Closet Cleaning

It's drip, drip, dripping outside. The 60 degrees of damp seems to have settled into my joints. It's a good day to play with beads. Sorting beads is playing, yes?Why does a couple of days of rain put me in the mood to clean closets? Well, not exactly closets, but my bead inventory. I guess it's similar because when I get done and close the lids you really won't be able to see that I've done anything at all.

I cleaned out my 40 year fabric stash as I hadn't done any sewing in maybe 15 years. I needed the room and it's time to try and simplify things somewhat. One of my sisters has gone minimalist to the point that my Brother-in-Law mentioned to me that he and the cats were afraid they weren't going to have anything to sit on. I'm not thinking to clean down to quite that point, but years of uncontrolled collecting of neat things has finally gotten to me.

See this pile of beads? That is the second round of beading things that I have purged and really just don't need or want any more. Like I told one of my friends after the first round of bead clean out, it's just the tip of the beadburg.

About 5 years ago I sort of went a bit batty at the Tucson Gem Show and bought freshwater pearls. Not just a strand or two, but hanks of them. I haven't used pearls in my beadwork for 2 years now, so I think it's time to find new homes for some of them. I've had the enjoyment of fondling all the different ones in the pearl box as I sorted them out. Sometime next week I'll be doing a beadroom clean-out sale again. I have to think about it and maybe I'll do it by individual item and maybe I'll do it in groups. There is everything from 11/0 seed beads, hand carved large beads, gemstones. oddities and pearls.... lots of pearls. Stay tuned - one more round after I take care of this batch.

Now back to watching the water drip off of the eaves and the ferns getting bigger and lusher by the hour.