a few things

double orange tulips Keith brought me this morning opened right away

This week I have been feeling out of sync with the world. Trying to keep getting along with my daily routines to get to the next day waiting to feel excited about something. Next week the annual Manassas Quilt show is coming. I am looking forward to going to see the show with my partner and Mom, this is our 5th year going. To me it is always an inspiration.  In the mean time I have been working on a quilt project in greens and tested a couple blocks. Quilting patterns by hand versus machine quilting in a right angle zig zag design. Below is a peek at the greens... and my hand with thimbles using a green pearl thread to hand quilt the block.

A new pair of rubber finger tipped gloves to make machine quilting easier arrived in the mail. Machingers (see gloves here) is the brand a friend from the DC Modern Quilt Guild showed me at one of the meetings last year. Linda blogs at I Finally Have Time and she does a great variety projects and says she uses them all the time. I tried hers on  so I finally bought my own pair to use when I begin machine quilting a full sized bed quilt in the not too distant future. Thanks again Linda!

Friday to get a chore done transmitting some medical records to my doctor's office I just drove them over in person. Afterwards I stopped into Miss Pixie's second hand shop across the street and found two things I brought home that always lift my spirits a little. Crystals to hang in my east facing windows to fill the room with spectral color early in the day and a little Japanese box to add to my small box collection.

this crystal is about 3 inches long 

Japanese wooden box with enamel painted and wood burnt decorations 

showing the sides that are textured with burnt wood marks. 

one box and a new book to go in it...

Barcelona view #13 painting by Cor Windhouwer

Barcelona view #12 by Cor Windhouwer

the clam shell box 

the finished box open with a small antique photo leporello and the new bigger book of the paintings

 book of paintings open and standing 

That's right, I got up and went right to work on the remaining steps to complete the Barcelona leporello box and book. The weather was cool but there was no wind so the little space heater did keep me toasty warm on the porch studio while I worked. I retrieved the boxes out from under the brick weights, then I cut  brightly colored marbled paper to fit the inside of the clam shell box. The little pocket of blue was the hardest bit to do but it went in place pretty fast. Then the clam box had to go in the shell or "case" that makes the box complete. Once the box was done and under weights to hold it down for drying I got to work placing all the paintings Cor Windhouwer painted of Barcelona into the leporello book I made a year or more ago. That was fun, modern photograph corners are quick to use now a days. This Book  project is for Cor and his elder friend  Mr. Waelput who gave him the little book of photos. Mr. Waelput used to work for the Dutch Airlines: KLM so he traveled extensively. Now he is retired. Both Cor and Mr. Waelput in Rotterdam, Netherlands. 

In the end I was delighted to discover that the book fit into the case like a hand fits in a glove! No spare space in the box for the book to wiggle around causing damage. That also means the next box I make for my copy will be just the same size, it needs  no alterations to my first plan. It has been several years since I made a clam shell box and I was surprised how much I remembered about how to do it. Only once did I hesitate about how to wrap the teal paper over the box corners. 

This proeject is ready to be packed up to go over to it's owner in the next few weeks. If you want to see the original paintings before I mail it out let me know soon.

I am grateful to have had this interesting body of Cor's paintings to compile into a new bigger work of art.  

The bright colors of the box and the marble paper I chose to complement the paintings Cor did and the colors he likes to use, naturally we both love orange! 

a box for Barcelona leporello

the new accordion or leporello book for Barcelona 

Cor Windhouwer's paintings and our new Barcelona leporello

 measures 5.5 x 8 inches 

original Barcelona leporello photographs of scenes in Barcelona, Spain circa 1950

the original leporello cover is  4 x 2 inches closed 

a plan of the box, the resulting top, bottom and spine sections

 of the clam shell box  and the blue pocket.

this clam shell box has a case around two halves of a three sided box

these are the two box halves  waiting to be glued with cover paper and

 a small pocket to insert in the lid to hold the original Barcelona leporello

here the covered box sections are damp from the glue 

covered brick weights to hold them flat and square while they dry overnight.

This morning I finally got back to work a project I started two years ago. I began with a pair of books in the form of an accordion or a leporello. Inside these are copies of photos of a tourist's book from Barcelona Spain of the 1950's painted by Cor Windhouwer with abstractions. I have the original Barcelona leporello to include in the box with the new book therefore I am making a small pocket in the top of the box to hold the original leporello which is much smaller. I feel pretty bad about taking so long to get this project done and I don't really have a good reason why. I hope my friend won't be too disappointed once he finally sees the finished book and box. This is the first time I have shown anyone what any of it looks like except Keith. I spent five hours today just laying out these parts of the box, cutting them, assembling them, then covering the inside and the case with paper and book cloth. I drew a plan or map of the design with all the measurements written in carefully in case I have troubles once it is all assembled then I can make a new one and adjust what ever problems arise. If I am lucky this first box will be perfect and I won't have to start over. I made  a copy of the Windhouwer paintings for the new book to keep for my collection of book works and I will make a second box to match this one for my copy after I get Cor's done. I find it is actually a lot of fun measuring, cutting, wrapping and gluing boxes but the initial start is a challenge because the parts must fit exactly. Once I begin it draws me in deeper and deeper and the only reason I quit working today was to let the completed work dry. Tomorrow I hope to put the inside sections in and assemble the case and the box but the weather man is calling for unseasonably cold weather and my studio is difficult to heat when the winter winds blow. I am very excited with this new work and I can't for the life of me figure out why I waited so long to get it done! I am really sorry to have kept my best pal Cor waiting all these years but he has never put any pressure on me to hurry up. Thank you Cor.