sooner or later

This was about the third attempt at making glue paper or paper fabric or fabric paper - whatever you call it. Technique has been around for years, in a lot of books and magazines; I just never tried it. Don't know what I'm going to do with it next. It's fairly flexible. I was thinking about covering a small box.

Protect your worktable with freezer paper, shiny side up. Lay on a layer of scrim - mine was already a lavendar. Next I squirted on a wiggly line of very diluted Elmer's white glue and with a nasty old brush I spread that around on the fabric. Some wrinkles formed. I left them there. Dropped some space dyed cotton yarn here and there. Misted a bit of water on those. Crinkled up a piece of white tissue paper and sort of flattened it out again and laid that on top of the yarn. Sqiggled on more diluted glue and brushed that on. Nasty brush caught and tore the tissue a bit. Left it. Squirted on some Lumiere (russet), misted with more water and brushed that around some, more tearing. Left it to dry for 20 hours or so. Peeled it up off the freezer paper. Scanned it over a piece of red cardstock.

I have a lot of this scrim. I have a lot of tissue. I have a lot of yarn. I could turn this out plenty fast if I get a finished product idea firmed up....

This is supposed to be a one week challenge. Uh, I just can't leave well enough alone. There's three hours I won't get back again.

Thanks to Maryanne for suggesting this - I think.

This blank book is worth a fortune. A gift from a friend because when I saw it and admired it, she could tell from the gleam in my eye that I had already dreamed of what I would do with it. Of course, I had no firm plans, just dreams. She said she'd had the book for years and only used it to press wildflowers. It sat for a few months on my desk, too, waiting for me to begin.

A very thick, large scale book, at first I thought it called out for a big flamboyant gesture. But in reality, I want to use it as a everyday kind of a journal. It sits on the drop spot near the back door and my plan is to put every stray thing that crosses my path into the book. I will encourage my granddaughter to draw and glue into it as well. It will be layered with stuff and will take us a long time to fill.

The name of the book is a history of Potosi, a city in Bolivia. There is a saying in Spanish, valer un potosi which means to be worth a fortune. The highest city in the world, Potosi is located near a mountain of silver.

Four day weekends are grand. I could use one of these every month. I worked so hard yesterday, I am sore from head to toe today. I tried to work smart - lots of things going at once: the printer, the laundry - while I carried the holiday decorations downstairs with each run down to check the laundry or up to check on the printer. I have just about all the album pages printed for the Art Camp gang.

I found a new paper called ViaStone. I am not affiliated. But it looks pretty good and is not made from trees. Maybe it's recycled? I dunno, the labeling is kind of secretive. I also bought ink of the new Vivera Plus variety. Looks better than usual. But the old one was completely out of yellow so I couldn't do a side by side comparison.

I also worked on my homework for a virtual class in art quilts that I signed up for last week. It is a two way learning opportunity. We are learning while the teacher learns about how her virtual class software works with input from us. Fun!

Cleaned up selected areas around the house and in my workroom, too. But something always bursts out of place when I do that. Like fabric when you're looking for just the right scrap of color. And dishes seem to pile up when the grill king takes control of the shopping and cooking but not the cleaning. Never mind, he does a really nice steak and we had pumpkin pie with pumpkin sauce on top and pumpkin sauce on ice cream and cheesecake and pumpkin sauce as dip for ginger snaps as well. We are heavy into desserts right about now and seem to have a self perpetuating container of pumpkin sauce.

The granddaughter is painting pictures (and sniffing) while I type. She has a cold but the Boogie boy was better last night. Not so cranky and needy and he ate a better dinner than he did the last couple of times at bat. Usually there is more around the bull pen than in the strike zone.

This is the Boogie Zone of the tree.

She and I decorated the tree last night. She caught on quick that some things can't be hung down low since we'll have a toddler in and out of the house over the next month or so. So with each ornament, she asked, "Can this go in the Boogie Zone?"or "This one will be fine in the Boogie Zone!" Some things are too fragile, some things are too tiny, some things are too precious, some things have special memories. She loved pulling things out of the boxes, some she remembered from last year. She liked hearing about the things that her mom had made a long time ago and reading the years written on them as though it were so long ago...1986???? Wow!

One of the reason my muscles are sore is that I tried to come with a way to wind a warp that wouldn't strain my shoulders. Instead the muscles on the top of my theighs are aching! I put the warping board on the trunk and tied it leaning against the weaving bench for support. Then I sat on the sofa and wound the top part while standing and then sat down to wind the bottom half and so I was constantly sitting down and standing up. Quite an aerobic method. My shoulders are okay, but man, going up and down the stairs today is killing me. It's always something, isn't it, Rosannadanna?

