It was a painting day, and I went off with my practice exercises which consisted of initial washes of color. In class I began still another using some tips I was given, and worked on adding a second layer to last week's works. There's nothing worth showing although, if I get photos taken, I probably will. It's a good way to keep track of progress or no-progress-beyond-mere-changes.
At any rate, I felt good about what I'm doing and learning, and plan to continue working in the same way this coming week. An important finding was that I really don't care for the paper I'm using. Naturally, I prefer the far more expensive kind. Since I am reluctant to use that as practice paper, I plan to try some middle of the road paper this week. It's not a favorite because it doesn't have the texture of my best paper (which is bound in small sketch books), but I don't think it will show the pattern of weave through the paint as what I've been using does.
After lunch at home, I went up to the studio and put away painting gear so I could cut material for a new quilt (my cutting table serves as a watercolor painting station as well). That's what I did this afternoon; I cut out fabric for "Scenes and Ladders", a pattern by Karen Gibbs. My version uses a variety of fabrics I collected before the FG shop went out of business; the focal piece is a Robin Pandolph design of pink roses on a medium blue. Why I thought it would do for the guest room, I don't know, but it will do as a quilt for a friend of our daughter's. She likes blue and flowers. I think I've enough different kinds of fabrics and colors to keep it from being overly precious or cloying. We'll see.
While we watched the TV this evening, I spent another night on hand piecing. This particular wall hanging is taking a long, long time (started last summer) because I haven't worked on it consistently. It progresses by fits and starts as I am easily distracted by other hand work - crazy quilting, knitting, hand quilting, wool work - well, you know how it is!
