a bit of housekeeping

Day two of ironing and sorting at the studio. Making some progress in putting into piles by color - sort of - and sometimes by personality. I've moved my dyes into the drawers of a rolling cart and am putting my neat piles of fabric onto one of the shelves. Maybe then I'll know what I have. I have the "if I don't see it, I don't own it" syndrome -- which I suspect you may be familiar with. But boy, this is some undertaking! And I am trying to do the same thing at home. Imagine, if you will, untold numbers of rolling bins and plastic storage boxes with contents that look like this. Then, picture removing the contents, pressing, evaluating, and sorting into piles like the ones above or putting smaller pieces back into the plastic boxes so they look like this. I don't find it boring at all - and as you know, I love to iron. But it is rather time-consuming. So while I was at the studio today, i did some multi-tasking. I overdyed some fabrics and screen printed others with some old thickened dyes, just to use them up. I had no idea what color they were going to turn out, but it did not matter. On one of the other lists I posted about how I hang and dry my fabrics because I have no room to leave them lying around and microwaving is not an option for me. Here is my high tech setup: fabric pinned to pink insulation board covered with plastic. That column thing is a fan which I bought before we had a/c in the studio. It's pretty strong and fabrics dry in short order. And my fancy steamer: hotplate bought for $5 at yard sale, a $12 pot from K-Mart, and inside, a lotus steamer (thank you, Helene) topped by a round cake rack. 20 minutes. I'm always in the bathroom at the utility sink, rinsing out fabric. But since we have no washer and dryer there (and no way to have them) I take my fabrics home to wash, dry, iron, and fold. Tonight, while the stuff was in the wash, I baked. My daughter-in-law Nancy gave me her Grammy's recipe for meringue bars and I made them because the other resident in this household complained there was nothing sweet to eat. Nancy had baked and brought them over here on Sunday. There were delicious. However, although I cut the sugar in half, mine were sweeter than hers - too sweet for me. Can't figure it out. I'll leave them for Marty - he will love them.