a post about little knitted houses, tiny peg dolls, and a very big, surprise decluttering job
August 25, 2024
This post is all over the place with peg dolls, knitting and a big dose of decluttering. I'll do the houses first because they are so much more fun than the huge surprise decluttering job that's going on at Casa Kntionary at the moment.
The houses are so rewarding and fun to knit. Last year I made some Christmas houses but this time I added 1/2" layer of little poly pellets to the bottom for better stability, then finished stuffing with some beautiful wool batting. If you are going to make stuffed toys or ornaments, it's a good idea to invest in a small bag of the pellets and wool, not poly, stuffing. You can definitely tell the difference and both products take your toy project to the next level. Take the links below for more info.
I'll decorate for fall in a week or two but I had the urge to make some seasonal peg dolls and I came up with something I call gnome gneighbors. After I named them I knew they needed an actual gneighborhood to live in. I grabbed the autumnal colors of the Rowan Felted Tweed I had in my stash and used the sweet house patterns from Susan B. Anderson and now there is an actual village for all the gneighbors to live in happily ever after.
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| The houses crack me up and seem to take on their own unique personality. |
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| If you are interested in making these exact dolls, here's the recipe: I used these 2" girl peg people that I purchase in bulk from Amazon--great prices! I first painted the bodies one coat of metallic gold, then glued the braid on top of the head, see directions for that below. To make a hat, cut a 2.5" to 3" circle and fold into fourths. The quarter circle will be your template for the felt hat but you may need to fiddle with the size until you come up with your perfectly sized hat. After cutting, sew up the seam with tiny whip stitches--no need to turn inside out as the seam looks fine on the outside. Dot a thin line of glue around the inner brim and place on head. Lastly, with a toothpick, dot on paint for face and buttons. Embellish hat with a little leaf or flower. |
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| I used golden colored yarn and braided a long strip, then tied them off and cut them. I glued it to the top of the head and placed the hat over and it held well. |
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| The houses that I found at Walmart were my inspiration, but I ended up taking them back. My hand knitted houses were so much cuter! I ended up using only the Felted Tweed in colors, French mustard (a lime green), peach, clay and black, |
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| In the You Go Girl department, look how far I've come on my Festive Christmas Sweater! I have another motif to do which will be snowflakes, then I will separate the body and sleeves and continue to knit stockinette with the flame color. I'll take this to finish all that stockinette on a long car drive coming up next month. |
Now for the decluttering part of the post. This is what our utility yard looked like just three days ago. I accidentally stumbled onto one of the biggest decluttering projects of my life and I was totally unprepared! I took these pictures after I had already gone through quite a few boxes so it was actually a much bigger pile than this. You might wonder why I have this mountain of boxes after I have already decluttered the living daylights out of this house a few years ago. Simply put, we found more stuff. At one end of the house is a sweet little attic space that I use, but at the other end of the house is another attic space, totally unlike my sweet attic, and a space that terrifies me. The ladder is rickety, the lighting is dim and the cobwebs are many. I have never gone up there. We are reroofing our house this week and on Thursday the job foreman told me that the stuff from the scary attic had to come down and asked me where I wanted to put it. Me: "Oh, just hand it down to me and I'll put in it the guest room" He said, "Ahh, no, there is a lot here, and it's too heavy for you." I couldn't imagine why he was making a fuss, but I told them they could use the side utility yard patio. So I went outside to see what was coming down, and with one man in the attic lifting the boxes up to another man on top of the roof who then handed them down to another man on the ground, I watched them take out 3 chairs, 2 children's chairs, a crib, a dresser, a file cabinet, a box of puzzles and games, a cooler, 2 lamps, a rug, a rocking horse, 4 Christmas bins, my old sewing machine from when I was 12, and so many boxes my head spun. It seemed to have no end. Panic started to settle in deep in my stomach.
Since I use the other non-scary attic, it's been at least a decade since I've asked someone (husband or son) to "store" something for me. I had a very minimal understanding of where it was going or even why I was storing it. I guess I wasn't ready to let it go so sending it off to some Narnia esk fairytale land seemed like a good idea? Out of sight, out of mind? I'm not certain why my young self felt it was a good idea to save stuff, but my mature self was heart stricken at the sight of it all. Now it could not longer be forgotten and ignored. There it sat on my patio and it had to be dealt with. Seventy five per cent of it was mine, and in true Kristen style, all the boxes were neatly labeled. Want to know what they said? How about this one, "Christmas, don't bring down." What the heck? WHY SAVE if I don't want it down? I'm happy to report that this box is already at the charity shop. Another doozy was labeled, "Broken Christmas". What on earth was my young self thinking? I peeked inside and yep, all broken. Those went straight into the trash can. There was more Christmas from my mother and my aunt but they went to the charity shop too because I had already chosen my favorites to keep. Unfortunately these pictures don't actually show all of it because the furniture that came down went straight to the front patio and I immediately posted them on the Trash Nothing app. Four items are already gone, yippee, and more are being picked up tonight.
