A good day

I got a fair bit done. I now have 7 pieces of silk paper and four more pieces of fabric paper. Some of the fabric paper will be made into book marks, and some into journal covers. The journal covers will involve a bit of work, both by hand and machine. I'm not sure where I'm going with the silk paper. I was thinking of adding some hand stitching and then mounting and matting them, but I think the whole project needs more thought. Part ofthe secret in making silk paper is in getting the silk fibers wet enough before adding the adhesive that holds the whole thing together. There are a couple of places where this hasn't happened, so I'm now wondering if that piece of silk paper is at all useable. The final look that people seem to like is one with wispy edges, but this is very hard to achieve. the best pieces I got are those where I went into the mix after adding the water and adhesive and manipulated the edges to create more of a firm edge. Those two pieces came out very well. So obviously I need to work on my technique. I have lots of coloured silk, but I'm getting low on the ecru Bombyx silk that works so very well as a background for hand embroidery. During the evening I stuffed the last two cushions I have. She will be in town around the middle of the month, but I had wanted to get them off my plate so that I can get to work on other things. Today, other than cleaning up for the ladies this evening, I want to process the journal covers I have. I'm, toying with the idea of trying finishing one of them with gel medium, just to see if the cover stand up a bit better. I used it on the last batch of bookmarks I made, and I'm pleased with the result there, but it does change the overall look. If I want these to look hand made and somewhat primitive, this isn't the way to go, but they are somewhat fragile in their present state.

This morning I see the doctor. He called me into "discuss the results of my blood work". Scarey.

Lizards done!

The machine embroidery is all done and the whole piece worked into a tote bag. Once I had the embroidery done, I knew that the piece just wasn't good enough to justify framing. But-once it was finished and I took a good look at it I realized that there was one thing I could have done differently. I made up the bag with the lizards as the front, but set out in a horizontal array. this resulted in a wide, but sometwhat short bag. I should have set them out vertically. It just never crossed my mind,and now it's just too late. It's a good bag done in deep reds.

Today I'm going to try to do a little Seminole patchwork. I need to do some quick piecing and cross cutting for re-piecing, and this would be the perfect technique. When I was searching for red fabric etc for the lizards, I found two red totes already cut out ready to sew, including webbing for handles. This is a different style of tote--one I used to make for sale years ago. I used to hand embroider a decorative panel for the front. I'm going to make them up using the Seminole patchwork for the decorative panel, and then offer them for sale at the sale in April. This will get rid of a little more of the junk, I won't have to buy anything to make them, and maybe I can get a buck or two.