One of the round robin collages came to me on Friday. I'm the last stop on this one. I was gonna think about it but they really are like a monkey on my back. Once I see them I can't seem to stop thinking about them till I add something. This one needed some buttons and some Shiva paintstiks to carry the colors around the whole piece. I think it looks super. I wish I could post it a scan of it but since it's a collaborative piece I'm not sure of the protocol on this. I should ask that group what they think.



I missed a frog last Friday so here's one to satisfy your need for green.

Me and the rabbit are late, we're late for a very important date, no time to wait, we're late, we're late, we're late.

I am dawdling. Doing laundry, thinking about making a list so I can check it twice. No time for that. Mending things, buying locks, almost bought a new suitcase, is that nuts? Yes, it was. I'll just carry three smaller ones. Packed my beading project - seeing stars now. Should I take bottled water? Am I that cheap? Watercolor paper, brushes, crayons, glue. Do I have time to do a journal quilt? Maybe. An extra camera battery and another 2gig of storage? If I spend enough money and carry enough stuff along, will I have a good time?

Can I just buy the postcards and skip the whole thing?

Just couldn't go to sleep with this one sitting on my worktable. I finally found the perfect additions after auditioning everything or almost everything in the house. I'm happy to let this move on now. I added the negative strip and shrink plastic portrait, the magazine skyline and words below it. Also rubbed a bit of copper on the scrim.

Huge rain storm today. After I spent the morning moving the hose around the house watering. I swear it was a perfectly clear morning and no rain in sight. We spent the afternoon taking down the weaver's show. I didn't sell much of my stuff. I guess an etsy shop is the next project. But overall, the show was successful - very close to the best dollar volume to date and the venue was much better than the last few years.

This collage is now going to the next member of the group - Time passing...

I added the mica chip over the clockface, the hourglass on the clockface, the green circle "behind" the clockface and the inchie face over on the right. I'm really enjoying the collage round robin. I can't get to sleep until I've done the one that arrives that day. My mind goes immediately into overdrive.

This isn't finished yet... four more people in the round robin will add to it before it goes home to its owner. I am excited by this one, hope it continues to get even better. I added the three phrases and the gorgeous bird from the cover of the National Geographic catalog that came yesterday. What timing! I couldn't go to bed thinking about this one... I had to finish it right away. And it will be mailed on Monday.

My spread in an altered book round robin entitled Time. Webster defined time as "every moment that ever has been or ever will be." I thought it was pretty poetic for a dictionary definition.

Do you ever struggle to match your style to the style in the round robin and fail? I have so many times, I am beginning to think this will be the last round robin I sign up for. I just find it hard to work outside my comfort zone. Feelings of inadequacy creep in. I can see when my work sticks out like a sore thumb. I had about a dozen ideas for Time and this is the one I finally settled on, since it fit in the best with at least most of the spreads done by the talented ladies in this group.

Pouring down rain this morning early. I went out just before it started and soaped down the car and scrubbed so the rain could wash it clean. Now if a good wind storm would come through, I would leave the doors open and it would blow the carpets clean for me.

Pulled a few weeds and tidied up the garden. These are in a pot by the front sidewalk, third year they have bloomed.



Then a bit of time on the computer. I spent last evening starting a new project. Beading with the turquoise and copper paper beads I made. Not thrilled yet with the plan. Still working that out.

We had agreed to baby sit so we also had to vacuum and baby-fy the room. If we curtail his traveling pattern and provide lots of toys he is easy to control. Responds well to NO! Says NO! back to us and folds his hands over his chest and looks gilelessly as though he wasn't really at fault. It was just his wayward hands.

The rest of them went to see Harry Potter's latest movie and then the grill king fired up the grill. I was better organized today for some reason, all the side dishes and condiments got on the table and we even had dessert arranged. M ate plenty of enough things so she could have some. It didn't rain much on the grill while he was cooking. But we had some fabulous thunderhead clouds to watch.

I even got some weaving done during a short period when I let Grandpa handle the little guy. I am feeling very confident that I will be done with the swatch swap on time this year.

The little tank didn't take a nap all day and, for the more than two hours he was with us, was on his feet and moving the whole time. He did enjoy tossing all the magazines out of the basket one at a time. No damage, just made for a slippery floor for him after that. So we had to call a halt to that fun. He has gotten more than his fair share of bruises.

Now that they're gone and the dishes are cleaned up, I think I am going to hit the sack early tonight.