100!

Well, today is my 100th post! 100 days of thoughts and ideas and trees and books and ramblings. And seen as 100 seems like an important number to get to I thought I'd celebrate by having a little give away... (think of it as a thank you putting up with me :) )


So if you'd like to receive a little something from me in the post just leave a comment on this post (say by 8pm on Friday?) and the one I pick randomly from the hat (although it will probably be a cardboard box, but hey) will be the winner of this book you see here...


It's not very practical for writing in but it's fun to hold and wiggle around!


I really appreciate the support I have found from you lovely community of bloggers. And not to go all soppy but I think it's really made a difference to my out look on life. I feel like I notice things more now, ponder things more, make things more. So thank you. And now don't be shy, leave a comment!

oops

I think this tidying thing has gone a bit far... I am now the proud owner of a fully organised and categorised iphoto library...


You see I discovered a new way of organising pictures. Up until now they were all just shoved in the library together, book pictures next to chicken pictures next to trees, until someone introduced me to film rolls. Just like little boxes to put all the pictures in...


So now I know exactly where to find each photo, should I need it. Phew.


There is something productive going on though...

tweedy

Not much on the creative front today, as I've been tidying out my cupboards and boxes and shelves and reorganizing everything into more sensible places. I'm telling myself this time spent will be helpful in the long run, that now all the cotton is together in one box and coloured paper together in another there will be less 'where is this?' distractions and I will be more productive in general...


or I could just be procrastinating...


Anyway. I didn't make this bag. It's a gift (I'm so lucky at the moment! I suppose it's my consolation for not having a summer holiday this year) from Donegal in Ireland, this tweed is normally made into rather fetching hats. Well, I love a bit of tweed so this is perfect! And silky mustard lining too, what more could you want...


Happy Sunday!

tea

Now I like a nice cup of tea. Solves many a problem in my opinion. So it was a lovely surprise when a friend at work brought me back a little box of tea from her trip to China. It came in a beautiful cardboard box which would've been a present enough in its self...


The label says jasmine tea but inside was not loose tea or even tea bags, just some little greenish bundles...


So whilst the kettle boiled into the cup one went. And what a surprise! Gently the tea began to bubble and slowly slowly the petals began to open...


A beautiful flower appearing before my eyes, and yet still the petals kept unfolding...


tiny lemon yellow flowers hidden inside...


which floated up to the surface, revealing yet more flowers, this time bright pink and yellow... a minature under water world...


Amazing!

time

Sorry for the recent lack of posts around here…

It was graduation day on Friday at the university where I work. I was an usher for the day and it left me with the vague feeling of being an extra in Harry Potter... I really enjoy looking at all the different colours and styles of gown, some of them are very extravagant with gold tassels and embroidery and beads, it seems the more qualified you get the snazzier the robe...


And then it was off to Liverpool for my auntie’s wedding. I had a really lovely time despite the fact it rained all day (good old British summer time eh!?). The wedding favours were brilliant, not sweets but seeds! Little match book type packets of different seeds, the seeds stuck to the ends of cardboard 'matches' that you pop in the soil and up pops a flower... perfect!


And to top off a lovely weekend on Sunday I went to see my bestest friend Emily. She lives by the sea and we went for a walk on Crosby beach in the glorious sunshine (British summer time!)


On the beach are currently situated 100 life size cast iron men, part of the artist Antony Gormley’s work ‘Another Place’ which covers a 2.5km stretch of the coast. The men are placed up to 1km out to sea so depending on the tide when you visit are varying degrees submerged, sometimes covered completely, sometimes just a head appears and disappears between the waves. As we where there when the tide was right out many of the men we saw were usually under water and so were covered in rust, barnacles and moss...


All face in the same direction; out to sea. I felt almost like they were waiting for something to happen, so still and calm. And although I'm scared of dummys I actually really liked these sculptures, something about their presence was intriguing, perhaps it was the scale, the fact at first glance it seems there are only one or two and the longer you look the more you see, all the way out to the horizon...


They won't be on the beach for ever, they'll move somewhere else soon, but I'm really glad I got to see them. I like it when sculpture means something to me and seems to fit with the environment it's placed it. I like that these figures draw attention to the scale of their surroundings, looking out into the distance, standing solid as the waves wash over them.

All in all a lovely weekend, hope yours was just as happy!

spots!

Finally a bit of sunshine... And a day off work to make me feel much better! So I got myself out in the garden and took a few photos of the bag for my friend's birthday tomorrow.


I really enjoyed making this bag (from this book again) Yet another thing that I hope I'll one day get round to making for myself, I'm sure I could fill this bag with knitting things or sewing things or drawing things or... And I'm sure the pockets around the outside would be very useful...


Perhaps to hold a handy notebook and pen, or something fairly vital around here these days...


And a gratuitous shot of the lining, just because it's spotty and I like it!


Another day off work tomorrow (hurray!) hoping for sunny sunny sunshine :)

cold

I've got a cold. Which is really annoying seen as I like to think I don't get colds... hmmm oh well. It's also still raining, which means no nice photos of the bag to show you.


Instead I found this picture of me, taken last weekend, by my friend (I didn't know he had the camera out, I was concentrating on my knitting!) Taken before I felt like my head was going to explode, in the garden after we mowed the lawn, when it was sunny and bright. Perhaps tomorrow?

concentration

Thinking about it, it's actually been ages since I've really got into a project. You know that feeling when you can't stop and you almost forget where you are and you loose all sense of time? I love that, when all other thoughts go from my mind and it's absolute concentration.


