Spring cleaning on a spring day

I love Saturday mornings. They're full of such promise. The entire weekend spreads out before me and I imagine all that I'll accomplish: the great meals I'll cook, the incredible power walks I'll take, the household tasks that have nagged at me all week that I'll whip through, and the time left over for fun—seeing friends, reading, sewing. Somehow, at the end of the weekend I don't feel quite so positive and my to-do list still has a number of items that aren't ticked off.

The one big task on my list this weekend was cleaning my sewing room., which is my eldest daughter's former bedroom. It took me quite awhile to move into it: even after she'd been gone for a couple of years I was tentative about usurping her space. But when she got married I figured it was legitimate to call it my own.

I keep her twin bed in the room for the rare occasion when we've got the other two extra beds occupied, but it had become a vast dumping ground for fabric: projects I was planning (the red, white, and black quilt for which I'd laid out the fabric and pattern more than a year ago), projects I'd just finished (the pink and green baby quilt) and projects in progress (the liberated houses).

It all came to a head on Friday when we finally had warm weather and I couldn't find any of my cotton pants to wear to work—In that early morning, fuzzy-headed frenzy I became convinced that I'd sent them to the cleaners and they'd never returned. It wasn't until I went to my sewing room that I realized that along with all that fabric on the twin bed there was a pile of ironing leftover from the fall.

You'll note that the bed is not visible in these photos. I did get all the fabric off the bed and into the closet, which first necessitated hauling boxes of my daughter's 7th-grade notes and other valuables to the basement. I put away lots of miscellany near my machines and from my cutting table (a former chemistry bench acquired from University surplus). But the ironing is still on the bed. My plan for this evening is to turn on the TV and go to it. I hope there's something worth watching.