ta-da

I have been waiting a while to say this: So I was down in the studio tonight . . . and I pulled out the Moby Dick box and unearthed a panel I started ages ago and -- made some progress. Hurrah for me.

Chapters 26 & 27: Knights and Squires 

The studio will evolve for a while At the moment, my enticing wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling closet is the holdall for stuff that lives in the living room. There was termite damage there as well, so I'm shifting things room by room and having the floors repaired. Nevertheless, it was possible to Do Something in The Studio.

^I did set up the Bernina that I bought -- also ages ago -- and have been afraid to use. But then I couldn't find the manual, so I took it down again and set out my stalwart little Janome.

^The big rack o'fabric will eventually be relocated in the b-i-g new closet.

^Temporary cutting table to see how it works it in that spot. It's kind of a small room, so getting things placed efficiently is going to take some experimenting.

 ^Pressing matters. I think I want to get a buffet/cabinet kind of thing with drawers and convert it to a cutting/pressing station. Helloooo, Ikea. Meanwhile, this will do.

^The b-i-g closet. Usually, it's the little things that make me this happy.

And -- a note to fans of Stella. She's been spending more time in the house now that it's getting chilly, so I expect projects will soon be underway. Her summer schedule of three days out, snack and overnight at home, then three days out again didn't allow for much in-house productivity. Or conversation.

The artist with her 2010 piece, Nip Socks in Pantry (I)
[temporary installation]

knows all, sawzall

I decided to have a little more work done in the studio before I declare that bridge open. The floor had some termite damage, so the carpenter came, cut out about half of it with his handy Sawzall, and put down plywood.

And then I thought, as long as I'm doing this, let me really do it. When the closet was installed the first time, I said I wanted the closet door to run floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall so I wouldn't have those awful dead spaces at the sides and top where Stuff Goes to Die. For reasons not worth getting into, that didn't happen, but now I thought: "Splurge." So the carpenter also sawzalled out the closet wall and then I went to Home Depot and ordered a fancy folding door that will run floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall. O!, frabjous day.

Meanwhile, the carpenter's assistant was busy screwing the plywood to the joists. At day's end on Tuesday, I had this:


 I went immediately to the flooring place to order something pretty. On Friday, Richie came and put down an underlayment   

Friday, 2:00 p.m.

and cushion-backed sheet vinyl that looks like bleached planking



Friday, 3:30 p.m.

I think it's pretty - and the cushion backing is very cushy indeed. Take my word for it.

The fancy closet door is due in about another fortnight. When that goes in, the baseboards will be put back in and Things Will Be Lovely, Secure, and Organized. In the meantime, I can start configuring the closet interior and move some things back into the room, which will clear space in the other rooms that need attention. . .
And so it goes.

progress, of a kind

There have been men in the house. Plumbing and carpentry have been represented. Soon, a cameo by an electrician. Then Men with Chain Saws for the yard. Then the grotesque house my grandfather concocted from determination and packing tape will be ready(ish) for winter, and I will be able to walk around in the studio without hearing the floors crackle and splinter -- which is very distracting. ka-ching, ka-ching, but not as bad as I'd feared. Not even close to what I'd feared, which was more like ka-ching, Ka-Ching, KA-CHIIINNG!!

Meanwhile I've been working on something. Inspired by a course description for a class that will focus on crosses and Xs, I made some Xs. The Xs became kind of petroglyph-ish.

Initial pencil sketch (right)
Sharpie tracing for projector (left)

Then, emboldened by my recent foray into dyeing, and empowered by my newly neatened stacks of fabric, I immediately found something in my closet that would work as a background. Except it was pink. Here followed a flurry of trying to turn pink into ochre.

Test swatch 3 or 4
Acrylic paint (ochre) on pink commercial print cotton.
Too yellow.

Test swatch 6 (or so)
Overdyed (tan) painted with acrylic (ochre and burnt sienna).
Much better.

