The Morning After

It was about 2AM before I finally fell asleep last night, too keyed up over the day's events and wrung out with worry about a loved one a mere 3 miles from where the bomber was found. Still cannot wrap my head around the phenomenon of seeing law enforcement and Special Forces from all over Massachusetts descending on the area. The whole of greater Boston was shut down, even Gloucester was so quiet my husband closed the store and came home early.  "Shelter in place" was added to the local vocabulary.   It felt like a Bruckheimer movie nightmare.

So today I'm chillaxing. Take THAT, fearmongers!  There is no better place to dissolve stress than my sewing room. I have this lovely, big  photograph hanging over my ironing board so I have something wonderful to look at while I press quarter inch seams and iron the (occasional) blouse.  This is a detail shot:  

The Village

There is a whole world in this photograph, all kinds of little people cleaning and scrubbing and working and moving giant buttons and zippers.  It is endlessly entertaining to me and I'm almost at the point of giving the people names and writing a little story about their world.

So it's back to the drawing board with the William Morris hexagon project as the adhesive, wash-out stabilizer I marked the side quilting borders with was, I learned, not so wash-out.  The Sulky label said "spritz with water and it dissolves."  I completed one side and decided I better try out the removal before proceeding further.  I spritzed half of it and the whole thing turned to slimy glue.  I scraped off what I could and let it be, hoping it would dry and be fine. It dried - hard as a rock.  I took it downstairs to the kitchen and soaked just the border in a pot of water and let it sit there a while.  After I gently hand scrubbed the rest of it out I put it outside on the clothesline to dry in the sun.  I think it will be ok, actually, but "dissolves" should be taken off their label.  I'm not crazy about throwing it in the washing machine to let that do the work either - the piece will be fine but having that much glue in my washer and/or water lines doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Maybe I'll soak the whole thing in a pot and toss that water on the weeds out back.

This is the first thing I've ever made that is entirely machine quilted. I love the stippling process, very zen, but wanted a more constructed look for the border quilting. I think it will finish up fine. I'm happy to take an afternoon and pop on a CD or book on tape and just let the world turn without me for a while.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, we already know the bomber can't get a fair trial in Boston so we're thinking of sending him to New York.