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| before the final covering |
It's been a long road...
But I've come this far. Everything is covered and tufted.
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| in men's suiting |
Only thing left? Refinishing the wooden bases.
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| I even blind stitched the folded fabric on the corners! (I can't be trusted with glue on fabric.) |
So is it all the various social media or just the ever growing list of things I need to do that has splintered my attention and made me loose my memory and/or mind?? The other day I made pesto for my pasta. I ate it, but man was there something wrong. As I went over the ridiculously short list of ingredients I realized I forgot to add the garlic. It was a moment of clarity mixed with amazement - pesto is just not pesto if you forget the garlic. It just tastes.... wrong.
When I finished my first woven shibori scarf, I decided to do a quick overdye to mute the stark whiteness. I rinsed it well and then laid it out to dry. And the result? A crunchy feeling piece of cloth. Ugh! Like pesto without the garlic. What's the purpose of having a beautiful piece of cloth if it looses its softness?
The problem though is I didn't actually forget anything in my dye 'recipe'. The soda ash used to activate the dye can result in a rough hand, especially if it's not rinsed well. But the fiber also lost its shine and luster. I'm bummed. There are industrial softeners I could try. I've never used a chemical like that before, and really don't want to take that route just yet. So I'll attempt another soak and rinse and see what happens...
I went to the Brimfield show last Friday and picked up a boat load of doilies and a darling green glass juicer. I've been looking for a glass juicer for a while. It's hard to find nice green glass, especially with a sharp reamer, so I snatched it up quickly!
I know I mentioned that the upholstery was slow going. Well, it proved to be a snails pace when I started to actually cover things. When upholstering, the goal is to first tack everything down so that it looks how you want, then staple to finalize. The tacks are super easy to get out and reposition. Except in my case, of course.
Oh, how slow going it was! In the end I got so frustrated, I put down my hammer and just started to staple. That's a pretty huge no-no, but in the end I was surprised with how even I got each one. Definitely won't do that with future upholstery projects, but what's that phrase? Know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. Yep, got it.
Are these getting old? These love of tool posts? I can stop. Really, I can. I swear. Just let me tell you about my scissors. Then I'll stop. Maybe. We'll see.
I hate tools that come in stupid packaging made just for such-and-such reason. For instance I came across a scissor the other day labeled "Just for embroidery!" and really they're just a pair of cheap children-sized scissors that have been re-packaged. Ugh.
Anyway, I didn't know what a cuticle scissor was until I did a project at Smart Design redesigning the Sally Hansen Beauty Tool's line. I don't use them for that purpose - all I saw was the gently curved blade and thought, "Holy crap those would be awesome for snipping a close thread!" Especially important when doing anything with weaving or knitting, since if you slip and errantly snip the wrong thread or yarn, your entire piece can unravel and come apart. Not that I know that from experience. No sir. Never done that before.
(It really stinks, just in case you don't know!)
I just acquired a big ol' pile of gentle worn sheets. Time to try my hand at crocheting rugs. Fun! We'll see what comes of it!
The trick is to pull from one side to the half way point then knot that side:
Then pull from the other side taking care not to break the thread. Then knot those together as tightly as possible:
All ready to dye!
The upholstery project I set out to complete has been a little slow going. Mostly it's because I can't figure out what material to reupholster the stackable foot rests with. But more on that another day. I figure it's better to take one thing at a time, so I set out to disassemble them to see what I was up against.
Thankfully the staples used were super easy to get out, so taking them apart was the easy part. First the white pleather one, then the red one, then the brown one...
Oh, that dark brown cushion was an emotional one. It took me on a trip down memory lane. There were two holes in the plywood underneath each cushion and upon further notice...
I removed the cover and found the scratch-n-sniff mostly in-tacked along with a penny from 1964. Sweet!
The best part? IT STILL SMELLS LIKE CHOCOLATE WHEN IT'S SCRATCHED! Ah, memories. Although makes you wonder what they used on that sticker for it to smell 30 years later...
Remember how I tried to do a test piece for my first woven shibori? Yeah, it didn't turn out awesome, which is why I didn't share what happened when I pulled out the threads, but at least I learned a lot.
So instead, I decided to just jump in like I normally do with some virgin bamboo fiber. I found a M/W twill pattern with the pull threads pre-defined. I took that and modified it a little, along with the spacing.
Stay tuned to see what happens!
I know it seems a little ridiculous to talk about how great a ruler (straight edge, line gauge, etc) is, so I'll make this brief. I currently use this six inch ruler every day of my life thus it is quite important to me. You may be wondering how that's even possible. How do I have that much stuff to measure? Even now that I think about it, I have no idea. But I know that I use it all the time. Kinda how I used to use these really awesome calipers every day at my old job. But that's another post.
So portable. So versatile (inches and mm! key!). And metric equivalents?!? Yes, please.
Just try to ignore the fact that it has the initials FAG* on it.
*It stands for Fischers Aktien-Gesellschaf, in case you were wondering, a bearing company originally founded in Germany. Yeah, get over it. How did I get it, you ask? Probably accidentally swiped it from my super-duper-jet-engine-making job. Whoops.