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The Painted Trout Statue – A Quilted Trout for Bryson City

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Things have been busy over here with things starting to reopen. Jaime is recovering more and more everyday (here’s an update). And I just finished painting my trout! I think my friend Dennis would be really happy with it. 

I can’t believe this is finally done. It took over 92 hours to paint it over a period of 3 months. I tried to work in as many quilt patterns as I could. 

The Painted Trout Statue - A Quilted Trout for Bryson City

I didn’t plan any of it ahead of time just started in the middle and worked my way outward picking colors as I went. For the majority of the fish I used a high quality liquid acrylic paint by Decoart called Media Fluid Acrylics. It will be sprayed with some kind of auto body finish to keep it UV protected for years. It will eventually be displayed somewhere down by the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. 

I’m really excited to get it out of my store now…it’s been taking up a lot of room. And now I can move onto new projects. I’ve got a few I’m working on but one is this series “Animals of the Smoky Mountains” that I hope to make into some notecards or something. 

I hope you are all doing well considering how crazy the world is right now. I’m not sure when I’m going to open my store back up but I’m still painting and creating and posting daily at @lilblueboo on Instagram. 

A Rough Past Week

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It’s time to do an update on our One Twenty Main project but for that to happen I have to tell you about this past week. Early Tuesday morning Brett and Jaime were processing material in Jaime’s basement like they always do at the crack of dawn. Jaime’s hand was pulled into a piece of machinery in a freak accident. This was devastating because Jaime is the most skilled carpenter and musician, both of which require dexterity. 

Jaime is one of my most favorite people in the whole world. He and his wife Jaime (yes they have the same name, I know it’s confusing) are our partners in our projects One Twenty Main and the Sixty One Park Farmhouse. Everything magical about those two places came from Jaime’s amazing handiwork. He is so talented and positive and one of the hardest working people I know. You can help but laugh and smile whenever you are around him. 

It’s been a rough week here knowing how much pain he has been in and knowing how worried his wife, family and friends have been. He is going to have to adjust everything he knows adapt to this new future but one thing I DO know is that Jaime is one person who will come out stronger and more determined than ever before. 

Jaime was in the hospital for four days and no one was allowed to visit him due to Covid-19 which made it especially hard. We are grateful for skilled doctors and surgeons who were able to save as much of his hand as they could. They were able to save up to the first knuckle of three fingers and a little more of the index finger. His thumb is okay which is great news. Jaime’s brother Erik put together a fundraiser and the outpouring has been really amazing and it is such a relief that Jaime and Jaime won’t have to worry about financial hardship for the foreseeable future. Here is a link to a video his brother Erik made earlier this week and a link to the Go Fund Me is here. 

 

Here is a video the guys made last week at our 120 Main Project before the accident. If you don’t know Jaime that well you can see how just how joyful and fun his personality is in this video. He really is one of the best people I have ever met and I am so thankful that he and my husband are such kindred spirits. 

 

Jaime was able to finally come home from the hospital this past weekend and has a long physical and emotional road to recovery ahead of him. Please pray for fast healing for Jaime and also for Brett. I can’t imagine the trauma of having witnessed such an event. I am so grateful that Brett was there to help though and get Jaime to the emergency room as fast as possible. I never want to wake up to a phone call like that again. 

This weekend there was an outpouring of help at our project site to keep things moving forward…but it wasn’t the same:

I know I’ve already posted about this on social media and thank you to everyone who has donated and/or shared the GoFundMe. If you are not into donating online you can contact me to see how to donate offline…we’ve had some donations mailed and dropped off as well.

I will work on another post about what we’ve been working on soon. We are definitely making progress and will keep making progress. Brett is working with Jaime’s brother Erik on another project right now to pitch in so if you watch any new Perkins Brothers Builders videos on Youtube in the next week or so you are bound to see him in those! Hard to believe that only two weekends ago the guys were working out at the site as normal…some photos are hard to look at right now. This was from 2 weekends ago as the guys worked on the roof….and shows a little glimpse into our homeschooling technique too as Sienna learns some construction math on site:

Found Object Glass Window Collage – DIY Glass Mosaic

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Since we started excavating at our One Twenty Main property I’ve been collecting the most amazing glassware and glass fragments. I’ve found perfume bottles, milk glass cold cream bottles, old whisky bottles….many intact but also just endless amounts of broken glass. Every time it rains something else is uncovered and I have so far collected every piece to see if I can piece anything back together. I did the same thing for the Sixty One Park Farmhouse. The variety of glass is really amazing and the colors are beautiful:

Many of the pieces have beautiful embossed history on them, like this piece of a soda bottle that reads “Hickory, NC”:

 

 

Basic materials list:

Glass fragments or old glass bottles
Borax
Bon Ami
Concentrated Windex Cleaner
Pumice Stone
Toothbrush
An Old (or new) Glass Window
E6000 Adhesive

 

Collecting and Cleaning Old Glass:

Most of the glass I collected had been underground for so long that it was covered in dirt and mineral deposits. To clean the pieces I soaked them in a bucket of water overnight to remove any caked mud. Once the outer layer of mud was removed I made a mixture of Borax, Windex concentrate and water and let the pieces soak for a few days. After soaking most were bright and clear after a good rinse:

Any really stubborn stains I removed with a paste of Bon Ami and a sturdy toothbrush. The next resort was to carefully scrub with a pumice stone. There were only one or two pieces that I could not get clean! As I started to lay out the glass I thought these pieces would make a beautiful stained glass window so I decided to try to piece together a simple version of my own. 

Found Object Glass Window Collage - DIY Glass Mosaic

I took some old windows and cleaned up the glass and applied a fresh coat of paint:

Next I laid out enough glass to cover one of the windows in an interesting collage layout:

There were a few pieces of glass that were too large or had pieces on them that stuck out too far. I just put a towel down on the ground and carefully used a hammer to chip pieces away. You can also put entire bottles underneath a towel and break them apart. Just make sure to wear safety glasses! 

Adhering Glass to the Window:

One option was to pour a resin onto the window to adhere all of the glass but I didn’t want to lose the clarity of the glass or any of the embossed labels so I decided to glue each piece individually using e6000 industrial glue:

I only used about 1/2 a tube for the entire window. I just placed a small bead of glue on each contact point of each piece of glass.

Window Pane Decoration Ideas - Window with Glass Pieces Broken & whole Mosaics

I am really pleased at the outcome! I can’t wait to find a place for it at the Sixty One Park Farmhouse. I might use a chain to hang it in front of a window:
Found Object Glass Window Collage - DIY Glass Mosaic

I think it does need a small plaque or something saying “glass excavated at the 61 Park Farmhouse” just so our guests will know that it all came from the property. Each piece tells a story! 

Tonight I’m starting another one for some of the glass found at the One Twenty Main house.

 

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