Oh Tannenbaum

Oh Christmas tree oh Christmas tree
Of all the trees most lovely
Oh Christmas tree Oh Christmas tree
Of all the trees most lovely
Each year you bring to me delight,
meaning in the Christmas night
Oh Christmas tree Oh Christmas tree
............with faithful leaves unchanging

My tree is filled with decorations that have so much meaning for me and my family. There are all those wonderful little girl handmade angels and fairies and baubles.
Then there are the many angels from the years I spent making a Christmas angel to mark the passing of the years. Only kept up for about 10 though. I can spy other ornaments I made at quilt meetings, retreats, or WIP days. Many others were given as gifts...quilting friends and an exchange with a quilt group in the U.S. There are those bought by my Mum each year for her young granddaughters . Two of these show the wear from being taken off the tree and played with. There are handmade decorations I purchased from fundraising gift stalls. There is a special teddy from my godmother and a red bird I received in a Girl Guide secret Santa swap. All treasured and all bring special memories.

Christmas cats

Today having fun creating something from what I can find. So here is a Christmas angel for 2017. The hankie was in my pile of vintage white hankies and I noticed the bells embroidered on. That  was the starting point. Christmas bells, then some folding and it became a dress for an angel. Then the search for the angel was on. Not many around here .I was thinking if I had any wooden large beads with faces or not as I could paint them on. Then I thought maybe an old doll would have a head I could pull off....told you no angels. Found a bag of ‘stuff’ and in it was these two little abandoned Sylvania cats. So they became Christmas angel cats. Mother and child , Madonna and baby, Mary and Jesus.

The small lace tablecloth in the hoop was inspired by a similar hanging hoop by @aknitakcreations . The Cat angel can be packed away after Christmas and another object placed in the hoop...or not maybe they’ll hang around for awhile.

Journey

As I contemplate my entry into the 2018 SoTA ( state of the Art ) exhibition I have been reflecting back on this piece Journey which was juried into the exhibition in 2012. I had painted and stenciled a piece of calico. This sat for awhile before I noticed the large central circle. The colours led from there and the boat as a symbol for a journey came from the quote by Mark Twain

         ‘ Twenty years  from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do
             than by the ones you did do.
             So throw off the bow lines , sail away from the safe harbour’

Boats and sailing on the high seas have always been a part of the folklore within my family now and in the past. The words  salt spray,  trade winds, marine, anchor, ocean, roaring forties, mainsail, Cape Horn and North winds touch the part of me that holds the genetic memory of ocean sailing and always invoke a feeling of excitement and longing and so these were used to form a mind map for stitching on this journey.

After watching and dabbling in slowstich by following along with Jude Hill @spiritcloth I knew this was the style of textile work I preferred. Hand stitch , slow stitch , story cloth , mindful stitching , soft, organic, free, no rules, no confinement, mending , darning, vintage and tattered textiles.  So my little piece Journey was the start of a new journey for my work.
 Now to 2018’s entry 🤔

Chicken Cushion

I got this chicken or maybe rooster embroidery from somwewhere as a give away . No definitely chicken as one is named Rita. Blocked and stitched to a piece of vintage wool blanket. Just a simple overlap on the back to join. Used all recycled materials , the embroidery, blanket , bias binding and embroidery thread.

ladies in waiting

These ladies pushed themselves to the fore during my searching in the studio for something else. They have been doing it a lot lately but so far I have managed to keep them under control and well hidden under piles of fabrics also waiting for attention.
Ok ok I will see what I can do. Out came a recently thrifted vintage hand towel. This gave some colour choices. Pinks and green with a touch of orange.  Then of course hats are needed so maybe these odd lace scraps will give some cohesion and I don’t have to think about fashioning hats , or fascinators. The green is a failed experiment firstly it was disperse dyed in a workshop then I threw into a green dye when I was dying some other fabric for a project.

The ladies themselves are faces I painted years ago when my fascination was making dolls , especially with attitude. So this is a strip of about 5 faces ready to cut ,sew and stuff for the heads. But now they want something gentler like this white cotton hand towel. They don’t have to stress about details and sitting straight.

Adornment

I made this little felted pod a few years ago at Spinners Weavers and dyers. It was a bit ordinary so I decided today to add some surface embellishments to it. So I used some cream vintage crochet thread and blanket stitched around the rim, adding extra stitches and a web like structure across the opening. This led down to the side and I finished up with French knots. Just rambling along not planning but enjoying the process. These just came off the needle and landed at a place where they needed to be Enjoying its new found adornments giving new life to this wee pod.

I am thinking I might poke around amongst my old bits of lacey  scraps and add some of that as well.

House

Started making a house this morning out of a vintage table napkin. It was crisp with starch so the folds went in easily. A door developed out of the image and was stitched down. Needed to cover some rough bumpy bits so flowers were cut to become eyes. Happy Eyes, sleepy eyes maybe at the moment they just are looking out and waiting. Will it be Grandmas house, or Margaret Olley Hat Factory or some other place from the mind. My house where all it’s lovely imperfections are overlooked. It really needs some house work but I’d rather be stitching.

Home must always be the loveliest spot in the world....LM Montgomery 

Collect things you love, that are authentic to you

And your house becomes Your Story