More mosaic

I'm a little embarrassed. I completely lost track of time and didn't get dinner on the table until almost 6:30. I knew DH was going to work late, figured we'd have a Hunter's Dinner (you know, hunt around the fridge for some leftovers - or failing that, eggs), so wasn't thinking about the logistics of getting food together.

What happened was...once youngest and I returned from the hospital this afternoon (he's okay...we are going back in the morning for a hand X-ray, however) I pulled the plastic off of the mosaic and started thinking about the next row. Youngest found that he could, with eye protection and his hammer, quite capably break tiles into usable bits for me to work with. Whoo hoo! said I. He broke tile (I did say he was okay, didn't I?) and I placed, moved, glued and replaced. It went really, really fast with his help! We got the green, red and the brown/beige waves done before oldest got home at 4:30. Once the boys were together they got busy making Artist Trading Cards (there's a swap on Sunday and Don Mabie had sent Oldest a wonderful package of cool stuff about cards and about correspondence art in the mail - got him full of fire about it all over again) and I continued assembling this behemoth.

Note to self:
When starting something new using a technique never played with before, start SMALL.


The boys were in the house, busily making cards and listening to Queen (!) when I looked at the time - 6:15! No wonder I could hear them getting snacks ready! ACK! Well. Finished the row, covered everything with plastic again (in case of rain) and blew inside to make whatever was in the fridge look appealing.

Well, we had eggs.

Here's what it looked like just before I pulled the plastic over it for the night.
While working I thought of some more things to share:

1. Outline shape first, then go back and fill in an area. The shape has much more definition that way. I try to lay the shard edge right along the pencil line, then backfill the shape.
2. It's a lot like quilting. The aim is to keep the spaces between the shards the same (like meandering, we try to keep our lines a consistent distance from each other, even when we're going in all sorts of directions).
   
3. I'll be using a sanded grout. This is because the spaces between the shards are not a consistent 1/8". If they were, I'd use non sanded grout. This is a useless thing at this stage as I'll have to wait 72 hours for my adhesive to cure before even applying the grout...and I'm not done placing my shards yet.
4. Starting small for a first project is probably smarter.
5. Just a note I probably should have put in yesterday...because this is an outdoor project, I'm using outdoor adhesive and grout. I'll also seal the whole works once it's done with a tile sealant.
6. I used tiles of the most consistent depth over the area I'll be standing on most. This is so far the flattest part of the mosaic. I do tend to hang out my laundry while in bare feet.

There you go.
Back to the quilty goodness!

Lisa