Cleaning and Making Things

As I mentioned last time, the dining room was a complete disaster, with the icing on the cake being the stuff I evicted from the kitchen counters for the pre-Capricon baking binge (that would be the white box and other junk on the bench in front of the window).  The morbidly curious can click to embiggen.

Saturday morning I attacked the mess, with a lot of help from Robin.

Fortunately, cleanup ended up being mostly putting things away. Fabric and soft leather was packed into a couple-three empty bins. Small bits of leather were stowed in another bin. Larger rolls were put away. Empty boxes and other junk were thrown away. 

I even . . . threw away leather.  Craptatstic leather! A few years ago I ordered a lot (as in "assortment of stuff") of leather from a warehouse cleanout sale at a very cheap price, which turned out to be rather a lot (as in "large amounts") of junk. Shiny faux alligator in scary colors that looked more like plastic than leather, for instance. No, it was not worth trying to sell to somebody else. I finally realized it was time for it to GO. and it WENT. 

Unwrapping all the craptastic monstrosities did provide some hilarity to me and Robin at the time, but I can't honestly say I thought the money well spent. But that's water long under the bridge, and by now I'm pleased to have gotten it out of my work room. Its the first time I can think of that I've thrown out leather that wasn't down to scrap.

Here's a couple shots of the cleanup mostly-finished:

Look! Floor! Yeah, still needs to be vacuumned, but I can live with that. You can see the floor! Yes, the pile on the big sewing machine has actually grown. Some of that is things that need to be sewn, like leather for two satchels, a belt satchel that needs the binding on the flap, and hardware and new nylon strapping to make tie-downs for the various things in the trailer. 

A little later we went through the kitchen refugees on the bench and in the box. Which then led going through all the spices and seasonings (which live in the dining room, so it did make some sense). 

All in all, a fair bit of cleaning.

Sunday I cut out two new pouches, Civil War-era replicas of, IIRC, British accoutrements. I got them ready to sew together, have finished the sewing on one, and am about 3/4 of the way through sewing up the other - Ron and I had yesterday off for Presidents' Day. 

Yesterday I also, um, bought more leather. I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I've been trying not to buy leather I don't really need for the last few months, because we've got an awful lot of cows worth as it is. 

We went to the local Tandy/Leather Factory store mostly to get out of the house, with the secondary plan to get some more studs, which are on sale. Unfortunately, leather that was also part of the sale leaped, LEAPED I say, out and insisted I take it home. A nice shrunken-grain brown, and pretty london tan (gold) in softish leather. I'm a sucker for london tan. 

I did get the new leather put away neatly last night. That's worth something, right?