thelmasmith

Today I’m basting the turn under on the Debian spiral. About one third done I decided to sit down and take a break. I thought that I could sit in my easy chair and do this task. UM. no.

I’m standing at the ironing board with surgical tweezers, a pressing cloth to make sure the fusible reinforcements do not get on the iron, scissors, ivory silk thread and a number eleven straw needle. The trifocals go on and off depending on the demands on my vision.

A close up of the inside and outside corners.

Then a look at Mr. Lincoln and Peace. Early spring mornings in Sonora are the best.

I’ve been telling my friend and website administrator, the Spider, that I would make use of the debian logo he sent me more than a year ago. Debian is the open source software that is the basis for Ubuntu, and myriad other open source software systems. Here is the logo as I received it.

The smaller of two enlargements, getting parallel lines marked so that straight of grain can be maintained. There is one almost twice as large that will go on an ivory background and will have the debian of the logo added at the bottom to balance the design.

The red silk for the logo, itself, fresh from the washer and dryer.

The silk in a macro image. It appears to be hand spun and hand loomed but I do not know if that is true. Look at the interesting weave that shows before ironing. As I got it ironed I let it flow into my old leather armchair. Next time I looked that way Little Smoke Cat had made herself at home. I hung the silk on the coat hook on the workroom door.

The beginnings of placing the image on the batted quilt ground prior to beginning appliqué.

The placement of the mirror image, freezer paper, pattern on the ironed silk.

The rough cut pattern adhered to the silk. The pattern is mirror image and on the back.

The right side of the silk logo. It is still rough cut with the freezer paper on the back.

The pattern with almost all the freezer paper cut away. Bridges of paper remain to hold detached bits of silk to appliqué in place.

This is the point where I need to turn the extra under. In fact it will be pressed over the back of the freezer paper in as many places as possible. The silk is prone to raveling. It is too late this afternoon for me to decide whether to add fine fuse to the points and sharp turns to help control the raveling.

FineFuse is a tool that is a mixed blessing. It is probably the softest of the synthetic fuseables and no longer on the market. As soft as it is I question whether I want to use it with a fine straw needle and silk thread. So, I’m shipping this blog and thinking the situation over.

The biggest sigh on this lovely spring day. Finally I am beginning to see tangible results. I’m beginning to feel that I can actually conquer my workroom sufficiently. I am beginning to lay out books that I want to reread.

Take a look at the used up, worn out, side of the dye board. If you click on the image you will see the warts and scars from seven years work. It has been balanced on edge on the wagon and banished to it’s alternate place. It lives, now, clamped to the quilt storage system in the garage.

The closets are tidy. Everything is sorted and labeled. I no longer have to dig through all sorts of extraneous materials to find what I have in mind.

Now comes the well, almost part. Take one step down into the sewing portion of my workroom. The ironing board has been put away. The extra card tables that come out to hold up big pieces of fabric for stitching have been put away. The well, almost, part is the sewing surface itself. As other spaces have gotten clean and tidy this space has collected things that need more thought.

The bookcase remains dizastical. My husbands word; it is a hybrid of disaster and fantastic. Work on this space has been put on hold. I need to make decisions on which books to keep. There are a lot of out of print books that have been read once and shelved. Eventually, I will list each one on the website. That too, is on hold.

The rest of the spring cleaning will wait for next week.

It was looking so good. But I had to dump the three laundry baskets that had not been touched for years. The fabrics need sorted out by kind and type, evaluated, and either kept in inventory or sent on to other good homes.

Then I dumped the baskets.

The dark mass at the left is actually a pile of what I call “rag rug silks.” These are very rough silks that are woven out of either waste and/or the broken cocoons of silk moths that have survived.

So, global warming and goofy weather being what it is, summer has come to Sonora temporarily. With it has come a stuffed up head, and all the symptoms of inhaling too much very fine dust.

The sort out is waiting.