Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Pie Safe or How My Stash Found A Home

(Too Much Clutter.)
First and foremost I like having lots of stuff. I can't help it I got the habit from my mom. She is the queen of clutter, which makes me the princess of junk. I have collections of stuff from books to coffins. Knitting has not changed my collecting fever it has just focused it down to a specific area: FIBER. So my stash was beginning to take over in a series of containers, small green bowl, big green bowl, green cloth basket, open green box, green box, and let us not forget the green bin with all the knitting supplies in it. If this sounds confusing to you, can you imagine how I feel.

Much joy and consternation resulted from said accumulated stash of yarn. My mom offered me a great solution, did I want her pie safe? Now my mother does not bake pies, hell the woman rarely cooks at all, but she has a pie safe. When I was a kid she brought it home in pieces and it sat for months in the garage collecting spiders. Eventually, she sent it to a refinisher and it came home all shiny and like new. The refinisher called it a carpenters end piece and told her there were 5 different types of wood in the cabinet. The cabinet has a special place in my heart and my childhood. With some of the things going on in my parents life she is down-sizing a little and henceforth the pie safe is mine.

At first I was excited and knew immediately that my yarn had found a home, but how to make everything else fit I asked myself. I thought about configuration for a week. I measured everything for a week. I spent a week digging out the wall to put the pie safe against, photograph of empty wall below. I spent another week afraid it wasn't going to fit in the station wagon it was coming home in (it didn't, but my dad and some bungees made it work). And then after lugging it in with Natalie's help, it was in position for yarn. (Put Pie Safe Here.)
I am so happy with the beautiful pie safe and with my beautiful yarn in it. I can sit on my futon and watch my stash grow. Ahhhh, cooling pies would not have looked so grand.
(Put Stash in Pie Safe)

2 comments:

eubara said...

Gentle Alice, imagine my relief to see you have found a more appropriate haven for your yarn families. However, I would suggest that you find a more suitable name than "pie safe". That may have been the original purpose for this object but I can assure you that no mere construction of wood could ever keep pies safe from those who would have them, and I count myself among that number. Should the safeguarded pastry be of the peach variety I can assure you that this wooden box would not prevail. A lady's hands may well bespeak her habits..which is why I use a prybar when called upon to liberate baked goods.
Will the yarn be truly secure in this fallible "safe"?
Perhaps you could solicit government funding for a yarn conservancy area? Or a yarn preservation project with attached museum and gift shop? There you have it! Yarn throughout the ages!
A Knitters Hall of Fame ala Tussaud, with the delectable chamber of horrors (another place for the ugly yarns to provoke gasps of terror). A lesson for young knitters to be sure.

Tempest ina Pot of Tea said...

Wise Barbara I will give your comments much consideration. I truly doubt the piece of furniture is a "pie safe." My mother is the queen of misnomer, but alas most of my life it has been called a pie safe. So even if I were to call it a yarn depository, mentally I would still think of it as a pie safe. As to it being "safe," I know for a fact that a crow bar is not necessary. In the furniture's distant past a small mouse nibbled a path to the unsafe pastry through the bottom shelf.