Living in a Material World

My stash is becoming a problem.

I've got ginghams ganging up, plaids playing up.  Florals in fights, spots in spats.  In short, we are overrun by unruly fabrics.
This is, let's be clear, because I am singularly shoddy at tidying them up.
I realised this morning that it was getting out of control when there were lurid orange fabrics creeping up stealthily upon my poor guitar, which is quite new in the house and so not standing up for herself very much.  Look, she's literally shrinking inside that case by the minute!  She's terrified, look, as some strong and bold William Morris print encroaches upon her delicate neck area.
Ok, that's poetic license - she's not really shrinking - she is in fact in entirely the wrong size case, because she's what's called a parlour guitar, which is a nice dainty acoustic guitar. I fancied a smaller animal in the guitar family because I have pathetically small hands with a bonkersly tiny little finger.  A big ole guitar is just a little too big.  So I seem to have acquired for myself, via The Husb's money, a lovely little parlour guitar. I then stole The Husb's guitar case because it is nice and solid and sturdy, and put my little parlour guitar in there.  He was really quite peeved, The Husb.  This is most curious because I don't hear much guitar playing going on in HIS hands...she said, with a smug look....

Besides, I need a solid case to withstand the hoards of toddlers and babies and other small crawling creatures who descend weekly upon my guitar.

Hang on.  Now then.  One minute I'm banging on about boistrous fabrics, the next I'm banging on about boistrous bairns.  Shall I explain myself?  Shall I?  I think perhaps I'd better.
With my good friend, Hetty's Boyf's Mother, I run a weekly music group jam-packed full of nursery rhymes and action songs and all sorts, where I twang-di-twang-di-boing and strum-di-strrruuum-ditty-strum very badly on the guitar, and Matilda the melodeon gets her kicks every week too.  When feeling very myoozical I even bust out the fiddle and churn out a toon while the nippers wallop xylophones, whack drums and go nuts with maracas.  It's totally bonkers, frankly, but ain't nothin' better than giving it some welly with old Humpty Dumpty, the Grand Old Duke of York, or Wind The Bobbin Up.  And you should hear my She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain yee-haas.  Oooh, I loves me that tune.  In all seriosity, I'm straight out the Appalachians.  We do stonking harmonies and everything, me and Hetty's Boyf's Mother.


A...n...y...w...a...y.....now then.  As you might know, unless you're a new person here, in which case oh hello!  Hi!  How are you?  Cup of tea?  Help yourself, do.
Now where was I?  As you might know, we are in the very, very final throes of finishing the website for the launch of OriginalStitch, which uses only recylced fabrics in its lovely, lovely, lovely gifts.  (Have I mentioned how lovely they are, at all?)  Which means that all my friends often thrust bits of fabric at me.  Or whole bags of it.
They grab me in playgrounds, yell at me in a most unladylike manner across preschool carparks, like this "Ooh, hang on, don't go, wait a mo, where is it - got a bag of - oomph, there you go - material, stuff and things for you - want it?" and I'm all "Oooooooooooh!" and I invariably dribble slightly.  Glee is the word.  Glee.
Doesn't a bag of fabric make you feel gleeful?!
And one such lovely bag of fabrics was thrust at me through the serving hatch when we were doing the teas and coffees after Musical Mayhem.  When I got home I got Matilda out of the car, replete with donated fabrics precariously piled atop her.
Et voila.  A curious patchwork of fabric and music mingled together in a blog post.
And here is Matilda, all covered in fabric, and lookee here - just check out that case!  That is FOR REAL you people!  That's a real melodeon case!  My teacher gave it to me for free, because he said it was a little too feminine for his tastes and couldn't wait to get rid of it.  Giz it here then, I said, coz I'm loving that.  It matches my decor and everything.

However, the mauling given to the guitar by those fabrics there was entirely my fault.  I'd just been giving it some to a tune called Mairi's Wedding when my folks were here, and then my sister was all, ooh, I've got that bag of fabric, who wants some?  So the poor old parlour girl was thrown aside and soon found herself festooned in oranges, poor lass.  Although, I have to say, looking closely, and bearing in mind I have very few oranges in my stash - I wonder if the parlour girl asked them over because they rather nicely match her lovely brown wooden body.

And those of you who were none the wiser about what the devil in a boiled egg a melodeon is, well now you know.  Absolute corker isn't she?