Less is more

Mies Van Der Rohe said it and I believe it—really I do—but it's a hard concept to live by. It is something I have been telling myself almost daily as I sort through a lifetime accumulation of stuff in preparation for our move to a house that is smaller than the one we are currently occupying. I am pleased with my progress. I am taking huge bags to Goodwill nearly daily now.

Part of my purge has been disposing of the collection of old sewing gadgets and notions and stuff that I accumulated for years. I had a box of old wooden thread spools, some with thread, some without. I always thought I might do something with them, but never did. When I was making birds awhile back someone sent me a link to Abby Glassenberg's blog. Abby lives clear across the country in Massachusetts and makes incredible fabric birds. I was enchanted and read back through her blog. I noticed that she had at least one bird sitting on a wooden spool and in the accompanying blog entry she mentioned that her supply of old spools was getting regrettably low. Perfect. I sent her my box of spools. She seemed quite pleased and sent, in return, a small collection of fabrics from her stash, something I will certainly use. Less IS more.

Aren't these wonderful?


Especially this one!

I am putting the concept into practice in other ways as well. My original plan for Sofia's 1-year-old quilt included a border appliqued with flowers and leaves and butterflies and dragonflies.

As soon as I got this much pinned I knew it wasn't going to happen. Really, the center pieced section is so pretty (if I do say so myself) that it doesn't need the distraction of a lot of stuff around the border. Also, on a practical note, it was probably going to take me another year to get the border done and I want my baby to be able to have her quilt and use it. So the solution was to quilt the border design.

I even quilted a semi-secret message in the border. Can you see it? Probably not. It says, "For Sofia with love from your Grandma Terry"

I may be getting the hang of this "less is more" business.