For years I’ve had a mental list of all kinds of projects which I planned to work on “someday.” I love hand arts: crocheting, knitting, tatting. Many of my “mental list projects” involve these time-consuming skills.

Back in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I purchased most of the crochet cotton stock from a Frankenmuth store when they closed. I also purchased the stock from Jacobson’s when they eliminated their crochet department. My horde was growing and so was my list of future projects. I had in mind bedspreads, clothing, doilies, and more and more projects.

Sometimes I’d get in a sewing mood, and buy up material for suits, and dresses. My list of projects grew.

In the early 1990’s I purchased a knitting machine and with it materials for knitted projects.

My list of proposed projects always justified the purchases of more materials because I’d need that stuff when I got around to working on them.

Back about ten years ago, I discovered eBay. Folks would sell their hordes of crochet materials and I’d buy them up .. always cheaply .. always in volume.

I have at least three plastic bins (the big ones) filled with balls of crochet/tatting cotton. I have hundreds of balls .. yards and yards .. all sizes (thicknesses) of crocheted cotton. I have cones of yarn .. yards of fabric .. shuttles, hooks, needles, books, patterns, more books, more patterns… Well, you get the idea.

I’m now 67 years old. If I got busy and worked night and day on all the projects I’ve dreamed of, I could never put dent in my list of projects. I couldn’t even scratch the surface.

I probably should start selling my horde. It no longer brings me comfort. In fact it’s become an unfinished blight. I no longer think of the mental list as “do-able.” Maybe it’s time to purge.

I’ll have to put that on my list of proposed “projects.”