Tina's Treasures

Once upon a time I worked in a school cafeteria.  The cook manager of the kitchen I worked in was named Tina and Tina had a daughter named Kathy who was my age.  She introduced us and we have been the best of friends for the past thirty one years. 

Kathy's mother was diagnosed a couple of years ago with Alzheimer's.  Tina was a person that never forgot anything, such a memory she had... so it has been a difficult journey for her family to watch the decline of this once vibrant woman, who never sat still and always had a project in the works.  Tina was a crafter... she was an amazing seamstress, a extraordinary quilter, a skilled embroiderer (both machine and hand), a knitter, a crocheter and a new scrapbooker.

Recently, the family packed up all of Tina's crafting "stuff" and moved it to Kathy's daughter's basement where Kathy has taken on the task of sorting thru everything and preparing for a crafter's dream yard sale.  I went over yesterday to help out.  We laughed and cried the day away.  Unbeknownst to any of us, Tina was a crafting hoarder... oh my, the things we found!

This is one box of cone thread... we also have a boxes of spooled thread... quilting thread, machine embroidery thread, regular sewing thread... and every color imaginable!

We set up tables so we could sort things.  We had a quilting table...

with just about every tool there is...

A sewing table with all kinds of notions.  Pincushions, needles, pins, tape measures.. velcro, snaps, buttons, zippers... you name it we found it and lots of it!

This cart has zippers on the top, elastic in the middle and ribbon and lace on the bottom...

A box of bias tape and seam binding...

And my favorite table... the project table.  Tina would gather all of the things needed for a pr oject...pattern/directions, material, notions and put it in a plastic shoebox.  When she was ready to create that project everything was at her fingertips.  Each box on the table is a single project ready to be created.  I think I would feel a whole lot better about all my "unfinisheds" if I had them this well organized!

We have not even ventured into the world of Tina's fabric...  that will be our next project.  There are boxes and bins of every fabric under the sun.  And we're thinking we'll organize it by size and color... wish us luck!

Thanks for dropping by...