Organising plans and a recipe..............

I can stand the mess no longer. I don't know how much fabric I have, what fabric I have or how much of anything there is. All I know is that I keep finding things in the charity shops, bringing them home and STUFFING them into these baskets. I'm finally going to be shamed into doing something. Sadly, it doesn't involve de-stashing much to my poor husbands consternation.

No, dear reader what I'm going to do is organise and file it all. I haven't gone off my head. No, I've been well and truly inspired by this lady and what she has done. Please click on the link and see for yourselves.

OK, are you back now? Well, when I came across her plan/idea I immediately started looking for these comic book boards but all were in the US with horrendous postage. I even thought of calling prairiemouse in her hotel in New York and asking her to get me some! Then I figured that there must be some of these things available in comic shops in the UK so I googled and phoned a couple. The long and short of it is that there is a similar product which is very stiff cardboard (so they say), doesn't bend easily and might do the trick. I found a comic shop in the Midlands and I'll go and buy some when I go and visit my Mum and Dad this week (or if I ever get to the NEC for the Knitting and Stitching Show). They sell them for about £9 for a pack of 100.**

Ooooh, I can't wait. I do love organising although I don't generally rush to it. A few years ago I ran a dollmaking workshop for two ladies. One was 90 and the other about 70. At that time all my embroidery threads used to live in an Ikea biscuit tin in a jumble. I'll never forget the look on their faces when I opened the tin and asked them to find an eye colour. They were so sweet and just asked me how I ever found what I wanted. I tell you I got down to John Lewis' pretty sharpish and bought one of those plastic thread organiser jobbies and Raj had a wale of a time winding the thread onto the little bobbin things. It never occurred to me that by organising my threads I'd actually spend less money in the long run.

Talking of spending money I went a bit mad on Amazon last night and I ordered Spin It, Hands On Spinning,  Women's Work: the first 20,000 years. Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times, A Dyer's Garden and Soul Eater by Michelle Paver.  I haven't bought full price, new craft books for ages so I'm allowed this splurge. I could easily have bought more books and I whittled the list down quite a lot. Actually I searched on my local library list for books at the same time and only bought what I couldn't borrow.

After this bout of retail therapy I felt I was able to tackle the apples so this morning I dried some apple rings in the Aga and I made an applecake:

The apple rings are supposed to be snacks for school later in the year but they aren't lasting very long. To make them all you do is peel, core and thinly slice the apples and put them in the oven for 2 - 3 hours at about 130C. I put mine on a rack in the simmering oven.

I'd like to share the cake recipe with you and I thought it would be lovely if we all did the same. So many of us are going to be overrun with apples for a while and I for one would love to try some new things. Here's my first offering - it came from Here's Health magazine about 1982 and it's wholesome but very light and delicious.

                               Applesauce Fruit Cake

• 5 oz/1 cup of raw cane sugar (I use light or dark muscavado)
• 1/2 cup corn oil
• 1 1/2 cups of apple puree
• 1 egg
• 10 oz/2 cups wholemeal flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1 1/2 tsps cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 6 oz/1 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (which I never put in)

All you do is combine the sugar, oil, apple puree and egg in a bowl and stir. Sift in the flour, baking powder and spices. Mix together and add the raisins and nuts, if using. Spoon the mixture into a greased and lined  8ins square tin and bake for 11/2 to 1 3/4 hours at Gas mark 1, 275F or 135C.

I chopped and pureed enough apple to make the cake and to freeze for another cake at some later time. Also, must point out that for some reason it didn't rise as much as it normally does. Anyway, must go and have a slice and cup of tea and dream of filing my fabric...........

** two people have e-mailed me to say that there are some on ebay in the UK. I did look honest, but I typed in 'comic book boards' and not 'comic backing boards' - makes all the difference. If I order them now I'll have something to take my mind off the empty house on Monday morning.

Comments

[Sezz]

I've just done a search for comic boards on Ebay and found a few UK listings. Good luck with sorting your stash.

[Dannielle]

what a marvelous idea!! I'm going to do my fabric like that too!!!

You've completely inspired me. :-D

[Rowan]

Looked at the site with the organizing idea and the fabrics arranged that way look so satisfying and appealing. Should think it will be very inspiring for you to see all your fabrics colour coded . Either that or it will look so pretty that you won't want to disturb it!

[ramona]

what a truly inspiring post! would you tell me more about the thread organizer? *bambie eyes*

[littlejennywren]

The books sound great. How is the organising going. I bet it looks so good you won't want to touch it. I love the organising and making it all look wonderful but then as soon as I start making things I make a horrible mess again and I can't even blame the children.

[sooz]

The yarn patterns books in your last post looked great - what a find! And I love this idea of organising the stash so much I am off to ebay now, though goodness knows what they might be called here in Australia. I also wonder how good they will be for larger pieces of fabric?

[Kate]

Umm - your before picture looks pretty good compared to what I've got going on here. Good luck with the organizing

[weirdbunny]

Good luck with the organising!