Working with Silk

Last week got crazy with a bit of a pet emergency. Things are back to what passes as normal in this household as of today - or at least I hope - but my studio time really suffered. To salvage some of it and distract me with something that wouldn't take much concentration, I went back to working on my tie project, fusing interfacing to the silk and cutting frames and centers. Today I finished fusing the last of the silk. I use a knit tricot fusible that gives stability and prevents fraying without changing the hand of the silk or adding too much weight or bulk. It makes the thin silk handle like the heavier silk and allows me to cut my units any direction, not having to adhere to grain lines. It's a challenge to cut the interfacing to size, having no pattern pieces as a guide. There's probably an easier way, but I just lay the interfacing over the silk (it's sheer enough to make out the edges of the silk) and rough cut the interfacing slightly smaller. I don't worry about the interfacing going all the way to the edge of the silk as I'll be trimming that part off anyway, and it eliminates any worry about fusing overhanging interfacing to my ironing board cover.


I cut more "chunks" for arc points to match up with the ones already cut for the arc background. I still need more parts cut to have everything I need for the remaining blocks, but I felt it was time to start sewing arcs again. It will help me decide what colors to add. So here are the two arcs I pieced today. It took about an hour, but maybe I'll get faster if I make some every day.