Artwork: beading, textiles, quilts, works in progress, patterns, what's in store
I am working on a complicated piece with rather floppy components. In the back of my mind there was a vague idea of a method to stiffen these pieces. With a bit of research I discovered a useful tutorial from Jean Campbell of Beading Daily – how to stiffen your beadwork tutorial.
Now I have a vast bottle of Pledge sitting in the middle of my bead studio!
It does work……….
I love being part of a small group of artists – you get to know the people much better than attending a formal meeting. You can actually talk to each other and get to know the work. One of the women was cutting up silk ties. Why, I asked?
She cuts them into strips for bias binding. What a smart idea. They are useful for clothing, which she makes herself – beautifully, or for quilts.
Surfing the internet found me this tutorial from the Instructables website – Re-purposing men’s ties into bias tape..
Silk ties are easy to find. Raid your husband’s stash, which he doesn’t use any more. Explore thrift stores – piles to chose from.
What a good idea.
After our move from Florida to Oregon we rented an apartment. I spent months beforehand reading posts from Apartment Therapy, a website which covers all aspects of living in and decorating apartments. I learned a lot about living small, making every piece of furniture do double duty, how to squeeze more space out of nothing etc. And all of it really helped when we actually started unpacking boxes.
Along with ideas for clever storage you get helpful hints on how to clean things.
Astonishingly the latest post is about how to clean a quilt. And being a quilter myself I read the post from top to toe. And found out how to clean a wool quilt – with snow. Who knew?
The rest I did know but was glad to see it written for those who are not quilters but love owning quilts.