I was thinking of the sueded, hand-dyed Cherrywood fabrics for the figures (the dark rectangles pinned on the background sample, below), but I think it maybe the wrong texture. Not to mention that it's wickedly expensive and I have a boatload of things on hand -- one or another of which surely could be made to serve. . .

So, on to roughing in the figures. This will be much, much larger than I'm used to -- in the range of 45 inches (115 cm) square -- so I put up some big paper and fiddled with the projector until I had something not too scary, then splashed on some paint for a very, very general idea.

It never hurts to have a professional share her expertise.

And that's as far as I've gotten. Which is further than I've been in a while. It's a good feeling.

coincidence?

or fate?
My stars today:
Leo (July 23 - August 22) If you have some spare time, you should tidy up your environment today. Being organized can contribute to being successful, so clear out messes that have been piling up in your office and around your home. Besides, you never know what you might unearth as you dig through the past month's clutter! You may find exactly what you have been looking for.

My mat knife (aka utility knife). I would like to find my mat knife -- or any of the half dozen or so mat knives that are scattered throughout house because I put one down, forget where I put it, and buy another. I think a squirrel could do a better job of keeping track of these than I do. It's always a happy surprise when I run across one. Oh, hello, there you are. . .

Today I painted. As it turned out, Provence Cream was too yellow. Vanilla Cream was too gray. But the two creams mixed together -- perfect. And with a yield of two gallons, no worries about running out of my even more customized custom color.

Tomorrow, the 'raising the design wall' adventure.

almost

Behind curtain #1

Is all the fabric that there is. On one, and only one, rolling shelf unit that fits neatly into the opening of the closet. (No, I'm not up to the Please iron those curtains, Melanie, my god, there are people here . . .)

I should say almost all the fabric that there is. There is more in the to-be-washed bag and a bit more in a bookcase in the office, all of which should fit on the bottom shelf, then I'm done. If there's more fabric in the house -- and there very well might be (get thee behind me, Satin!) -- it ain't staying. This is more than enough to sustain me for Quite Some Time.

Now that I've found the floor, I'm up to the sweeping/vacuuming/mopping part. And now that I can move around in the room relatively freely, I'm painting the walls. Behr paint #320A: Provence Cream. You wouldn't think it would be this hard to pick an off-white, but I've painted one wall to see how it looks and I can't decide if it's too yellow. More butter than cream. Ah me. Everyone should have problems of this weight -- and no more than this weight.

Stay tuned.

ai-yi-yi

I'm going to take some classes in the fall and thought it would be a good idea to have A Place to Work that was somewhat organized and had a visible surface or two to support school-related activities. Since it was more than time to unpack from the Crow class I thought I'd start by organizing my fabrics. In Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space, the author (Lois L. Hallock) suggests using a folding tool so all your yardage is in similar-size bundles and can stack neatly. She also says that you don't know how much and what kind of storage you need until you know what you have, so I stopped looking at catalogs of lovely shelving units and decided to go with what's here. What's here is a royal mess:
Even the cat is afraid to go in there.

But one must persevere, despite the skeptics.
The folding tool revealed that five across is a workable plan.

By the end of Saturday evening. I'd achieved this:

And by the end of Sunday, this:

Describing one client's do-over, Hallock says that the client and her friends spent 200 hours folding fabric. I believe it. Beau remains skeptical.

^I don't think this is his "Darling, I just love what you've done with this room" face. But it's a beginning -- the room, not the face -- and I'm encouraged.

hard to find good help

This is Beau.
Beau showed up in the yard one day, hunkered and screaming. The screaming misled me into thinking "This is one mean junkyard dog of a cat." But Beau was mostly terrified and, when translated, the screaming went something like Pleaeaeaeaeaeaeaeaeassssssssssssssssse Hellllllllllllllllllllllp Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Now Beau is a housecat. You may be able to tell from his expression that he was still a little uncertain of What Just Happened.

Today Beau is helping me clean.

His role (self-appointed) is to sit in the middle of the carpet and make sure it doesn't get away. The carpet, of, course, is smack inthe middle of the path between the two main areas I hoped to Make Neat.

Cats are a great mystery.