I didn’t get to follow through with my plans for my birthday yesterday.  The plans were that my friend from the St. Louis area would meet me approximately half way, we would do some shopping, some antiqueing, exchange gifts and have lunch.  But due to the weather reports….we didn’t meet up…and you know what?  The weatherman was WRONG again!  They’ve been wrong all week.  So frustrating, especially when you are trying to make important plans, like a birthday meet-up.

So instead of that, I did the other things I would have to do today, like go get some groceries.  I decided to have some Birthday Shrimp for my birthday.  I love shrimp cocktail, so I bought a bag of big shrimp and that was my celebration…as well as  the wonderfully flowery, mushy, big, wordy card my sweetie hid for me in the morning.  It’s  a game we play.  He gets up early to leave for work and leaves the card for me on the kitchen table.  Unfortunately, I frustrated his usual plan, because I got up before him…couldn’t sleep…had to blog…so he had to leave the card on the couch where I would find it later, all nicely topped with a miniature peanut butter cup…it’s like a message, you know.  (I was wondering where that card was.)

Another thing I did yesterday (see prior post) was to start on a piece for a show coming up.  I went ahead and painted the Lumiere paints on it, and either used too much paint, and/or didn’t realize just how opaque those paints are, because I totally covered up the quilt blocks, except for the puckery places in the seams.  Not sure I like that, but I did like the ability to make a new design with color on those quilt blocks.  But the white places bug me a bit.  I think if the background was black, perhaps the Lumiere paints would look good on that.

Ok, back to the idea of the transparency provided by gesso on the blocks…and another idea.  Here’s what the original blocks look like with nothing on them.

Now with white gesso.  With this piece I am thinking of layering with transparent paints, fusible web, dryer sheets, etc.  Hopefully, I can keep some of the original design showing.

This section I flipped over and used black gesso on the BACK, thinking it might be nice to be able to see the orginal blocks on the back side of the quilt.  I will be painting this with the Lumiere paints to see how they look on the black gesso.

Now I have three different pieces to work with…if they work out, I may put them all in the show.  This is all I got done today as the gesso takes time to dry and I am cleaning house and finishing cookies.  My neighbors are coming over tomorrow for my annual cookie exchange.