Working at home
Sigh... I spent the second of two days attempting to make order out of the chaos that is my studio. I moved tables and fabric bins. I sorted the Indian fabrics from the African fabrics from the ordinary U.S. fabrics. Sorted the hand-dyes from the commercial solids. Put thousands of strips and scraps into bins, and tried to clear some space on the floor. I brought home a sewing machine and two tubs of fabrics and was planning to play around tonight. Instead, I am drinking espresso, eating a few strawberries, tasting a spoonful of vanilla ice cream, and contemplating the fabrics I optimistically set on my dining table. They are still there, along with a cutting board, sewing machine, and a couple of rotary cutters.
I simply can't face going back to the studio because I will continue to rearrange instead of cutting and sewing and improvising. Anyway, it is almost midnight. I lost the Internet right in the middle of writing this. Grrrrrrrrrr.
The Next Day...or maybe two days later...(who can keep track???)
After having washed my African batiks in the communal washing machine (I own an apartment in a condo and the pipes are 50 years old so we can't have our own machines. Don't ask.). These machines take an hour to wash and even when you specifiy HOT, it never is. When you are washing batiks which are still stiff with was, you need boiling water to get the wax completely out. So, the other day, after removing the fabrics from the dryer, I was reduced to this:
Yep, boiling water in a plastic container in my sink, after having washed in the machine. Did the trick - it is nice and soft.
Another one is still a bit stiff, but I will use it anyway. It will be fine:-).
I brought all this fabric home several days ago because I was going to work here. Hahaha - here they sit, looking a bit neater - but still sitting. No, I lied. I cut a couple of fabrics up today but think they need to be a teensy bit bigger. I will start again tomorrow.
In my studio I have a machine that will cut 6 or 7 layers of fabric at a time but it seems to me it wastes a lot of fabric when it cuts a rectangle and leaves unusable trimmings around it. There is also a triangle template, but it is for a 4.5" square and is just not the shape I want for a 3-½" rectangle. So, I think it's more efficient to just cut the rectangles by hand, since I have to cut the triangle out of it by hand anyway.
ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?
I will let you get on with your life while I finish my late-night (here in Florida it's almost 10:00 and for me, that's too late to think. ) So I'll leave you here while I go finish my late-evening martini and go back to my detective book. I am getting an early start tomorrow: off to a new quilt group meeting with a new friend and being picked up at 9:am. What was I thinking??
xoxo
