Today: Playing with Piping
Things are looking up!
Oh I don't discount the the same problems and difficulties, and every day, new damages come up. Now SoCal is burning and takes its place in the news cycle where so many others have come and gone: the Bay area fires, and before that - when this summer Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon were burning - what's being called by firefighters in California as the "Fire Year", as opposed to the "Fire Season", which they describe as the new normal.
Earthquakes in the middle of the country, the hurricanes affecting Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico and so many of the other islands. Flooding everywhere, and very similar examples all over the world!
And that's just the weather - which is one of the ONLY serious things we can talk about, and only because these can be tied to the difficulties our fellow truck camper campers are faced with day in and day out.
My spirits were recently lifted when I was personally encouraged by our son, and his vision, his hopes! He had been living in Santa Rosa, which perhaps you remember burned a few weeks ago. The local coffee shop where he and so many others used to gather each morning to solve the world problems, burned to the ground! The local Home Depot - where he bought materials while making his living - burned. His landlady's home was spared. This all happened shortly after he had moved to a nearby community which did not burn.
Some of his previous coffee-house friends were living in tents in the hills, where he and they discussed and planned around the campfire, what comes next. There is a rebuilding plan, and it's being put into play. But it's not conventional! Necessity is the mother of invention, and traditional building practices are simply too expensive, and materials not available, for the vast majority of those who are affected. Their vision holds great potential, but depends on the old way accepting a need for change - and that is often the most difficult part to get authoritative "heads into".
Then Time Magazine lifted my spirits in their selection of their "Person of the Year". Only when we recognize - and make our standard - what we can all contribute together: male and female, old and new, yesterday's greatness with tomorrow's hopes of a sustainable share for all, will we as a species move into the destiny that awaits us. First we must see it, then we can "pluck it" and survive!
Once we figure out how to fully uncover, and remove from our system, the criminal element, which uses their illegal or immoral funds and excessive available time, to twist our work and efforts into their gains, we will rise to our full potential as a species. Thank you Time Magazine!
Now where was I? Oh yes, piping.
This stuff is meant to mimic our gimp, the interior trim beads that cover our wood edges.
The first step was to install the piping foot.
Note the quarter rounds on the bottom surface of the wide foot. That's to run a double piping. I'll be using just one run of piping, which is the left side of the foot. Then there's a narrow foot in the middle, that the needle goes down through. The narrow middle foot holds the piping seam tight around the other round of the seam. And all together, it "walks" the project as the needle stitches.
Now let's get the practice piece assembled.
Two pieces of scrap fabric, one piece of piping.
I laid a length of 1/4" basting tape on one edge of the finished fabric side, and peeled the paper back from the double sided sticky tape.
This was eerily similar to my "butyl tape" experience used all over Lil' Queeny's exterior moldings.
Then I laid down the piping, then a second run of basting tape, playing with "distances" from the edge in an effort to obtain: needle position away from tape glue, roughly uneven edges, so as to find my 3/8" seam, as opposed to the preferred 1/2" seam due to the "finished size" of the cover based on advice from the practiced cushion makers, etc. Much of this detailed thinking ended up being overkill and over-thinking the whole thing. As we shall eventually see.
I had bought 1/4" basting tape so it wasn't near the needle in a 1/2" seam, and had bought 1/4" piping - thinking it meant the round diameter part, but in actuality, likely means the 1/4" flange.
Next I put the piece in the machine and lowered the foot to hold it tight.
And started my engine, drove it down the track.
And that's all there is to it.
Riiiiight!
