Gifted me by my friend Kathy, and a Friday smile

I had hoped to have pictures from Kathy's and my day together ready to show, but I have not had time to do that.  So sharing her birthday bash will have to wait a few days.  Right now, I'm taking care of two households, and time is not on my side.

Instead, I'll show you some things Kathy left me, and how I changed them into the front cover for one of my scrappy visual journals.

Several years ago, I joined Kathy for a gelatin printing session.  She had seen a technique on the cover of her Quilting Arts magazine that used round gelatin images that were sewn together in an artsy fashion.  After reading the article, she got it in her head she wanted to make the quilt.  So, she set out to make a gel plate that was round.  This was before Gelliarts came out with one of their own, of course.  She got as far as printing the images, then the circles sat for several years until she cleaned out her stash.  She forgot these the last time she came to see me, so I got them on Tuesday.

Since I'm still not quite ready to decorate my spoon jewelry, I decided to sew a bit.  I took six of the pieces she left me

and cut six hearts.

I cut six squares using my scissors, because I didn't want a precise square.

Next, I sewed the hearts to the squares and auditioned locations I wanted on my background fabric (which started life years ago as a pair of shorts I've deconstructed). Please be aware, I have no way to drop feed dogs on my sewing machine, so everything I do is hand guided.

I sewed the squares to the background, then tore the background to size.  My goal is to make several of these before the end of the month, in order to have them when I make and assemble several of my scrappy visual journals.

On my way to the office to upload my photos, I found this guy in the kitchen.  He looked almost scared and so old through the camera lens.  Of course, when I tried to center him in the viewfinder,

I realized there could never be any do-overs where Squiggles was concerned.  And since Squiggles always makes me smile, I'm sharing this with

Annie at A Stitch in Time.

This is Day 17 of 22, and I created a front for a scrappy visual journal from gifted fabric provided me by my friend Kathy.  I also got two photos of Squiggles that made me smile.

Thanks as always for visiting.  If I don't make it around for a few days, it's because I'm watching my friend Sally's house, and feeding her two cats, while doing the same at mine.  I've already had one catastrophe, where I found water leaking from her vanity.  I placed a bucket under the leak, because I couldn't find where it was leaking.  So much for being a good neighbor!