I Swedish Death cleaned my studio this weekend. You can read a very quick overview of Swedish Death cleaning here if you're not familiar with the practice. Created by artist Margareta Magnusson after the deaths of her husband and parents, the practice is a gentle way to declutter your house so that the burden of decluttering and cleaning isn't left to your family or friends when you die. I just started Magnusson's book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, but heard about the practice a few years ago. Apparently, there's also a show on Peacock. I don't subscribe Peacock so I haven't watched it.
The basic idea is that when you retire, you should start shedding your possessions. Doing so in the second half of your life gives you the ability to truly judge what needs to be kept and what can be discarded. I love the idea of Swedish Death cleaning and have been trying to get my entire family to start doing it. I have several family members who are single and don't have children, so I'll be one of the people taking care of their things when they pass. The idea of going through things and not really knowing what they would have wanted us to keep is hard to process. My parents are slowly getting on board, and my aunt recently told me she was planning to start now that she's retired. This pleases me.
Anyway, I'm starting ahead of the recommended timeline, but I felt the need to get started on my studio. I have so much stuff and it was becoming a less than ideal place to work. I spent all last weekend going through everything, reorganizing bins and drawers, moving furniture around, and finally cleaning out the closet. It was so satisfying. I also cleaned the other two closets in the house. I donated two truck loads to Green Drop, my brother is taking the Cricut Joy, and the plastic bins have found a new home. The space feels better and I feel energized working in there. Since I was reorganizing all my fabric, I decided to use some for this week's stitch journal entry. This also gave me the opportunity to try a variation on the lazy daisy stitch, the long daisy tail stitch.
Here's this week's piece:
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| I used a tack stitch to attach the circles. The tack stitch was completely covered by the stitches I did each day. I don't like stitching through glue, which is another option, so that's why I went with the tack stitch. |
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| May 19 - fly stitch |
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| May 20 - buttonhole wheel stitch |
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| May 21 - long daisy tail stitch (it's a lazy daisy stitch with a long tail instead of having the chain stitch meeting in the middle) |
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| May 22 - Tete de Boeuf stitch |
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| May 23 - fly stitch (bigger fly portion on a smaller circle) |
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| May 24 - buttonhole wheel stitch |
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| May 25 - long daisy tail and Tete de Boeuf stitches |
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| Week 21 |
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| Weeks 1-21 |
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| Week 22 - the color is Natural. We've entered the beige section of the sample book. |
In Progress
I'm still working on the Savage Stitcher pattern I shared last week. I finished the flowers up this week and started the lettering. I'm hoping to finish this weekend.
I entered Keely into Washingtonian magazine's "Cutest Cat in DC" contest. He didn't win, but we did receive a digital version of what his cover would have looked like.
Keely was robbed. Look at that sweet face!
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