Sometimes you spend an entire day trying to find a way to make a certain thing. You start with wire. Your first attempts end up on the floor and half a morning has gone by. You have an idea of how it might work, if only you could find that thing you've had for years, but don't know which box it is in.
Thank goodness you never throw anything useful away! Nylon lace is a nono, but interesting bits and bobs are uncovered; you find the rules to your game of Nine Men's Morris you thought you'd lost. A whole box of antique handmade lace is explored - but is sacred. Not for cutting. 
Nothing useful in here today...
Not even in the glorious treasure chest that is the bottom layer of my workbasket.
Ah, here is a dusty basket with long abandoned temari balls...maybe there is something lurking in here...
Possibly a solution - 
But no; after another experiment gone wrong, it's hard to feel that the day has not been wasted, except to find out what doesn't work! 
39 comments:
Gretel, I don't have a clue what are you talking about, but wow, you have a lot of treasures here!
Where did you find all these amazing things? At least your day give us all this pictures full of inspirational things, thank you!
let me see.... could it be a pair of wings? ....
don't worry...you absolutely DO have it... whatever it is.... it's just a matter of finding it. I've done the same. I've also done the unthinkable...tossed and purged "things"...only to find I need that very thing the next week! arrgghhh!!
Thanks Gretel...yes...trying to begin something...hopefully not wrecking any tiny bit of relief the wrist has been getting. But....honestly, I can't just sit around forever can I ? how come doctors don't realize that and give us more and better suggestions that "rest it"... what the hey?! Must make some little thing.....
Days like this can't be called wasted . You've stored all sorts of ideas away to use later . It's a bit like putting the **** crossword to one side . When you go back to it much later , a lot of the answers appear by magic !
That's the attitude! I use it all the time as I try to relearn knitting, which could also be called pulling out.
Lovely antique lace - the right hand side of photo number 3 is delectable!
PS My French mother always found the word 'haberdashery' amazingly funny. I never hear or use it without thinking of her.
i often have days like that!
love
lyn
xxx
Hi Gretel, I love your collections of bits and bobs. I've some old lace too, I'd almost forgotten about it until I saw this. I don't know what I'll do wth it because it's too nice to use! I've only recently been brave enough to use an ancient button from my vast button collection!xx
In addition to the ideas you gained, mentioned by SandS, I see that you have put together all these parts of your day to create a thoroughly enjoyable blog post.
I love the word haberdashery - a lovely old fashioned word! A day spent crafting is never a day wasted, even if you didn't make something!!
Tell it, Sister!! Boy do I relate to how you feel!
It's so hard not to feel as though I've wasted my days fiddling around, especially when there's so much to be actually accomplished!
It comes around, right? We'll have more skills to work with going forward, right? Please say that's right! HA!
You will find 'it' when you're not looking for it, but by then you will have started something else and won't remember why you wanted it anyway!
Gretel Hello.
I have been singing the 'mouse song' from Bagpuss tonight with my daughter (we will mend it, we will mend it - do you remember it?) and your pictures are like being transported back into Emily's shop.
If you were not a Bagpuss fan you will have no idea what I am on about but it was my all time favourite programme. What lovely pictures. I watched a great programme recently about the guy who made it (he also did Ivor the Engine which I also liked)Hope you ok,
Nicky
x
I hope you eventually figure out how to do whatever it is you're wanting to do ... goodluck! Love the pile of haberdashery you've been looking through - oh I love that word!
Gail
xx
Gretel...your lace had my heart palpitating!!! If you look for something totally different, you will find the 'other' thing ;-)
Oh this makes me feel so much better. I sat on the floor under, yes under, my desk for most of the day yesterday, trying to find a particular file. What I found was loads of recipes and yarn, one beloved earring thought lost forever, knitting patterns and one dog toy. All in all, a good day.
I absolutely know what you mean. Haberdashery is known as Notions over here. Same situation is true when I know that I have squirreled something away for that future date when it will be required.
