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....

I've been tagged by Vivian.

Here are the simple rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Not weird, definitely random. No one said I had to use seven in each one. I just leaned that way today. I could have talked about green or frogs but I thought I would step out of my skin a moment.

1. I have at least 7 looms in my house.

2. I need more than 7 days in the week.

3. I embroidered 7 dishtowels when I was a kid with the names of the days of the week.

4. I'm not sure I have 7 friends with blogs who want to play this game; I guess we'll find out.

5. I'm not really happy unless I have at least 7 projects going at once.

6. One of my aunts had 7 kids and they lived on a farm. I always enjoyed those visits but it was quieter at my house.

7. I don't remember anything specific from 7th grade, except the spelling bee. I won in my little rural school and sat down early at the next level. I was a big frog in a very small pond.

These are the bloggers I am tagging. They will probably never speak to me again.

Wendy
Rachel
Scout
Phyllis
Jenny
Daune
Janene

A very good weekend. Holiday parties on both weekend nights and a matinee performance of the Nutcracker at a local small theater. Gifts given and received. Good food consumed. Stories told and retold. Another tooth lost.

Some progress made on several different gifts, some shopping accomplished. Heddles shifted from shaft to shaft on the loom so I can begin threading. Some of this ivory warp may be used to make something to put on a holiday card.... mmm, wonder what it will be?



Pineapple sage. Doesn't smell as sweet in the winter, but it just keeps on blooming when the weather swings from hot and muggy to cold and icy and back again all in the month of December.

All day at work, the suitcase was on my mind. Flew to the store after working till past 9 pm, walked in when someone walked out - I'm sure the doors were already locked. Went directly to MY bag, did not pass GO, then to the case register and charged it. The cashier was laughing to see me again buying the bigger green case. She said she was glad I came back to get it before it was gone! People in the line ahead of me admired my good taste. I was wearing a lime green shirt. Another lady in line was also dressed in lime and we chatted about green. Me gusta mucho cosas verdes! What a sweetie.

I have no idea where I will store this one. It's big enough to live in. I could be a bag lady on the street. A very fashionable bag lady with all my frogs in my green luggage on wheels. No stolen shopping cart for me.

For now, it's beside the Christmas Tree - too big to fit under it. Merry Christmas to me! Thank you to everyone who commented.

A rat ran through the bedroom this morning. The grill king reached for a towel to catch it with. As if....

It's cold outside. Time for all rodents to go find a hollow tree. We will be evicting this little guy this evening. Hopefully. I was just telling a co-worker the story of the last rat invasion while commiserating with her over a raccoon-in-the-attic problem. Nothing is so bad it couldn't get worse.

Perfect time for housecleaning. Swept out the cobwebs, moved it to a new patch of grass and showed it off to the new tenant. The Boogie really liked the playhouse and my granddaughter is too tall for it now although she is loath to completely sign it over entirely. I think it will be an extended lease arrangement.

Yesterday was our weavers study group meeting and I started a felted thingie. No idea what it will be. Just felt the need to punch something. Started off with single needle handfelting and finished up running it around under Nancy's new Janone felting machine. Made fast work of it. Weather was gorgeous and we sat out on Anita's deck and had a great afternoon.

Experimenting this morning with a sun print using a transparency. Also started stitching some fabric ATCs - frogs, of course. Photos later if things look good.

I dreamed someone had removed the shower curtain and I was taking a shower without it and no water was hitting the floor. Must have been because I was thinking yesterday that it was about time to take it down and wash it.... so I did today. Dreams are powerful incentives.

Then I got my hair cut. Just walked in to Supercuts after using my coupon at Hobby Lobby for Peltex and there was an opening with a stylist who has straight, thin hair so I figured I was pretty safe in her hands. She did just what I asked her to efficiently and confidently and I like how it turned out. The grill king commented on it positively. Another item crossed off my to-do list.

Dinner tonight with the kids to celebrate my daughter's birthday some more.

International Quilt Festival

So the jars of fate were on my side! My name was drawn for the one class I would have time to take at Make It University - the delightfully fun part of the International Quilt Festival sponsored by Quilting Arts and ClothPaperScissors Magazines.

Click on the photo to see a few more photos of the fun. I will be adding more later. I took more than 75 photos in the Journal Quilt area. Amazing work there, as always. But this year, I feel like I "know" some of these women, having listened and learned a lot on the QuiltArt Forum.

I met up with a weaving friend, Nancy, and a yahoo friend, Margaret, for lunch and we made more friends while sharing our table with other quilters who joined us. So much to talk about, so much to see. I feel like I need to take a week off from work and really DO the festival next year. I missed preview night (Halloween festivities not to be missed!) and the Friday night QuiltArt reception (traffic horrors which I wish I had missed!) and had to leave early for an event on Saturday night.

Today, my daughter and I go the festival again. Shopping and more photos in my future. Maybe another class if the jars of fate are generous. I'll be wearing my lucky coin purse necklace again today and passing out MEOW Cards. They're sorta copy cats of the MOO cards which I think are cool. The cards have a photo of the coin purse, my email, blog address and the link to the instructions for the coin purse on Handwoven's website. I foisted them off to anyone who commented on my little purse necklace.

One woman asked how long did it take to make the coin purse and I said, well, after you have the two-inch wide wire warp threaded onto your 45-inch-wide, $3,000+ loom, it only takes about an hour to make the whole thing. She was a good sport and laughed along wtih us. I told her if she was really interested I would give her instructions on how to weave it on a picture frame but it would be a little more free-form and less gridlike. We'll see if she really wants to make one badly enough to email me.

There are always too many good choices on any given day. I could read email, sew a little, paint a little, measure off a few more warps on the board.... But tonight is Halloween and the preview night at the quilt show.

Sigh. I guess I'll be going as a black-eyed pea to the Halloween party. I need to hear a dragon roar and see a pretty little Hello Kitty.

Saturday and Sunday I will see the quilt show.