Actually not all of the loot was mine. There were two boxes of my son's swimming trophies from age 4 to 18. I called him and let him know and he said sweetly, "I think they were not saved by me, but maybe by you?" Guilty. He told me to trash them and they are sitting in a pile of trash at the side of the house, but I am going to go through them and save one. (Edited to say that a reader said that some trophy shops and other places accept these as donations for reusing. See that comment and my reply below.) He may be ready to let them go, but I'm not quite ready. He also had several boxes with work and school paperwork, plus a 20 year old computer and some old toys, and another box full of books and yet another full of yearbooks and high school artifacts. He came over this morning and plowed through them and bless him, went through the entire mess in a few hours. He recycled and threw out a lot, managed to get all the paperwork down to one small file box and put aside things he is going to sell. I also found some things to sell and we agreed that October is going to be our big eBay month for selling. For the actual trash I've already ordered a free bulky trash pick up day from our garbage company so the dumping ground will be cleared in a week. I cannot believe how much we did in a few short days.
Tackling this job as a family really made me realize the different approaches to decluttering and how different personalities feel about letting go of possessions. For me, I feel stressed when there's too much stuff to deal with and feel good with I can clean and conquer and feel relief and pride when it's over. My approach to decluttering is just to get on with it. My husband on the other hand hates the chaos decluttering creates and just wishes it would all go away. He has very few opinions about what should stay or go and would like nothing more than to just stay out of it. Unfortunately, he has his own box of junk to go through and we put it by his outside chair where he sits every evening to have his cigar. I'll help him and we'll take it slowly because that will be more his style. Then there's our son, a sentimental guy who is also pragmatic and practical. He knew that we are most likely going to downsize in five years and delaying going through it was just prolonging the inevitable. He stopped a few times to smile and go down memory lane, but I could not believe how quickly he made decisions.
We are not done yet. We still have what we're calling October eBay ahead of us and there are a lot of things on the front porch that I've listed on the Trash Nothing app and I'm waiting for all that to go. Just three days ago I was overwhelmed, but today I'm feeling pretty good, the pile below is no longer but I'm exhausted.
Just to finish this post, I am no longer that person who can't let go and needs to save stuff I don't use. I find it easy to let go and I no longer blindly consume. I still have a lot of stuff, probably too much, but what I've kept I am comfortable managing and I'm ok with it.
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On a final note, my yarn arrived for my Dala Sweater. It's a new-to-me yarn, Onling from Denmark, and it feels gorgeous. I'm busy right now but always try to knit for at least an hour or two every night so I'm hopeful this will be done well before Christmas. Also, my granddaughter just sent a sweater request for her October birthday so that will be a top priority. She's asking for something that sounds like The Reluctant Homeschooler. We're in consultation mode at the moment. |
8 Comments
Your peg dolls are adorable! Thanks for the instructions, I can't wait to make some of my own and have a cute little gneighnorhood!
ReplyDeleteGreat! I'm so happy to share peg doll love!
DeleteThank you for all the inspiration and encouragement to get through ‘ stuff’! I looked at the Festive Yoke Pullover but the original pattern doesn’t have snowmen. Would you please share where you found the chart for them? It’s going to be a stunning sweater!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm so glad you feel inspired. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have the bulk of it dealt with. As for the snowmen, when you download the pattern there are 20 plus charts you can choose, several snowflakes, two reindeer, stars, and the snowmen, etc., so you can mix and match. It was hard to stop at three!
DeleteThank you so much! ~Sharon
DeleteIf you still have the trophies, many trophy shops will take them back for the parts that they can reuse!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. I made a few phone calls and everyone was so nice but no one in my area is accepting trophies right now. But one guy said they are Goodwill material for sure as people take them for repurposing for fun crafts or actual trophies for camps, etc. Thank you again for the tip!
DeleteGood to know! Thanks for sharing!
DeleteYou make my day when you make a comment!