projects

I want to stop procrastinating. Some. I can't stop everything at once. What would be left? My life has been based largely on waiting until just the right moment for one thing or another. Since moving to my brand new house, I've been so busy with landscaping and weeeeeding and more weeeeeeding that I've hardly had time to consider what to do once I get things in fair shape. This is rationale. I know it when I see it. I've been picking weeds until I have an actual waistline. So when I finally started looking around the house to see what I've been neglecting, the list was long.

I started with boxes and boxes of brand new clothes, shoes, boots, you name it -- that I'd ordered but didn't fit or I changed my mind or whatever. Some boxes had been sitting in my studio room for almost a year. You get a full year with Zappos. I love Zappos. So I repackaged each thing -- I know myself well enough to keep the return postage stickers -- and sent all the stuff back, probably $1000 worth of crap. 

Next thing: A couple of weeks ago I opened an old trunk that sits in the living room. It is crammed full of fabric, one of many similar bins. I pulled out one piece of striped cotton that I love, have loved now for about nine years, and took it out of the trunk. OUT of the trunk. Keeping the cloth visible exponentially increases the likelihood that I will make something out of it. It is helpful if I trip over it from time to time, bringing the project gently to mind. I've wanted to make pillow covers out of it. I have two large sitting pillows in my living room, covered with a cotton twill in two stained and noxious shades of olive green. When I bought them I meant to recover them. They were the right shape and nothing else. They have served as dog beds, small chairs, baby beds, props for reading late into the night, small girl beds when pushed together but that slide apart when slept upon.

I tripped over and stared at the fabric until today. Today, In got out my scissors -- the good ones -- threaded my sewing machine, changed the thread on the bobbin and everything. I haven't used the machine since we moved and long before. One of the spools of thread was mis-spooled. half the thread went one direction and half went the other. Imagine me trying to wind the bobbin with this stuff. When I finally figured out it was the thread that was wrong and not me, it was easy. Throw it away. I found another spool of black thread. I had four to choose from. This led to organizing the thread. Annie will understand this. I hadn't yet reorganzied the thread since The Move. Before, the wall of thread had been left up when the staircase was rebuilt at the clinton st. house (see previous post "white powder and fifty shades of pink"). Now, each little spool had to be cleaned of white powder still clinging like coke never did, the spool-holder washed off. As I was re-ordering the spools by color, I saw the similarity between thread and nailpolish. I have six spools of off-white-nude-not-pink thread, too.

Thread in order, I began laying out the fabric without a pattern. Its been a long time since I've used my machine, and I'd rather sew by hand. But I figured it out, and the pillows took about half an hour to make once I'd figured out the cut and fold part. The pillows are beautiful. Cowboy stripes.

So that's some