Mend

These are all images of a small dish I mended to hold and keep safe. It was inspired by the Japanese style of mending broken ceramics. This is Kintsugi. Traditionally gold is used giving a colour and acknowledgment of the repair done. It is not meant to be hidden. It is respect to the old and worn, they are valued. So I have stitched the broken pieces of this small dish using a golden toned thread. The fabric is all either ecodyed or as in the case of the pale blue a dip in a very depleted indigo vat.

This wee plate was always part of my memory of my mother’s collected items. She bought it during her travels in Europe when she lived and worked in London in the 1950’s. It was never used but just there. I had it in my possession for only weeks when I did something without thinking and it smashed to the floor. All I could do was pick up the pieces and place them in a box then hidden away in a drawer. So now they are united again into something special, different but held in this altered way in my memories. 

So now they are a 9 patch . Two missing pieces leaving gaps. The gaps are important because without them it would be 7 not the strength and balance of 9, 

and this is ‘where the light gets in’. 

Sulphure Crested Cockatoo

Another bird. Same style as the magpie .

I am loving these birds so much that I will do another. A kookaburra. A trio of Australian birds on ecodyed silk.

Vase

Mixed media ,flowers in a vase. Looking at it now in a photograph I see the stems don’t continue into the vase and some leaves are simply popping out of the flowers. But does it matter. If there were stems it would be too much.
Flowers on vintage book page . I have really enjoyed this process of building up a surface then layer by layer adding to it.

Collage

l have been working on some background in preparation for collage. This will be cut up and used . Heavy brown and black with a touch of gold for the mountain plan.

Boxing Day

The red Christmas table cloth has not yet been cleared away, the tinsel that came out of the confetti filled bon- bons is still lying scattered but I have pulled out a magpie to continue on with.
He is sitting on a piece of ecodyed silk which may or may not be where he will eventually reside.

He has tiny bits of lace for texture and various scraps of different blacks. He is only tacked at the moment and I need to consider an eye . It will have to be on the black part,  so maybe a button sewn on with white thread. Will add more of a tree or branch, but I know the exact pieces needed but can’t find them among my boxes of fabrics.

‘Hello Mr Magpie , How’s Your Wife and Kids’

The first Christmas

Tonight I got caught out in a thunderstorm. Walking at night on a trip that is twenty minutes from home. The lightning was in the sky, thunder rolling , sky dark and cloudy. Then nearly got knocked over by wind before the rain hit with a vengeance. Before too long the footpath was crossed by streaming floodlets of water, the lightening flashed closer. We sheltered in a bus shed half way home. Cold an d soaking wet.

One conversation went like this
Emily “wouldn’t it be awful to be killed by lightening tonight”
Me “ well we wouldn’t know about it then “
Emily “ but for everyone else it would be really awful”

So sitting sheltering in the bus stop with all this wildness going on I was regretting the last drink when we could have left to walk home ahead of the storm. I wanted to be home , dry, with the Carols by Candlelight on Tv , the Christmas tree lit up, sitting comfortably on the lounge.
Then My thoughts went to the very first Christmas. And I was filled with calm and was grateful.

Elves

I am not sure how long these elves have sat waiting to be finished. Years. So now here they are sitting on the piano. All I need to do is draw in their wee faces and to write a letter on each cotton reel body. The kit showed Xmas but I cannot stand that abbreviation of the meaningful word Christmas. So maybe Merry or Peace .oops I have deleted the photo so will take it again in the morning. In the meantime here are some decorations I made several years ago. Made with copper, beads , fabric, thread, stitch, wire and embroidery.

Ocean Bubble

Today I made this little ‘snow globe’ using an old tiny , wooden angel , a scrap of vintage lace and an old wooden cotton reel. I had actually made the wee decoration last year but decided to put her in a bubble this year.  But of course in Australia as there is no snow at Christmas time it cannot possible be a snow globe. So it must be an Ocean Bubble, a Sea Bubble, the Crest of the wave globe. This is how many of my Christmas’ of the past were spent. At the beach. An early morning swim in the ocean followed by a large lunch a rest and possibly another swim or at least a walk along the shore before the sun set.
This is my homage to that time of My Christmas.

She is defiantly traditional in her blue dress, small crown, bell and star. She only has one wing which only adds to the Aussie adage of ‘she’ll be right mate’. So maybe I’ll call her Angel Sheila.

Little Angels

During the last few days I found these two little angels. They each are only about 1.5 cms high. The glass one came into the dustpan after sweeping under a kitchen hutch. I think it is the tiny tip of a little glass Christmas tree that broke last year. Oops don’t clean under my furniture often. The wooden one is from I don’t know, where. It must have broken off something maybe a decoration ,but not sure.

So now keeping a look out for a third one. Things come in threes. Triple, trios.
What do you call a group of angels, the collective noun . A choir ? A herald? A flock?

Little Cat

I made this little cat using a pattern from @annwood. Then today added some pants for him to wear.k

He is only about 6 inches and feels comfortable held in one hand. The cats Pablo and Sampson were not very impressed with him being posed next to them for photos. They were enjoying the back yard after some heavy and much needed and prayed for rain. So there was a lot for them to sniff at. This sniffing the freshness in the yard did not include a perky little cloth friend. 

Just enjoying the making as I go along. I made the little cat entirely by hand , slowly.

Quiet

Something happened last week that really got me reflecting. In a group setting each of us was saying one adjective to describe another. Someone said to me ‘Elle est calme’ , She is quiet.  This is something not new to me. All my life from young adult I have heard  ‘you are quiet’ or those trying to be funny have said ‘you talk too much’ or other such statements that made the rest of a group chuckle.  These words I came to dread, I felt less than others, somewhat different and not quite up to scratch. I would watch others in group settings and see them butt in, not hold the thoughts or message the other had said, make witty asides, speak louder to be the dominant voice, not be able to actually comment on each other’s words. It’s not better than it’s just different.
So now to last week I realised after that it didn’t bother me. It has been a long time since I’ve heard these words. I am content with quiet because I know the power and strength it holds. I know it’s value and mine and now in this fast paced world of busy -ness people are turning to mindfulness, to meditation, to slow cooking ,slow living and slow stitching.
I stitched my ‘quiet’ onto a piece of the mint dyed cotton that waited quietly for all those months as the fabric took hold of the colour. It will be stitched to the inside of my Alchemists Apron so only I can see it to remind me of the value of quiet.

Mint dye

I opened a solar dye jar recently that had fabric, cotton threads and linen doileys sitting outside for about 10 months. Into this jar was water ands heaps of fresh mint.

This was an old used ball of white cotton crochet thread. The dark stain is where a mass of mint leaves sat during this time and the pale colour is the mint dye liquid.

This picture does not show the lovely soft warm yellow that these fabrics turned out.The dark marks again are where the mint leaves sat during the time brewing quietly in the jar. One will be used as a background for another Little Red and I will stitch with the thread on another. Watch this space.....ha haI have so many plans and ideas that this may just have to wait.