Daily Notes- December 28

                                      

Yesterday's painting experiment- first the opaque watercolors in lines of color top to bottom.  Then some soft black drawing pencil and finally white chalk ink.  Then I rubbed my finger over all of it and something unexpected happened with the barely visible white ink-- it became visible.  This looks to me like a cross section of the Earth's surface.  A bit lighter than seen in this photo- which was not taken in natural light. I never got around to the picture taking and blogging until it was well and truly dark.

I was up in the attic for a very LONG time this morning and afternoon looking for those eraser carved alphabet stamps again today.  I LOVE them and wanted to use them in the collage book project in January.  I opened every container for a second day in a row.  I never came across any stamp pads either.  They were in the same box.  I didn't cry but it was close.

I took the rest of the day to repair my red sweater.  Hole under the arm.  So I thought I needed a patch.  Nothing red at Goodwill- I have been looking for a donor sweater.  So I decided to remove the useless chest pocket.  Well, big mistake.  It didn't come off without me making several holes.  And the kicker- the underarm hole? Fixed it with just sewing with red wool yarn (another visit to Attic).  Never did need the pocket.

On my very long visit to the Attic I found lots of handmade paper to use in my book project.  Some was a gift from a friend in New York and the rest was purchased at the Artist Supply.  I also found a large pile of magazine tear-outs to use to collage the book I am making. Also found daily postcards from son's first visit to Japan in 1991.

And more wondrous than anything- I found the original pictures and my line drawing used to paint with thickened Procion dyes on prepared white cloth.  The details would have been machine stitched in colored threads.  I never got that far.  And then the whole project got lost.  I moved my quilting stuff too many times.  One room to another, upstairs and downstairs.  Lost in Transition.  But I have it now and I am putting it in the closet in my very tiny sewing room.  Free Motion Quilting.  Have not done any of that in 15 years or more.  I don't even know how to put the feed dogs down anymore.  But I have the thread- a box of lovely colors.

I opened the cloth and it took my breath away.  Not professional or anything-- but for a FIRST time attempt in a class?  With dyes I had never used before?   I just could not believe it.  All of it- the line drawing three times the size of the original used under the cloth to transfer the lines.  I just stood and looked at it and touched it and marveled- at how brave I was to even try.

I found the milk paints. Someone I know is doing something with milk paint and I need to find out what and do some of that also.

I am crossing my fingers that: the eraser stamps show up.  That the Baltimore ribbon circle with flowers shows up (it used to sit by the wall in the dining room- until very recently).  And I just realized that I had found the roll of paper with the border design for a Baltimore quilt half finished- but I didn't stuff it into my pocket.  Damn.  I have to go back up tomorrow.  I wanted to tuck it into the box of parts.  So...all of it could get lost together.