notes from elinor

Piano Changes Homes............I Remember

While living at 1779 East Ave in Hayward California,the Bailey family  purchased their first piano. Around this wonderful instrument, they built many of their family traditions.    Evalyn and Cindy took lessons and played.  Ross, their brother, irritated Evalyn by taking to playing the piano like a duck takes to water and he played her songs at five.  She bested him by learning to read music like a wiz.  Maureen played at this piano and then learned to play at her own.

 We had concerts, played as a family band.  We sang carols, musicals, Sesame Street, and hymns.  God blessed us in so may ways with this piano.  It was a player and I can remember children standing on the pedals because they were to short to sit playing Bye Bye Blackbird.

    So I was moaning a little to Sally Lampi.  Sally rarely suffers fools, so she asked "Do you play the piano?"  "No" said I.  "Then you've given    away a shelf?"  Right!                                                                           

Gary tuned the piano and started to refinish it as you can see. Never happened. He labored with chords, extracting every nuance from each of them. He practiced the Maple Leaf Rag endlessly but his fingers never co-operated.

Scrap Pencil Mirror

This is an idea I got at SCRAP in Portland.  They had made a very large instillation but I'm down to doing things small because there is no room on the wall.  They had a box of assorted pencils so I picked out the ones I liked and I bought a flat square mirror at Craft Warehouse and glued the pencils in place.  The twig was Nancy Palimino's idea.  Love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring

Well it began to be spring a few weeks ago and then we couldn't enter our pictures into Typepad for some mysterious reason.  Isaac, who is here to set up Heather's booth at Quilt Market, read their e-mail and interrpreted it to mean we had to change brousers  so we went to Firefox and so far so good.  As the clouds begin to lift and winter slowley creeps away Vancouver begins to bloom everywhere leaving a breath taking effect.  This what I see out my livingroom window.

 

 

 

Sewing machines, brown with rust, nestled in the purple and pinks: Springtime at it's best.

Discharge With A Dye

I am not entirely converted.

Pages For Australia

 Two done and there is a third that is intended for Treasures of the Gypsy's Pamela Armas.  She has sent me a treasure trove of goodies from her store in Mountainair, New Mexico.  I have it in heaps and piles insuring that the doll she gets will be exotic and fabulous.  The story goes that Mariko never had an attic but longed for one after she read The Lttle Princess.  So she decided to create her own attic in her room.  Here are three chairs, one for each doll.  Mariko then began to collect boxes and arranged them on the floor so she could see each one and contemplate their contents.  OOH, how sweet it is!

 

 Here are the chairs and the boxes.  You can open their heavy weight innerfacing lids and peek inside where you will find ribbons, buttons, beads, letters and old pictures, plus one rubber chicken.  It is enchanting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Mariko will just love sitting in her invented attic in Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Open up the button box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Open the bead box.  The rubber chicken is in the drawer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skeleton For Australia

The doll going to Australia has been a challenge to see how much machine work I can eliminate and also how to use pre-work most effectively.  So here is what the "Down Under" doll makers need to get done before August.  Start with 26" of 14 gage galvinized steel wire purchased at a hardware store and a needle nose plier.  Bend the wire in half and pinch the fold.  Twist down about 6 1/2".  The remaining wire forms the legs and feet.  Each foot is 1 3/4".  Bend the wire to form a heal and instep.  Form the arms using 7" of wire with a small loop in the center, pinch a hand at the ends of the wire.  Slip the arms down the body 2 3/4". 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrap the wire body with masking tape.

Wrap the masking tape with craft batting and stitch the batting in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Use a 1" X 3 1/2" piece of batting to wrap the end of the foot.  The head is stitched by machine and inserted into the neck.  Stitch the neck in place.  You can see that this is not all there is to the doll.  She will be dressed using tee shirt knits starting with the socks.  The shoes fit over that.  The bloomers are formed by stitching a crotch into a tube, slipping that over the show and gathering them at the knee and the waist.  Knit is very forgiving.

 And that is a good thing, love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 After the clothes are in place I made the hair from a row of black beads topped with red ones.  Do you love it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working On Richard's Journal

When Roxanne Ohare came to stay for a week, I worked on the journal I have promised Richard.  Although he wanted one of my journals, I withheld that and told him I would create one just for him.  I have reflected themes that have been part of my history with Richard and Nebraska.  This is about keys... keys that unlock or lock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Do you remember green stamps?  I love pattern, so these stamps create that and make us smile.  How much cheap trash did you redeem?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Got a great card from Gloria in Australia of old books.  I love the feelings that old books evoke of days with Dickens and Alcott.  Old books are old friends.  The sparce rubber stamp of the old typewriter and the pencil sharpener are things Richard and Roxanne love too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we have the grand kids here.  Using Portfolio water based oil pastels I blended the photos with the background.  I threw in an old postcard to give the flavor of the past blended with the present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This photo only inclued the nearly adopted kitten with Richard's beard and not his face which I dubbed in.  The kitten was rejected by the old and feeble cats that the O'hare's now shelter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the romantic swallow on the old card so I echoed the bird with my own drawings.  Some paper from Scrap added pattern. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrap, the recycling store, yielded a green packet of papers.  Roxanne loved that place and dreamed about how much fun it would be to have one in Seward. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This artical about contempory molas of the San Blas Cuna Indians inspired a couple of pages just for fun.  I included my own chicken

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of fun putting things together has funny unintended consequences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Yellow and random drawing with bits and pieces creates some sunshine in the winter.  Only 40 pages more.  Love epb

 

 

 

 

A Valentine For Richard

Richard needed a Valentine so Roxann assembled a delightful collection of stuff and began.

Shopping With Nancy Palomino

A friend of mine, Nancy Palimino, has a cousin a little north of us in Longview.   She has a blended antique store and art journaling shop.  It is great.   I love this look.

 

 

 

 

 

 I found a dandy clock.  Am I starting a clock collection?  Can't do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letters are highly collectable.  My daughter-in-law, Heather Bailey, blogged a fabulous display of Letters she found at the Los Angeles Flea Market.  I have seen some incredible ones made from tin scraps in Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This bathroom begged to be photographed.  Don't you just love black and white?

Felted Wool Containers

These knitted felt bowls were show and tell for Malinn Walther, a new member of our Art Quilt group.  She is a fierce knitter and she loves taking ideas from differing disciplines.