Prayer Flags

Lenna Andrews has arranged an exciting new swap on her Creative Swaps site and it's for prayer flags. I have lots of Tibetan ones hanging in the garden so was immediately enthusiastic about this idea and then discovered that there was also a free class about them on the Creative Workshops site, another example of great synchronicity. Lenna too provides an extensive PDF with imfo about them when you sign up.

So after absorbing all that I set to work. First of all I painted some white cotton in my painting shed (actually half of it belongs to John and is dedicated to all things tool related and some of them get painted too in the process!) and layered that up with hand-dyed fabrics to form a 5 x 11" piece of which I folded over the top edge  to finish up with 5 x 8" flags.

I then rummaged around in my box of imagery printed onto fabric sheets. When I do this printing, I always make sure that the sheets are completely full of pictures as the fabric sheets are quite expensive so you might as well make the most of them and this is how I use up the images I didn't need at the time. I layered these with lace, ribbons etc. and made arrangements I was happy with. You have to remember that the top will be folded over so keep that in mind when arranging your lay-out.

I mostly sewed everything down, including some transparencies I also came across as that to me as a quilter is the most secure way of attaching things together. And these flags are supposed to be hung outside so it's important it's firmly secured.

When that was done I added buttons as and where shown by hand..

For Lenna's swap you only need to make 3 (and get 3 back) but I knew I wanted to keep two myself so that I will eventually end up with 5 to hang up once my returns arrive and I also wanted to make an extra one as a hostess gift for Lenna, so in total I produced 6 flags. I chose the one below and John the one at the very top to keep. I'm leaving Lenna's choice to her out of the remaining 4.

The flags are out!

You might think this is because of the celebrations just mentioned in my previous blog post but John had hung these Tibetan prayer flags up when I was away teaching on Wednesday so they greeted me on arrival home. He hung them so that I can keep looking at them from my studio.

When I went to the Tibetan Centre at the end of May I bought these together with the flags now hanging at the top of the potting shed with the thought that I wanted to distress them. In various circles there has been a Hang Outside and Distress Things project (known as the Erosion Bundle Project) in which bundles of paper and/or fabric are tightly bound together and hung outside for a season or two in wind, rain and sunshine to make it all look old and vintage.

So when at the Tibetan Centre I bought a long line of prayer flags with unfinished edges to do this with but then decided that we might as well enjoy them while they were being distressed. I had not gotten around to doing anything with them however and John decided to put them up as a surprise. They look great hanging in the trees and it will be ever so interesting to see what they will look like a year from now! By that time I hope to have thought up a art piece to use them in.

If you take care of each moment, you will take care of all time.

In case you're wondering the blog title is a quotation from the Buddha and is appropriate to today as I visited the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre . This is hidden in the depths of the Dumfries & Galloway countryside and the drive to it (about 50 miles) was on another (B709) of those single track winding roads that I love so much, going up and down dale, both figuratively and literally speaking.

Driving along these hidden gems in the Scottish countryside is one of my greatest delights, even though it requires your full attention as far as the driving is concerned. Fortunately there are few cars and my main obstacles were in the shape of cattlegrids, sheep, phaesants and even a gaggle of ducks. The only other people on these lanes are also there to admire the view so everyone is going very slowly which is just as well!
I went to the Tibetan Centre to visit an artist studio, open for the Spring Fling ("Scotlands's premier art and craft open studios event", I'm quoting from the brochure here!). In this one studio 2 artists exhibited their work. One a painter (Bella Green) and the other a textile artist specializing in felt (Helen Hastings). I completely fell in love with one of Bella's paintings (a mainly red painting feauring various elements of Venice) but as it was £200 I just about managed to resist this temptation although I did buy one of Helen's felt brooches (a bargain at £5).

I then had Choco Aztec tea with a vegetarian pastie (a strange combination but both very delicious) in the Tibetan Teashop. A visit to the Tibetan shop was next on the agenda. Despite the Buddha advocating finding enlightenment within yourself, there were many, many books for sale to help you find it and I bought Buddha's Little Instruction Book from where I took the title of this blog. Various prayer flags also came home with me to hang in our courtyard. Pictures will follow once they're up. I'm strictly not religious but if I had to lean towards any of the world's religions it would be Buddhism. It is a very peaceful belief system, as opposed to most of the other ones! Also no god(s)!
More wildlife got in my way when I tried to leave as a peacock was admiring himself in the blackness (even though it was not very clean!) of my car. I shoed him away several times but he was back by the time I strapped myself in again so in the end I needed the help of a Tibetan monk before heading back!

On the way home I sort of passed a second-hand book shop. Okay, I made a point of passing it!! And peace finally descended for me when I entered the shop and set too. I know Buddha abhorred all material possessions but me, I need my books (and before I get any comments, all that other stuff I'm so happy to own!) Today the finds just kept on coming. A vintage songbook, 3 vintage newspapers (early 19th C), a 19th C. book about Venice (sorry, I can't leave these behind despite already owning one copy of this one, but the one I obtained today was older), two bound editions of magazines (The Badminton Magazine of Sports & Pastimes, 1895, and The Harmsworth Magazine, no date but my estimate is end of the 19th C).Last but by no means least I swooped down on The Imitation of Christ (very, very Catholic!!), dating from 1882 and with pictures like the ones shown above on each and every page! As I had not spend £200 on that painting I really felt I deserved to spend the £32 to obtain all these beautiful books. The mind might contain all possiblities (another quotation from the Buddha) but the outside world has quite as much to offer in my humble opinion! I scanned a random page to show you and guess what it read at the top of the page: "Of self-denial". Do I need to say more?? Good thing I'm not a Catholic!