Sunday, November 19, 2006

Ironing and folding, ironing and folding . . . repeat and fade

During August, in my (foolish?) desire to reorganize my fiber studio, I decided I should store my quilting cottons in file boxes. So I pulled all of the quilting cottons out of the big armoire. The fabric had been washed and loosely folded, but not ironed. In a burst of enthusiasm for my new scheme, I thought I should iron the fabric before I folded it into the new configuration and put it in boxes. So, since August, I have spent about one full day each week ironing and folding fabric. Each piece got ironed, folded in half and half again (selvage to selvage), then folded around an acrylic ruler to create a 14" X 12" folded square (more or less). These were placed, end up, in file boxes, by color or theme. Anything smaller than 1/2 a yard was folded around a smaller ruler and put in smaller boxes. Scraps were placed in yet different boxes.

The exciting news is that I'm almost done! I have a few more pieces to iron and fold, and some more scraps and smaller pieces to deal with when I go through the big plastic bins that held scraps before, but I can see the end in sight. I cannot believe that I have ironed every piece of quilting cotton fabric in my stash. This is the accumulation of many years of purchasing fabric, and I ironed it all.

Now I need to tackle the garment fabric. That's a big job, but at least not everything will need to be ironed.

In the continuing saga of my obsessive nature, I also got back to working on the beaded belt I started several years ago. It's black velvet with silver beadwork, and I'm doing all the beading by hand (no appliques). So far, it looks gorgeous, and I can't wait to get the rest of it done. I have been using all kinds of flashy beads and crystals, and it just glows under the light. Pictures to come soon.

Now, back to grading papers, which almost seems restful after all the ironing!

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