Wednesday 28 August 2013

Back to Earth, no bump!





5 days in Paris. We travelled by Eurostar. Beautifully quick, no ear ache for Himself, and very relaxing. We stayed in a flat I found on Airbnb, a brilliant site. Check it out!

My favourite day was the flea market. Ibought a lovely fabric-covered glove box. Also some blue metal buttons, which pleased me.

It was a fabulous holiday with many happy memories. I made a souvenir book for myself and kept some tickets and things inside.

book in a matchbox





These are some of my favourite clothes. I wear my favourites till they have holes in them. (So does my Dad). Not everyone agrees with my idea of style…but I don't seem to mind!

the outside of the matchbox is printed from a photograph of our hall. My mum papered it with these Victorian dolls. How 70s!

Saturday 3 August 2013

News from abroad…

A long lost blogger has returned for a short spell. In her absence I have imagined all sorts of horrors. She writes about the resurrection of her rather wonderful house, which so far has taken …is it two years? Can it be? as if that were unheard of, even obscene. And at some cost to herself and her partner. I'm not just talking financial, but many other ways. So when she took a break from posting I'm afraid I feared the worst, and thought of the many ways this kind of strain can play out in a person's life.

Her prose is rather beautiful, and the parallels she draws are apt and poetic.Well, I won't go on…you must read it for yourself. I, for one, am relieved that her online presence has resumed, however briefly, and look forward to the next missive.

Meanwhile, my new brooches are in my etsy shop. Do visit and let me know if they are your cup of tea!
circus puppy

Little Miss Muffet

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Wee Willie Winkie

Friday 2 August 2013

Time for tea




What sort of art can a blind person produce?

Whatever kind they want to, I should think. But concept is perhaps more challenging for the young, sighted or not. I wanted to make something familiar with P, something with a recognisable shape which she could recreate herself out of material we could easily source. 3D is easier for her to revisit, (important if the work is to be meaningful), so we're tending towards papier mache construction.

I had played around with cardboard teacups at home (the idea pleases me - a cup made from paper). I took in the one I had made, and also a plastic cup and saucer I had bought from a jumble sale (remember those?) to give her a reference point.

I had a template I'd downloaded from the internet, and P fixed it together with tape and then covered it with glue and wrapping paper. She worked at giving the cardboard total coverage, and smoothing the paper down as much as she could, and I made one too, to keep her company.

Afterwards, though, it seemed that more was needed to make it into a 'piece'. So we typed 't' in braille, and cut them up into individual 't's. We suspended P's cup  from a wooden frame, made by one of our maintenance staff, using invisible plastic thread, and glued mine to the deck. Then we threaded the ts together and put them on so they were spilling out of the cups.

My photos are hurried affairs, but you get the idea?

Thursday 1 August 2013

I'm melting…

It's too hot to go out, too hot to stay in. Too hot downstairs, too hot upstairs. I love it like this.

Here's my new idea - not so much quilting, less textile, more solid and smaller. These brooches are still made from printed cotton (the scraps), but they are then mounted onto sheets from an old paperback book (a Penguin, naturally), and have a brooch or pin attached. Some of them then have another sheet or two of paper glued on for strength, and others have some feedsack instead. Number One Child prefers the paper approach - I think it's great, but I'm worried people won't think it's pretty enough.

What do you think?