It’s not procrastination…

Really.

In an attempt to actually accomplish something meaningful in the studio, I just decided to start moving stuff around and figured an idea of what to tackle first would come to me.  I started to clear stuff off one of the looms, which because of their horizontal nature, can become catch-alls when not currently in action.  I’m not going to address the fact that this particular loom still has some mohair yardage from a long time ago, and I thought I might actually attempt to weave that off.  So I picked up a pile of translucent papers, cut into little rectangles, which I’ve been moving around my studio for almost a year, and of course they fluttered all over the loom and the floor.

Back story: Last December’s guild meeting had one of our guild members Catherine, giving a demonstration of Papiersterne, German for Paper Stars.  This is an origami like folding technique from a specific colorful waxy translucent paper and she had some available at the meeting with directions.  I made the two simpler stars at the meeting and brought the rest home to finish the third more complex star.  That was last December.  And I’ve been moving this little stack of stuff around since.  The stack even lived in my daughter’s room for awhile thinking she’d jump at the chance to do this last star.  Didn’t happen.

See, it is not so much that I procrastinate.  This wasn’t a difficult skill, I like origami, but life got in the way, and truth be told, once I figure something out, it loses its appeal.  I’m on to the next mystery of life.  So I kept moving this little stack of 16 2″ x 4″ rectangles and lost a few along the way, and I finally said, “STOP”, and just finished the stupid star.

It took a half hour.

Really.

So now when I wake up in the morning, whether or not the sun is shining, I’ll see my lovely sixteen point paper star shining bright in the window.

Meanwhile, as I’m folding papers, I’m thinking that I really need to make a couple of inexpensive vests from some of my scraps of stuff in the attic for the guild sale.  Since the sale has a deadline, it would make sense to tackle this first.  I went up to the glorious stash in the sky, and found some amazing stuff, which I’ll share later, but there was a drawer left from all the scraps from my white mohair runs back in the 80’s.

This is one of the coats I sold in my craft fair days.

This is a coat I made from tons of leftover pieces from the scraps of the coats from my craft fair days.

The drawer was still overflowing.

I found that there were long narrow sections with intact selvedges and I lined them up across the table to see if I could piece them all together.  I wanted this unfussy and fluid, and the loosely woven mohair would drape fairly well if I didn’t overfinish it.  I wanted to use something like this Vogue vest pattern from Marcy Tilton.  This is a pretty oversized vest, perfect for a guild sale where all sorts of bodies may be trying it on. The front edge is on the selvedge and the hem is just fringe.

I stitched the selvedges down overlapping the fabric, with a rounded triple step zigzag.  The reverse side is just fringed.

Once I cut out the pattern and finished the interior seams the construction went really quickly.  Of course now I have a fine layer of white mohair coating everything in my newly cleaned studio.  Sigh.  Oh, and yes, I’m wearing pink pajamas.  And yes, it is five in the afternoon.  I’m going for wine…