A new page

After a long discussion with my number two daughter, I am making a new effort with my blog. It will be a little more structured and pre-planned. There will be writing of blogs on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the contents will be memories and present day life. I think my name dropping days are over, there are very few celebs living in this wonderful part of our Geography. Some may still pop up in my memory however.

I am involved with a project that is called FAKE IT IN FABRICS. I will explain how it came about. One day, when the mail arrived, I received a postcard from very good friends who were visiting in Washington DC. They had spent a couple of days going through the SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM and had bought the card there. It depicted a woman with flowers and it was painted by MATISSE. I was overjoyed to hear from my friends and I treasured the painting on the postcard. And then an ugly, avaricious feeling came over me. It was caused by the card. Reality told me, that no matter how old I would get, no matter how much money I could amass, I would never be able to buy a MATISSE. This feeling grew to horrid levels. I was groveling in it.

And then it was like waking up from a nightmare. I said to myself, I will make a MATISSE. I will copy this card in fabrics and I will own a MATISSE. I worked like a driven person and at the end I owned a MATISSE. I knew it was a fake, but it was beautiful. I framed it in an old Swedish frame and from a distance it was perfect. Up close it was perfect too, but one could see that a different kind of paint had been used. There was some machine stitching, but most of the stitching was by hand. All the yardage I found in my own drawers, left over from my quilting days.

I have made many FAKE IT IN FAbRICS since then. Most of them were used to sell in raffles for some worthy cause. I decided to try teaching this art on a HOLLAND AMERICAN CRUISE SHIP. So I began giving classes locally at the Senior Center here in Port Angeles. I made up several kits for people to chose from, did a little advertising and began with a very small class. People enjoyed what they were doing. I saw one of the results, framed perfectly, and told the student that it was better than mine.

I signed up for a cruise on AMSTERDAM who was going around the world. I tried before the cruise to see the officer who would be in charge of amusement and various classes and never made contact. So I took the cruise regardless, hoping to make arrangements while on board. The officer in charge of classes was totally into music and could care less about my offering. But the Cruise was fabulous and I will regale you with some of the high-lights at a later time,