candy store

Today I was the kid in the candy store.

Daughter 1 has been a serious fiber artists for years, beginning in high school, and before, when she learned to sew her own clothes.

Any way for a lot of years she has been very serious about quilting. I don’t know a lot of quilters, but from what I gather, she is more typical than not. Her fabric shelves groan under the weight of her "palette."

She showed me her cache. Boxes of neatly ironed and folded fabric pieces, mostly cottons, separated by colors. She gave me instructions to go through and when I found one I thought would make a good book cover, to cut off enough for a book or two.

So I did, and did and did.

I was intoxicated by all of these choices of wonderful fabrics. One series I was especially fond of, and she told me I should be, because they were the most expensive in her collection!

Then I mentioned that I planned to go to 2nd hand stores and find some worn leather clothing to use for book covers.

Her eyes lit up. She sent me on an errand to find a plastic tote. It was full of leather pieces. Pieces from coats and pants she found here and there. She had made a series of stick horses years ago and had used this leather for those horses.

Now she has moved on and I became the owner of that box of leather. She even had a skirt and coat made of Ultra-suede. Ahh the queen of imitation leathers. That piece will cover a LOT of books.

And she taught me how to dye leather with Kool Aid to get a larger variety of colors.

But she had one request: she wants a book made a half page size (5 ½ by 8 ½) with leather spine cover and a beautiful embossed paper on the cover. With pleasure I will make that book!

There are a lot of things that get an artist to thinking and creating but having a supply of new materials is high on the list.

I think I might come down with “fiber diabetes.”