The rewards of tidiness

I’m neither tidy nor untidy. I seem to be a 50–50 hybrid of my very untidy father and my exactly-the-opposite mother. I often let things pile up a bit, but never to the extent that I can't invite friends in unexpectedly because the place looks as though junkies have ransacked it or a rubbish truck has overturned in the kitchen. I don’t like tidying up, but I hate clutter and disorder too — or at least the visible sort. What goes on in cupboards and drawers, out of my sight, rarely bothers me.

About three years ago I knitted myself a lace scarf in a fine variegated yarn, in sombre tones of black, dark red, charcoal and purple. I absolutely loved it and used to wear it all the time in winter. Then, a year or two ago, I lost it. One day it was there, around my neck; the next it wasn't. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find it. I figured it had slipped off or been left behind somewhere; so, as it was obviously gone, I decided to just hope that someone else had found it and was enjoying it. 

Yesterday, I took it into my head to sort out the Chest of Shame — the big wooden box into which craft around here goes to die, or at least to be ignored for a decade or so. I'd pulled a heap of stuff out of it a couple of weeks ago, to show a suitably incredulous friend the extent to which the unfinished projects have got out of hand, and yesterday the mess got to me. In the process of tidying up I scrabbled about behind the chest, and found a few useful odds and ends — plus the lost scarf. I'd looked in every logical place in the house and a few illogical ones too — but it had never occurred to me to look behind the chest. Finding that scarf totally made my day. Even the discovery that bits of it had been fairly enthusiastically chewed by marauding micro-vermin couldn't dampen my joy. I don't think I've got any of the same yarn left over to repair it with, so I'll darn it with something else and not let the repairs worry me. I'm just really glad to have it back.

Something else I found was a linen skirt, in a deep burgundy shade which is the nearest I get to flamboyant. I think I started it last summer, and I'd completely forgotten about it. It was finished except for the waistband. It fits okay, it looks okay; I've no idea why I abandoned it. I found the leftover fabric, too, so immediately made it a waistband. Then I decided to experiment. One of the disadvantages of linen, if you care to look at it that way, is that it creases extravagantly. I love wearing it so much — it's so cool and swishy and perfect for Sydney's hot, humid summers — that I don't care. I figure all those creases are a sign of quality, and should be worn insouciantly. 

I like deliberately creased fabrics, too, and decided to have a go at really hammering some creases into this linen skirt, just to see what would happen. I saturated it with hot water, squeezed most of it out, pleated it roughly by hand, twisted it into a pretzel shape, trussed it up in a lingerie bag then chucked it into the tumble-dryer and left it thumping around in there for an ecologically unjustifiable length of time.

I wore it last night and by the end of the night the creases had pretty much dropped out. Turns out that linen is easy to crease unintentionally and hard to crease deliberately. Go figure. Still, I've decided I might give up ironing linen skirts and crease them intentionally all the time. Less housework can only be a good thing. Except I might tidy up more often. You never know what you'll find.