Freezin in......

not exactly an artist's garret but my room is certainly on the cool side at the moment which is a nuisance as ideas have been buzzing.  I have been making pages, using my own photographs. There is a Ro Bruhn type book in my head but the fabric pages are coming on much more slowly.

The indefatigable Seth Apter has just published a list of blogs called The Art Blog Directory.
I am honoured and a little scared to have been included.  So if you have a couple of minutes, hours, days to spend, follow the link and enjoy.
I have also just signed up for a continuation off the Magic Diaries with Jude Hill.  Watching Jude work  and listening to her thoughts have become an important part of my life.  I am working on another large piece called (for the moment ) "Earth" but something in me doesn't want to share it just yet.My "Space" cloth is a comfort in this weather.
Hoping the weather doesn't keep us away from the first Embroiderer's Guild of the year tomorrow.

Stones.....

This morning Jude said something in the Magic Diaries that set my mind racing,  She said "....stones are sort of scraps of something bigger".   Like many other people I have a habit of picking up a small stone or pebble from places I have visited, they become a symbol of the place,  a souvenir.  But this is something bigger.  At school, Physical Geography was my absolute favourite subject, I have marvelled at The Grand Canyon, been excited  by the magnificence of the Alps and loved the beauty of our own Lake District but until today I had never consciously thought that the pebble I pick up is just a scrap and once belonged to something much, much bigger and when I hold it I am holing a piece of the Universe in my hand.   Is that what we are?

Freedom...

Today was the first session of the Magic Diaries it was full of the excitement of new beginnings.  At one point Jude took a pen and drew directly onto a corner of the cloth, it made me gasp but then I realised that this is Jude's gift.  She gives freedom.  I shed many tears and not a little blood in my Domestic Science lessons at school, I never seemed to be able to do anything to the satisfaction of the teacher.  I have been patronised because I haven't done my City and Guilds Embroidery (only by one person but in such a way as to make me feel inadequate ) and then Jude takes a Sharpie(no less)  to a cloth made of interwoven pieces which I watched her make and when someone commented she replied "it's only cloth". Brilliant. Today I'm growing.

Cloth book

For ages I have admired the cloth journals  made by Ro Bruhn.  I don't aspire to even match her journals but I really had the best time making this. I am trying to justify the amount of "stuff" in my workroom. This seemed like an ideal way to use papers, UFO's and other experiments and basically anything that came to hand.

 The back, I made it with a sort of left handed fastener.  Loops from front to back.!

So happy that part 2 of Jude's Magic Diaries has begun.  It has become so much a part of my daily life.

Two posts in two days.  It must be New Year.  Have a good one.

Play day.....

Yesterday was fun.  Inspired by this , Painting in the Round on Ro Bruhn's blog we decided to have a little go yesterday.  Just so we didn't get carried away we decided on a few rules, the shape would be circles and we would each only use two colours.    We painted for ten minutes and then moved round.  This is the first round.

A bite of lunch while it they dried off and then we added black for a bit of drama.

 It was very interesting how the first marks inspired the second and how different they all were.  Sparked loads of ideas for "next time" .Thanks girls.

Ro Bruhn is proving to be a bit of an inspiration  at the moment and hopefully assiting me to reduce the ridiculous amounts of "stuff" I have aquired over the last 20 years.but more of that later.

"Space" is coming along nicely and I will post soon, delighted that Jude is going to continue the Magic Diaries next year.

I was really thown in my blogging routine by the loss of Slide.  Still searching for an alternative.

Feather brain......

As opart of her Magic Diaries Jude shared with us how she makes little feathers which are such a feature of her work. Jude's ideas are never static and her original sharing has now extended to an open invitation here.
Since she first mentioned them I have been seeing feathers everywhere. On my doorstep, on the way to the library, caught up on a tomato plant and this tiny little feather which presented itself at my feet out on the  Swale Estuary

and I turned into this

This is the feather I am sending to Jude.  I was thinking about my cloth, which seems to be calling itself Space at the moment.  And I figured that a feather in space would have no colour, coudn't make an ivisible one so this happened.

What's this ........

Can it be .....Tacking ?

..never been known!  Attaching space to my black hole and making planets. Mars is the first one to be made.

They won't be in relative side otherwise Jupiter would probably cover the whole cloth.

Making space...

This week the Tour de France has provided a marvellous excuse for lots of stitching and the Big Bang has started to spread into space.

and I have been making "space" . 

My scanner refuses to produce the proper colour and even tweaking in Paintshop Pro didn't work but you will have guessed that it is various shades of indigo. I have even started on the planets but I am trying not to get ahead of myself.  I am loving this process and listening to Jude's thoughts which gently set your own in motion.

And as for the Tour de France, I have marvelled at the incredible stamina of these men and enjoyed the spectacular pictures from the helicopter.  I didn't know there were so many camper vans in the world and it revived  happy memories of  holidays in France in the days when we had our own van.

Beginning.........

The Magic Diaries have begun.  I don't think I have thought so much in years, my head has been whirling with ideas and I have been fighting my usual impatience to see the end result.  In the day when I used to make clothes I would always confuse myself be reading to far ahead in the pattern instead of just taking it step by step.  So here is the beginning, a Black Hole!

 

First lesson learned, soft velvet is not the best fabric for making a base!!!

Dragon on the lawn....

I have been making lots of  pieces in preparation for the Magic Diaries which starts next week.  This piece got a little ahead of itelf.....

I love him because I drew him free hand. I don't think he is finished, we shall see.