on a lighter note

kind dog and i went to cloudehill yesterday and spent a soothing time walking around the lush gardens and marvelling at the colours and textures

once more, with words

i meant to tell you what was what in that last post but found it too difficult. these are very painful and soothing to make - a good healing process but it also means poking around in a very painful place that i have avoided for years.

but i will take you through the mechanics of making these little talismans without dwelling too much on the meaning.

first i take an arm's length of plumber's hemp - forming it into a figure eight around my left thumb and little finger

 i take a strip torn from an old linen napkin

then carefully and gently i wrap and fold the linen around the little body, tucking and smoothing as i go to make it as comfortable as possible.

 like swaddling a small baby to soothe and reassure it.

keep wrapping and tucking until i come to the end of the strip, then hold the end with a pin and start stitching it safely into a bundle, held safe.

i made another larger talisman too - this time using some eucalyptus dyed silk. 

this one is 9 inches long - the smaller ones are between four and five inches.

making the talismans

significance

i have been asked about the talismans of my previous post. what are they? how big are they? how did i make them? what do they mean?

a talisman is a something which has meaning or significance for the holder. these small talismans (small enough to fit into my palm) have enormous significance for me - each one stands for a baby i miscarried between July 23 1992 and September 9 2003. eight babies who were too small to have any significance for the world - remembered only by me. unable to be wrapped and shrouded and held and buried and given the dignity of naming and ritual.

so this is the start of my real, allowed mourning:  eight tiny shrouds. talismanic and powerful. real, able to be held.

 tomorrow i will tell you how i made them - tonight they are here, named and signified. 

talismans

a new project

moon reflections: through the window

 here is my interpretation of the "through the window" challenge for the international quilt challenge group -  i tried a number of other ideas that just didn't work and ended up going with some small pieces i was puddling around with and it became something bigger.

each panel is a piece of linen sprayed with diluted black ink and stitched with silk thread. the moon centre was made by putting a round sponge in the middle of the fabric and spraying the ink around it.

the bottom layer is canvas painted with black gesso and a piece of silk chiffon painted onto the canvas with more diluted black gesso. each panel is stitched on the foundation canvas/silk layer.

the 'sticks' are pieces of cotton mariner's string soaked in a mixture of paverpol, fibre paste, black pigment powder and fabric paint.

running to catch up

i can't let another weekend go by without a blog post: sloth has not been resident chez seadog. here is a phot'overview of the latest productions:

back later in the week with some more words