughter and her mother "hundreds" of years prior also wore the item.
Once all the pieces are together each bundle will be wrapped in acid free tissue and the whole lot will go into the cedar chest enclosed in a single fabric bag.
So where I once had "stuff" jammed into boxes, stacked on shelves I've now got space and a little archive of heirlooms that's compact, readily accessible and possibly useful (babies of the future could wear the items). Importantly to me, a knitter of baby gifts, it does justice to the significant efforts made for us and our wee ones many years ago.
And speaking of wee ones, we'll be seeing the newest addition to My Beloved's family over Easter so I'm making a "Chocolate" Bunny of sorts to take along for her. The link for this intriguing pattern is on Ravelry here. Can't wait to see how this knitted square will magically turn into a bunny!.
I've also got this last little bit of knitting magic to share...the umbilicus start to a "Traveller's Shawl" by Veronik Avery from my favourite book Knitting 24/7 . Such circular beginnings always seems so unlikely to produce anything successful, or for that matter, anything square don't you think?
I nonetheless have faith and with the mittens finally done I can move on to another project!
Thanks for all your kind comments about them and also, thanks for dropping by today!
In addition to resulting in a compact archive for each of our kids to take and tote away after our funerals, (hopefully) many years hence, I also hope to "make" enough room for a car in our garage much, much sooner than that!
Photo-documentation is a great tool in this process. One shot can capture the contents of a box of bulky once loved items (trophies, stuffed animals, favoured items of clothing) into a single 4x6 picture. More magic!
This all sent me off on a parallel project - assembling and sorting precious baby items, many of which are hand knits, into a manageable and meaningful collection of their own.
I took a snap of each item and printed it "credit card" size, making a little label of sorts.
On the back I wrote the date the item was made, its' origin, material, washing instructions etc..
Where possible I'm including any "provenance" I can, such as the card or note that came with the gift and a snap of the knitter who crafted it - I'm able to do this because of the great garage purge of 2015 (see above).
In some instances I need two snaps because both Darling Daughter and her mother "hundreds" of years prior also wore the item.
Once all the pieces are together each bundle will be wrapped in acid free tissue and the whole lot will go into the cedar chest enclosed in a single fabric bag.
So where I once had "stuff" jammed into boxes, stacked on shelves I've now got space and a little archive of heirlooms that's compact, readily accessible and possibly useful (babies of the future could wear the items). Importantly to me, a knitter of baby gifts, it does justice to the significant efforts made for us and our wee ones many years ago.
I've also got this last little bit of knitting magic to share...the umbilicus start to a "Traveller's Shawl" by Veronik Avery from my favourite book Knitting 24/7 . Such circular beginnings always seems so unlikely to produce anything successful, or for that matter, anything square don't you think?
I nonetheless have faith and with the mittens finally done I can move on to another project!
Thanks for all your kind comments about them and also, thanks for dropping by today!
I love what you are doing for the kids stuff. I have some things here of those sorts that need going through and tagging who's who.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the shawl beginning. I have a friend that I had to walk through just this kind of thing. How a circle can become a square is easy once you know to leave your preconceptions behind.
Great idea with the tags. I've been doing the slash and burn thing here.
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