It doesn't happen very often these days, there always seems to be a distraction. Sometimes it's in my head 'this is rubbish' 'what am I actually trying to do?' doubts seem to creep in and slow me down, bring me back to reality. Sometimes it's my environment; the scissors have been moved, the paper I'm after is upstairs behind a load of junk, not enough room on the table, haven't got a table etc etc. All little things, but things that conspire to disrupt. I suppose that's why I moan on about not having a studio all the time...


But yesterday it happened. I got home from work, picked up the material and just started to cut (I didn't even have a cup of tea which is very unusual!) And time just flew, now that's what I'm talking about!


Perhaps it's because it's a present for my best friend (and I found out yesterday her boyfriend proposed to her in Paris, she's getting married!!) and I want to make it extra well, although expectation usually makes things worse in my experience... I think it's partly because the pattern was quite complicated, and it became like solving a big puzzle, cutting the pieces the right shape, sewing them the right way up and working it all out. I let myself be not too worried about perfectly straight edges or perfect sewing, and just kind of got along with it. It's the first time I've sewn something and not had that niggling doubt at the back of my mind about it not being quite right. And I 'm liking it.


So I'm off to finish it...

market

Last day of term today, but I'm going back in September, so that's good news! Finished early so took a little trip to the market...


I like walking down this street, lovely arched windows and then the view of the domes at the end on the market. And there's some right bargains in there too (although I don't like the meat street!) I got some new fabric for another bag for another birthday...


This pattern is supposedly harder than the previous ones I've sewn, so we'll see how it turns out... Happy Thursday!

trees

Today Riverlark left a lovely comment on my blog. A poem to celebrate my new banner, which I think is an absolutely lovely idea! The poem is beautiful, by W.S. Merwin; a poet I have never come across before, and the sentiment is so perfect I thought I would put the poem here for all to see...

Trees

I am looking at trees
they may be one of the things I will miss
most from the earth
though many of the ones I have seen
already I cannot remember
and though I seldom embrace the ones I see
and have never been able to speak
with one
I listen to them tenderly
their names have never touched them
they have stood round my sleep
and when it was forbidden to climb them
they have carried me in their branches

I think perhaps I will treat myself to this book, Amazon says "Merwin is not only profoundly anti-imperialist, pacifist and environmentalist, but also possessed by an intimate feeling for landscape and language and the ways in which land and language interflow" Sounds like a good read to me!

(And it's a good opportunity for a tree picture too, you can never have too many tree pictures can you. This one is growing in the park by my old house in the city center, taken last year in winter at dusk on my way home. The park had lots of blackbirds, starlings, wood pigeons and one day a sparrow hawk. Not sure which one the bird in the picture is, but it was having a good old sing.)

prints

I've never done much mono-printing, but it's something I've always like the idea of. The results are fairly instant (depending, I suppose, on how long you want to take...) and it's also pretty low tech, which is great for me at the moment (what with having no studio an all that).

So, I decided to have a bit of a mess around with some acrylic (turns out it dries too quickly, but hey) and plants, an empty biro and a roller...


I think I like the one below the best... random leaves from the woods...

In fact, I think the reason I like it is due to the fact the acrylic ground I was printing from had semi dried and happened to print the end of the drawing more faintly. So it turned out ok in the end.


There's got to be a moral in that story somewhere!

buttons

Buttons were the answer...


And all along the bottom are little pockets for anything a three year old might wish to put in there...

not today

Sometimes my brain works. It thinks of things, makes plans and carries them out without too much trouble (sometimes). Processes thoughts and generally gets on with things...


Other times, like recently, it just simply seems to refuse. Why is that? Perhaps I'm asking too much...


I wanted to write about the lovely bag I'd finished, but unfortunately it's no further along. The circle decoration is not working, it looks better on paper than in real life, perhaps its the colours, the shapes. I'm thinking perhaps buttons instead, and little felt leaves (another trip to the haberdashery, what a shame!) Anyway.


When I feel like this I wonder how I ever manage to create anything at all. Sometimes it helps to look back through my note books; the books in which I write the things I think of whilst making so as not to forget them; the things I write and scribble to remind myself of all the possibilities that occur when in the middle of something else, when all the ideas seem to come at once.


Looking back usually manages to bring something to mind, perhaps a previously sewn seed will sprout overnight...

oh well

I wanted to finnish this tonight...


and sort out the fact that my bedroom window looks like this...


Hmmm, something not quite right there.... And I was supposed to mow the lawn. But instead I doodled a bit...


and had a little nap here...


oops!

a journey

I think I've always been fascinated by journeys. As a child, before we went on a trip, I used to get my mum to show me the way on a map, and be captivated by how the coloured lines and symbols represented the way we would go. I used to draw maps of the woods around my house, dotted lines for paths and colour codes for shortcuts and secret places. I love how something that can fold up and fit in your pocket can hold all that information of time and place that's sometimes so hard to comprehend as you're travelling through it.


Yesterday I went to Manchester. On the bus and train and bus again. Travelling always gets me thinking, perhaps its the combination of moving so fast and yet sitting still, it allows my brain to wander. On the bus it stops and starts, a fleeting look at some bits of the journey, a longer look at bus stops and traffic lights, enforced detail. But it's different on the train, whisked through the landscape, backs of houses, tunnels, secret places, coloured lines. Perhaps its the speed, through time and space.


I imagine leaving a trail where I've been, a tangled mesh of lines around my house, thick where I go often, forging out into not yet visited places, like yesterday. My own map, 4D, 1:1 scale.