But where is that squirreling? There was a funny tv commercial a few years back featuring animated squirrels who were rapidly using hundreds of Post-it notes saying "hide nuts" or something like that. I completely understood their worry.
I completely admire the treasure trove you uncovered while on the search for the un-found.
Bravo! xo
You needn't be concerned that the day has been wasted. Inventors have to go through quite a lot of what-doesn't-work before they finally discover what does. It's a necessary part of the process. (Movie biopics cheat by making this process into a thirty-second montage; the rest of us actually have to go through it in real time.)
What a lovely insight into your "stuff", hopefully you will have found what you wanted by now. I have a question though, Gretal: In the top photo, what is the wooden gadget directly below the ball of wool. It's the one that looks like the top off an old dolly washpeg and has a nut and bolt through it............ It fascinates me......
I am totally rubbish at sewing...got drummed out of needlework classes at school because I was so clumsy. But the sight of a pile of pretty fabrics, lace, threads sets my creative soul zinging!
I just know so well how your day has been. such great photos though mean it was truly creative though.
I'm delighted to give you a blog award today. just check out my blog to see how to collect it
Claire
This looks exactly like the inside of the cupboard in the room where I am now. I even have my grandmother's wedding dress in there!
You may think you have wasted a day, but I bet your subconscious is working overtime and will give you a Eureka moment really soon! Anyway, time spent with haberdashery is never wasted in my opinion!
Oh how I would love to rifle through all your boxes of treasures!
I'm sure you will find what you are looking for..AFTER you've improvised with something else of course!
Oh, how I know that feeling - sitting on the floor surrounded by everything except what you're looking for (but rediscovering a few old friends you'd forgotten and some surprises), and then realising that there just isn't time to do what you started out to do anyway. Beautiful lace, by the way.
I'd love to know the origins of 'haberdashery'. I have a similar experience when I begin a project. Am v. envious of your box of lace.
Oh no, days like that are never wasted! It's those days that stretch your imagination and creativity almost to the breaking point trying to find a solution. And rummaging about in boxes often sparks new ideas that you don't have time for...but store away in the back of your mind.
Oh me too - I have just spent ages searching for a pattern for a tiny book cover. I know I have it squirrelled away somewhere. It would be easier to redraw the pattern from scratch but I hate losing things and I know its there somewhere!!! Love all your haberdashery and I am sure my mum had a little tin like yours -is looks so familiar.
LOL, I look at those days as a treasure hunt - I'd find things I'd forgotten I owned.
I hope you find what you're searching for.
Blessings,
Debbie
LOL, I look at those days as a treasure hunt - I'd find things I'd forgotten I owned.
I hope you find what you're searching for.
Blessings,
Debbie
I understand completely!
I've spent the better part of a year hunting for my green and red buttons. They weren't with the rest.
I finally found them when I'd lost all hope. I was merely clearing out a cupboard of completely unrelated stuff under the sink and there they were. Most unexpected :)
Whatever it is, it will turn up in its own sweet time :) In the meantime you have probably made a few other rediscoveries that may be useful.
viv in nz
What a wonderful treasure trove
of stuff.
This sounds like family history when you have spent a whole day in the Record Office peering at microfilms of often faded and badly written Parish Registers and have found absolutely nothing. You tell yourself that a negative result is good - at least now you know where your ancestors aren't!
Oh you made me laugh...do you know how often I go thru that same exercise?
I see things there that I could use, maybe I have something YOU could use...distance is our only problem ;)
I have given you an award - do pop over to my blog and check it out!
I try and convince myself that the time spent attempting to get something to work wasn't wasted. It just feels like that. A trip through your haberdashery was enjoyable. I love your bits of lace and beautiful tins.
Lol the way I'm compelled to look at it is that those things are so pretty that you are having a hard time juxtaposing and working on them! :) Very cute website! xo
oh, I hear you loud and clear. I've thrown out so many experiment of "this should work, right?" but you know what? I never want this to go away. this is how I learn and that's how I like it.
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