lisle attain exterminate

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.  James Allen

Spent all day yesterday in the studio and finally finished the nineteen full pages of the latest Hand Book.  Each page is actually four pages and at the end I was having a devil of a time finding appropriate hands that weren't already somebody's art.  So, 19x4 is actually seventy six pages!  Wow.  I left them all flattening out and drying on my big table, think I need to do something else to them to help stabilize the work so I will put on a coat of Matte Medium (or three!). later today.  Then another coat tomorrow and it will all be pressed while I am gone, ready to assemble when I get back from Amsterdam.

Looks like a twill stripe, doesn't it?  It's TULIPS!  This is a stolen-from-the-internets picture but soon I will have lots of my own.  We have a 92 year old Dutch friend here who has been giving us pointers and tips. We went out to dinner with him last night and had a wonderful time-  he is as sharp as anybody I know, was in the WWII resistance, and has stories upon stories but has to be coerced into telling them.  We ate at a nice Thai restaurant and I woke up sick as a puppy this morning-  finally it seems to have subsided and I am anxious to get out, but it's no fun thinking you have to go to some strange place when you are sick.  I spent a few hours this morning taking care of myself and watching old Arrested Devlopment episodes.  Who can be sick when that's on?  Hope I can pick up more episodes on the trip, but I am more anxious on how to get photos on the blog from this old iPad-  can't get it to work right yet so it may be that I just post words and go back in with the pictures after we get back.  I have the prehistoric iPad, so don't bother to give me the skinny on getting this done-  it won't work.  In fact I keep getting notes that my Apps need updating but first I need to up the OS but it won't do that, I think its at Max now..  Planned obsolencence I guess.  I KNOW other people can blog pictures.  Maybe there's a help forum?

Much to do. 

In Other News-  the house down the street from me is on the market and I was checking out their interior shots on their listing on the web.  There, in the guest bedroom, is the little quilt she purchased right after moving in.  'Peter Finch Interviews Housekeepers'

Here is a closer look if you don't remember it:

So of course you now have to get the story: I had a little finch that took up residence in a wreath outside my door, right beneath a porch light.  He seemed to like it there because it was warm and bright and protected, however I was NOT happy with him living there.  It got so I could touch his tummy as I went by so I liked him personally, but the mess he left from sitting there all night was formidable.  And of course I was his housekeeper out every morning with a scrub brush and bucket.  I had a serious talk with him and told him that since he was so obviously a bachelor, that he really needed to either find a wife or a housekeeper and it was no longer going to be me.  He let me scratch his head that night, and then was gone in the morning.  He skipped out on the rent.  And I made a quilt about him.

Hell must be frozen over because Jonathan Adler has added a squirrel to his wares, a match holder-  WHO uses these any more?

Good luck to him, hope it's a best seller and he makes even more of a fortune.