‘The minimalists are wrong!’ My biggest decluttering regret
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The thing that stopped bringing me joy has now been resurrected. I just wish I’d kept more supplies for my hobby. A few summers ago I got caught up in the frenzied emptying of dusty cardboard boxes, folding my undies in a new fancy way and asking a forgotten melon baller “do you bring me joy?” Having control over something, anything, when your life is one tumbling hyperfixation adventure after another was very seductive.
![[One of Jaspar Peach’s embroidery projects featuring pot plants and the text: ‘It’s not hoarding if it’s plants’.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e25c2bbd254c1f02d17d68e08dcb72ebfc9202cf/0_0_3024_4032/master/3024.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
I don’t have many regrets in life but I do regret letting go of several tubs of embroidery supplies. My yearning for them rivals any Sapphic love story, but I intend to create a happier ending. Less bury your gays, more cute wall adornments. I was neck deep in a cross stitch phase 15 years ago, eternally skulking around garage sales and Lincraft looking for my next hit. The last project I got into was making embroidered bookmarks with fabric backing. A sweet pair of superb fairy wrens stitched into that stiff gridded fabric sits in the spare room at my mum’s house – just the thought of it makes me break out in goose bumps. She’d deemed it too nice to actually use, which was equally infuriating and sweet.
Since last year I’ve been back on the gear and nobody is more shocked than me. After some hectic tendinitis in my right arm and a lot of fine motor function going haywire, I thought I could set the potential stitched birds free. Then, during a recent bookstore visit, I spied a wee ladybug kit that came with a wooden hoop and everything I’d need. It was no bigger than the palm of my hand – simple, achievable, something I could see coming together slowly.
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