a bit broken

things have been a bit curtailed around here because i have done my back again - i put the bins out and did too much computer/sitting stuff last week and bang - my achilles heel of l4/l5 went on strike. so this week i've had daily visits to the physio (my chiropractor who did my back so much good last year seems to have moved to another galaxy) and i'm having an mri next week. so much sooking and very little creativity.....

i do deserve some brownie points and an elephant stamp for finally sewing up the ruffly cardi i made last winter. i knitted the last piece just as the hot weather started so there hasn't been much incentive to sew it up until now - but it's very cosy and rather stylish - photos to come

i have also been doing a little light handstitching - i bought contemporary whitework by tracy franklin and nicola jarvis last year and have long admired the work of karen ruane. she does amazingly densely stitched pieces of great delicacy that i could never aspire to. but i have enjoyed playing with some fine crochet cotton and dupion silk - making clusters of eyelets and bigger cut eyelets. this will be destined for the dyepot at some stage and i'm toying with what will be peeking through the holes.i also did some momigami inspired by ampersand duck's method described here. this time i wrote random words and sentences onto a longish sheet of khadi paper with the vague idea of making some kind of textiley pillow book.and now i'm off to my bed as i had some rather mediaeval traction this morning and i'm still feeling a bit faint and wobbly

brrrrrrr

we've had another lurch towards winter this week - it's grey and drizzly outside and chilly enough to wear three layers of woollies. w and i are keeping our chests warm inside as we brew related virus lurgies of the sore throat, croupy cough kind. so not a day for manic creativity but i have been pottering around sorting things out on the sewing table

starting some random shibori - crochet cotton on muslin - that will make it into the cloque vat of caustic soda at some point over the weekend

thinking about what to do with this amazing fabric i found at the fabric shop in brunswick street the other week. it's linen with drops of resin - i'm thinking of seeing what happens when i paint it with henna

and this sequinned extravaganza is amazing in a very different way - it's eye-poppingly shiny and blue - i saw it in gj's last week when i was finding envy/jealousy fabrics and couldn't resist it - i think it will be a sea element in a future burnt quilt.

back in 1967...

my cousin peter has been uploading old family super 8 film to flickr and it's just magical. peter and i are the same age and with our mothers being twins we always felt much closer than cousins.

this magical piece of film was shot in autumn 1967 when he and i were two and a half, pete's brother john was nearly five and my younger brother just a few months old. how cool are those colours? i remember that jumper with the white bunnies around the bottom

anger redux

ok - we're onto the next phase of working out this technique. (with a little help from an experienced critic)
last night i took the soldering iron and attacked the slashes hoping to open them out more and show them as claw marks or wounds.
i think it's getting angrier - am now thinking of adding some handstitching in scarlet, once it stops being used as a bed...
and envy is brewing on the sewing table

anger

start with this
add this (and a little light slashing)
and you get thisi like it but i'm not sure if it conveys anger enough. i might hop into it with the heat gun and or the soldering iron on the weekend.

new

my lovely friend annabel sent me what she described as 'only a manky bit of material; one of my mistakes'. when i saw it on her blog and protested at her plans to overdye it she very generously posted it to me - where she saw mank i saw great possibilities....

it arrived yesterday and i rushed out straight away to investigate the new fabric shop in brunswick st fitzroy where i found some lovely silk chiffon in just the right colours....
this will become 'jealousy' part of a new series of quilts expressing some of the more overwhelming human passions - jealousy, envy, grief...

for jealousy i am thinking sour greens, bilious yellows, bitter puce - hard corrosive colours that clash undercut by the despair of black and the passion of red. and techniuque? not a burnt quilt this time but a damaged wholecloth - slashed, distorted.

hurrah

we had a birthday here this week and excessive was the cake thereupon