Dearie me, I've been a busy bee this weekend. There has been lots of mindless quilting, which is always a good thing, it means this quilt is getting closer to completion, and that will make me very happy indeed. I have also listed lots of spare fabric and books and wool on Ebay, so that will clear out a pile of unloved stuff within the week. And I contemplated the pile of woodworking magazines, which are from the '80s and also among my treasured things, and decided there were just toooo many boxes and they needed to be rationalised. Of course I can't get rid of them, not when I want to make things like this one day; it's a swift, and I need one badly to skein the wool that I intend spinning. You know, when I have time.
I hate ripping pages out of magazines, I had the messy edges. So with these I got cunning and cut the spine off them first. I used an old rotary cutter, and made several passes until Ihad cut through the whole magazine. This is the perfect opportunity to slip and cut yourself badly, so it pays to go slow. I started the cut slightly in from the edge, and when I had all the rest of the spine separated I ran the cutter backwards to sever that first bit. It doesn't work to cut fabric backwards, but this worked fine.
Then it was simply a matter of flipping the pages over and deciding what to keep; anything worthwhile went onto the first pile, the rubbish went onto the pile further away. I am building up a stack of pages, and one night I will put them all into plastic sleeves and store them in a ring-binder. It has really slimmed down the stack, there are a lot of ads and product reviews for defunct machinery in these issues, so most of the magazines I saved only 20% of the pages. It has worked so well that I will tackle my quilting mags next. I bet you thought I'd dealt with them already! I'm all talk.
I used to work in a furniture factory, and I am capable of making simple things. These are two that have survived. The tray is just as good as when I made it in 1991, but the stool needs refinishing. Some nameless children covered the top in stickers, which have worn off and left disgusting residues; it must be 15 years old at least. It lives in my pantry, and I use it every day to reach things on the top shelf. Mereth will remember another set of stools we made 27 years ago; no-one ever went to use them without being warned 'Careful! They can tip over....AAAAGGHHH, I Told you to be Careful!' So finally they were thrown away; they looked lovely, Baltic pine and all, but were so unstable.

I'm quite proud of my first attempt at dovetail joints....
And yes, that's my other applique project, discovered when DS and I were moving a high bookcase and a box toppled off. Inside were the beginnings of a Christmas applique quilt; I wonder why I squirrel these things away in strange places. Guilt? Maaayybe.....