Dyeing, A Dragon, and Punchinella!

Hello Internet People!  Happy "Independence Day" to my fellow Americans, and Happy July 4th to the rest of you!  Just because you don't celebrate our holiday doesn't mean you can't celebrate the day!  Sorry for slacking on the posting again lately, we have been experiencing a major heat wave here at Mother's, and my laptop cannot handle it.  That, and we are currently dealing with a personal matter that is taking up most of my time and energies which I am not allowed to tell you all about, yet.  When this is over it will make for some hysterical comedy fodder, but at the moment it is anything but funny.

In other news, I have been doing some dyeing, not as much as I would like, but some.  No pictures yet, but they are coming soon.  And I have been working on that Dragon Art Quilt, not sure yet whether I am making it better or worse, but we shall see what I end up with in the end.  I have been embroidering little flowers, and berries in the bushes by hand, and since the darn thing is constructed of so many layers of fused fabrics it is really hard to stitch through by hand.  My fingers are so sore from stitching that I have to take the day off (at least) to let them recover before I try touching a needle again.  I really should learn to use a thimble someday.

 I still haven't decided what I am going to do with the rest of the day today.  Maybe I will work on cutting some more templates and stencils.  I have several sheets drawn out, ready to be be cut.  I am working on label sheets, so they have adhesive on the back already, which will make the template shapes perfect for the sun painting projects I plan to do this summer. 

Oh!I almost forgot, I got my new thingies in the mail this week!  I am so excited to start playing with those, maybe I will do that today instead.  The "thingies" are technically called "Punchinella", also known as "sequin waste" in some circles.  I had never heard of them before a couple of years ago, and had no clue why they were so interesting until very recently.  But now I know, and I had to have them!  Basically they are the sheets of foil-paper that they cut sequins out of when they make those.  The waste material left over makes great stencils for all kinds of applications, and since they make sequins in a lot of different shapes and sizes these days, the left overs can be pretty freakin cool!  At least I think so.  I had to search for the stuff pretty hard to find a good deal on an assortment of it, but I finally found what I was looking for and I am oh so very pleased!  I think that is what I will do today, at least until its time to shoot off the fireworks!  Maybe I will even take some pictures to show you all, I wouldn't count on that, but I might get there.

Until next time ...