Spring Cleaned Up

Dust thick enough to draw in should be considered an art surface, don't you think? I need to address the domestic situation soon. In the meantime, I'm glad for other people who've started their spring cleaning. Because of them, I cleaned up at the thrift shop last week.

For six bucks, I got four percale sheets, two damask tablecloths, a piece of flannel-backed vinyl, two cotton/poly twin blankets (possibly fire retardant, because they didn't take dye well at all), and a hairpin crochet frame. I guess I deleted the picture I took of the pile before I washed it, but here's one of the tablecloths after I dyed it. It's going in a piece I'm working on now.

I took a little time this week to play with an idea suggested by one of my Designing Quilters students in Fargo/Moorhead.

The flannel-backed vinyl was very easy to stitch by hand. It doesn't have quite enough body for a class challenge vessel as a single layer, but would be great for testing and patterns.

Still, for my own vessels I'll probably stick with builder's rosin paper, even though it's stiffer, for modeling. Bill was kind enough to cut a new roll of the stuff (nine bucks at Fleet Farm) for me.

The last time I bought a roll, I cut it myself with a hand saw, which works but leaves a more ragged edge.

I've had ragged edges on my mind lately, particularly the "ravell'd sleave of care" knit again by sleep, as Shakespeare put it in Macbeth. There's a dream theme running through work I'm doing for a summer show. With the boro influence and recycling constraint I gave myself for this work, "ravell'd sleave" immediately came to mind. That's the problem with great language: It sticks in your head and it's hard to get it out, even when it doesn't quite fit.

Now I'm mulling "the dear repose" of Sonnet 27. "But then begins a journey in my head..." We'll see how that wears as the work progresses.