SORTING THROUGH ONE'S HISTORY - WHAT TO DO WITH DECADES OF MY EMBROIDERIES

 I don't intend to post monthly instead of weekly it just has been happening lately.  My apologies.

We had a reenactment event a week or so ago and having not done an event in awhile it took a bit of work to remember what we needed and to get everything we had to bring together to do so.  

We have two other events coming up in October.  For one of the events I need to put together a talk on period (18th century) needlework as we are each being given a set time for our demonstrations – my work is so close that while people can watch – a crowd cannot do so all at once.  So I will be stitching all day as is normal for me at these events and will be able to show work and talk about needlework “back then”.  

In the past at some other events (which were for a later period) I had a bag of various types of embroidery and other stitching to show.  (I finish stitching pieces, but – especially when I did the project primarily to learn the technique – I often do nothing with the piece after the stitching is finished, which makes it easier to take the pieces to demonstrations.) I could not find the bag in our studio.  

In the past the studio was much better organized, but since the start of Covid it – and especially my work table – has become the storage area for excess canned goods and such.  Add into this the fact that we had taken apart my family home when mom moved elsewhere and I have a number of bags – similar to the bag I used to bring to events – with embroidered pieces – finished and unfinished – back to when I was a young girl.  So gathered together all of these bags and took them to the living room.  I sorted through them – finished or unfinished being one of main sorting criteria.  While I never the bag with items I expected to find together I did get to see a history of my (and my husband's) needlework.  

The pieces are now sorted – mine or his, mine by year of work or type of stitching.  Unfortunately they are still taking up much of our living room in stacks.  I will sort through for what is usable for this event and then figure out how to better store them.   I have not really been able to work with them as our living room also serves as husband's “loom room” for his, well, loom which is setup in the room for him to work on a piece.  (Yes, our house has very unusual purposes to many of the rooms.)

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK (OK, MONTH) -
When one has an assortment of old, beloved items to work through it is not easy and will often be put off.  First step is to sort the items in some fashion so one can see what they have and decide what to do with them.  Obviously in this case donating the pieces is not really a viable solution and the pieces will all be kept – and will serve as history of my and in general needlework of the 1950s/60s onward.  

Do you have anything similar – of no value except to you, and possibly posterity?