Doors and Windows

Now that the Roxanne's glue arrived, I can return to the Happy Village quilt.

It occurs to me that the Happy Village really is just a collage. My brother was a pretty good artist, and he used to make collages by cutting compelling photographs from magazines. When everything was glued into place, he covered them with what passed for Mod Podge back in those days. It was about a half-inch coating of acrylic something-or-other. That's as technical as I can get with art stuff.

The Happy Villages are created much the same way, only instead of Mod Podge, I'll be covering mine with black tulle. When I removed the protective rulers yesterday, my first task was to glue down the pieces I'd placed in the southeast corner. It was easy to see why this particular glue was so desirable. It has two applicators of different lengths. I chose the longer of the two. It has a fine point and dispenses just a tiny amount of quick-drying glue.

I've been keeping the Village covered except for the corner I'm working on at a given time. For one thing, the colors and shapes and (let's face it) messiness of the whole is distracting. More importantly, I'm contending with kitty feet. Yes, the dread kitty feet. Also...sleeves. At one point, I dragged my sleeve across pieces that were not glued down and was immediately grateful I'd already taken a picture of it. Yikes. I can recommend short sleeves or rubber bands.

After gluing down the southeast corner, I covered it up and started working on the southwest corner.

As I look at this picture, I can see little bits of thread that I neglected to tuck under or pull off. Karen Eckmeier makes mention of this in her book and has some suggested fixes if you find some (and you will) after you've already covered it in tulle. I have a Soft Touch Thread Pic that I think will work well for removing or hiding any stray threads.

Once I had those pieces glued down, the lower half was finished.

The little pieces are somewhat tedious to work with, although seeing the village pop out of chaos works wonders for one's motivation. Nevertheless, my neck was hurting at that point, and so I was more motivated to get outside for a walk and to do some housework. Later in the day, I returned and worked on the northeast corner.

In a few places, the shapes of the fabric haven't worked well for what I'm trying to accomplish, but it's easy to fix them by simply cutting a shape from the same color fabric and applying it as a "band-aid". When the tulle is added and the top-stitching is done, it won't be visible.

Just the northwest corner remains now. When I started this originally, I finished up by placing rooftops in the northwest corner and striving to use all of them. I'll probably move some of those around before adding the doors and windows. After that, I'll be ready to move to the next step of covering the piece with tulle and stitching over the top. A better explanation will follow.

Today I'm making my second trip downtown in less than a week. Oy. I really hate driving into downtown Portland. Today I'm making a visit to my dermatologist who was suspicious of a spot on my cheek when I saw him last month. I tried using some topical medication for six weeks, but it made no difference whatsoever. Now, I'm biopsy bound. As you might guess, I'm not looking forward to that. He's going to hurt me, I just know it. When it comes to my cheeks and my nose, I'm a needle weenie. Hopefully, it will turn out to be nothing. Since I was suspicious even before he was, I'm expecting it to be something that isn't nothing. The moral of the story: use your sunscreen or wear a hat. Sadly, sunscreens came on the scene long after the damage to my skin had already been done.