Monday, Monday

I thought to have a somewhat more substantial post--I have little notes stuck up all over the studio with topics I want to discuss--but this is about all I can manage this morning. While the list of Things That Must Be Done Right This Minute is slowly being whittled down, it's not under control quite yet. I'm thinking by the end of the month, perhaps. Perhaps not. This morning I made what is maybe a fatal decision: I went out into the storage building and brought in the last 6' table and set it up in the sewing studio to hold all the linen, which is a story all by itself, meaning that, in addition to the three tables set up permanently here in the office studio and the two set up in the sewing studio and sewing studio annex, there is also a 4' table in the latter and now a 6' table in the former. This leaves on the narrowest of paths for us to traverse in, oh, actually getting into and out of our house, for example. Hence, "perhaps fatal." If we vanish, you know where to tell them to look for us. That is, of course, if the cats don't eat us first.

I even set up the ironing board out here in the office to hold the stuff from the desk/tables so I can clean off the dust that seeps in even when the windows are closed and locked. In doing that, I discovered that I never got to April on the desk calendar that was buried under everything. It still thinks it's March. Oy.

Stuff from my desk that must be dealt with somehow:

The Table o' Linen:

These are some linen garments I had already, stuff I'd gotten on clearance in past years. then I got some big linen garments for <$2 in the last couple weeks--the bigger the size and the brighter the color, the better. I'm looking for yardage here, because linen is $16 a yard, and even the blends run $10 a yard. That's fine if you have a clue what you're doing, but if you're doing what I'm doing, which is flying blind, you do NOT want to pay that much for fabric. Hence this pile. It's all been laundered and now needs to be sorted into Garments I Want To Alter, Stuff to Be Disassembled for Yardage, Stuff to Be Dyed if It Ever Rains (water restrictions), and Stuff I Maybe Shouldn't Have Bothered to Bring Home. There are also a couple huge, multi-yard swaths of yardage I bought at $2 a yard. It's a blend of unknown content--linen + Something Secret. Not polyester, according to my burn test. Probably cotton. Maybe a little rayon, but we don't think so.

Pile 'o Clothes waiting for me to do something with them:

Here are the drawers I'm working on. It's slow going, as the cutting hurts my hands. I've bought up all the balsa wood slats at Michael's and am now working with basswood, which may or may not work, but it was all they had left. It's the right size, but I don't know if I can cut it on the cross-grain (the long cut went OK, so we'll see). I'll check Hobby Lobby the next time I get out (they're closed on Sundays, which is typically when we run errands). Here're the chests:

Here's what the floss was in before:

Here's what Clarice did in her investigations this morning:

There are more PhotoCards, and there are photos of projects and stuff I want to show you, but until I figure out how to clone myself and have some help here, those are all going to have to wait. Sorry I can't do it all at once, but I'll post bits and pieces as I take breaks. I even found a cool book you might like--maybe I'll suck it up and do a give-away, never mind I swore off those after the last one. We'll see, as my mother would say.

OK. Back to work--got to get this desk dusted/vacuumed/washed/whatever so I can organize it and start on an article that's due shortly. Tomorrow: a super-cool podcast.

Whew.