19 August 2012 - Ruthless Robin Rides Again

Today Robin went back home to foggy, cool San Francisco after spending two weeks in a fairly warm and dry Salt Lake City. Her first week was spent visiting friends, then showing Dena and the boys around the valley while I attended the National Sales Meeting. The second week she spent with David, Jack and me. Mostly me.

Robin and I spent the majority of our time unpacking boxes, examining the contents and putting stuff away. Sounds easy? No way. 

We tackled the room where all of Jack's weaving yarns and supplies plus all my fabrics and quilting accessories were stored. 

Before...

The pictures do not do justice to the piles and piles of boxes, although you can see in the picture above that some piles are almost to the ceiling. There was a tiny little path around the edges of the room surrounding piles of boxes. Robin and I unpacked 53 boxes and put away the contents.

Robin, in her alternative identity of Ruthless Robin, was in her glory. "You have three of these. Why? How many do you really need? Can we give two away?"  Or in total confusion..."You have an entire box of pieces of fabric too small to use?" Hmm. Too small to use is subjective. 

A month ago, I cleaned out a small closet in the hallway that was filled with chemicals from David's past experiments. I had started unpacking some of Jack's cones of yarn into that closet and quickly discovered that it wasn't even close to big enough.  Robin and I continued  unpacking many more boxes of yarn. All his chenille cones are now arranged by color. Others are arranged by content (wool, cotton, linen etc) and size.

We emptied out the area under the stairs and repacked it, which gave us more room to store things. We were the bin queens. Two trips to Smith's for clear bins in a wide variety of sizes. Stuff that we wouldn't need very often went into bins under the stairs.

Loom supplies were corralled in bins. Specialty, metallic and novelty yarns were   were all packed together in smaller bins. 

The results are amazing. In addition to the unpacking, pitching and putting away, there was lots of cleaning.  Look at this! 

 Then we started unpacking fabric. I was rather stunned to find out just how much fabric I have accumulated over the past years. (Almost as much as Jack's yarn collection.) Then of course there are all the new notions, thread, gadgets, books, patterns, cutting boards, different sizes and shapes of rulers. I need a bigger room. 

We went back to Smith's and bought more bins. Now unfinished projects are together. Silks are all together. Fabrics that are a set are together. 

The majority of my fabric is arranged by color, continuing a tradition started by my friend Amy, who despaired of my multicolor piles. She couldn't believe I could ever find anything. I could, but it took longer, and now I am quite enamored of my palette. 

 After all these years of quilting, I now have all my thread sorted by kind and nicely stowed away instead of having a bag here, a basket there, more in a box...somewhere...where was that box anyway? 

In addition to her job as Ruthless Robin, she is a great organizer. Makes me wish she had another week here. Who knows what might get done. 




Meanwhile, when she wasn't working she was cooking. We had some wonderful meals. My favorite was roasted tomatoes with fried feta and steamed greens. Not a combination I would ever have tried, but it was really good.  

Even better, Robin wrote out the recipe for me. Some of the largess received from her efforts included plum crisp and plum bread. David's plum tree is flush with ripe plums. A trip to the farmers market resulted in gooseberry crisp. Then there was the beet and blue cheese salad.  I could go on, but you get the idea.