Fibermania

My Humble Beginnings

that's my quilt on the wall behind me

O yes, it's true. Before I became the Rock Star that I am today (or, was last week) I worked in a sweat shop, making bedspreads for wealthy people who could afford custom decorator furnishings. I say 'sweatshop' but only wish that were true in the winter months, where it was really really cold . The real sweatshop happened in summer when it was really really hot, sweaty and linty all at once. Horrible. While I was there I learned an inordinate amount of useful stuff that would later become pertinant to my career, little did I know. This was before I went on to grad school, where I thought I would be learning stuff for my career. Not. A. Bit.

I worked on industrial machines that had real walking feet, nothing at all like the feet on home machines. Trust me, you don't want to work on industrial machines. The noise ruins your thought processes, so we all wore headphones and listened to music or books on tape while we sewed. I quilted bedspreads, sometimes six a day and then other days I finished them with starched bias tape and machine hemming machines. Dull as dirt work.


I also made cushions, pillows, cornices and tablecloths. Almost everything had some sort of welting, inserted cords or ruffles. I am adverse to most of that now, but I do have the occasion to make my own necessary furnishings and so we are back to the headboard construction.

Foam by itself is not a good filler to cushions. It needs to be wrapped in heavy batting. So I wrapped the two pieces of foam (after I cut one to size with my handy dandy electric carving knife) and then stitched the batting closed by hand.

The cover is simply a tube of red canvas that is closed with a zipper and then the four corners are folded and stitched at the edge to form a square corner. Easy peasy. No welting (or piping) was used in the making of this cushion, as I couldn't find any in the garage, where I expected to have packed it somewhere, sometime, but didn't.

The part of the cat is played by Popeye

Neat and snug, but not exciting. Not everything can be exciting. Some things are merely fine.

I meant to base my decor on hot pink, but when faced with an array of color choices, I automatically choose red. It is a character flaw.