Sunday Productivity

Today was a whirlwind of activity. This morning Nick and I made our final goodbyes to the old studio in Ballard, and paid a bonus visit to the Ballard Farmer’s Market as a reward for finishing our cleaning early. Then we stopped by the art supply store and I bought some chipboard to use as a backing material for my altered tie pattern. I also treated myself to a brand new cutting mat and rotary cutter, since the two cutting mats I had are showing their age.

Back at home I spent some time organizing the shop and sewing room. We created a cutting table by cleaning off and covering an old free standing work bench that the previous owner built. We also ran power over to the corner where my sewing table is set up. I am amused by the rustic third-world nature of my environs right now. Eventually we’ll be framing in and insulating walls down in the basement but for now I can tell stories in my head about sewing in the old country.

I carved a bit of space out in the shop so I could spray adhesive on the chipboard and then I moved my whole production into the living room where the warmer temperatures would help the glue cure and keep me from making zigzag lines due to shivering. Insulating and putting up wallboard in the shop is another of those things that’s on the to do list.

Why yes, I do have a 7′ scrabble board rug, and I used to have tiles for it too but I lost them somewhere along the way. Nick and I are eager to make new tiles and, lucky for us, letter templates for the router were among the tools left behind in our house!

Since I’m going to be cutting silk with a rotary cutter, and since my pattern is too thick to pin through, I’ll want some pattern weights to keep the patterns where I put them as I’m cutting. I happen to have half a bag of sandbox sand from another project and I also have a lot of random leather scraps so I decided to cut out some leather to make the weights from. Sewing them up will be a task for next week though because I’ll need to set up my industrial machine and that’s still out in the garage with some re-assembly required. All in all I feel pretty pleased with my progress.

Yesterday I went to the fabric store and picked up more silks for the ties. I found out just after my last post that the fern fabric is back ordered. As I said in that post, prints for ties are difficult to find so I decided to go with solid colors in addition to the black maze pattern. Solid colors give me the added option of printing graphics on the front of the tie so a few of them will be done that way. The four pieces on the bottom are the shell fabric and the red and ivory at the top of the photo are lining fabrics. The shell fabrics are all 100% silk and the lining is 50/50 cotton and silk. I’m excited to start sewing again!