a fresh start for the new year

It's been over 2 years since my last post. After a long hiatus I have decided to start recording some of the things I'm working on. There's a lot of mistakes  and failures involved in being creative, I learn from them all.

A recipe journal for my mother inspired by a workshop I did with Jessie Chorley in London earlier this year.

I used an old book called Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, which I found in that amazing second-hand bookshop in Wantage.

Inside I stuck blank, graph or brown paper for plain pages, indispersed with old adverts, kitchen tip, cooking times and recipes that are part of my mother's story.

I made a secret window in the back portion of the book, gluing the pages together. Inside I put a tiny doll's mug and used some doll's house wallpaper.

I am pleased with it, but wish the pages weren't so crunkled. I think I'll try using spray mount for the next journal.

It's finished now, apart from a tiny knife, fork and spoon set which I'm going to sew to the smaller button on the front of the journal.

Artweeks Exhibition 2011

Some pictures of my recent exhibition...

silk thread (sigh)

I love my new thread - it's French!

Linen dishcloths

I'm very pleased with how my dishcloths are coming along. I'm using linen yarn and crocheting them with a 2.3 hook. The labels are on linen ribbon, embroidered in linen thread.

Another bloody end to a bloody day

I spent all day embroidering a tea towel with a new design and just as I was unsuccessfully trying to iron out the wrinkles with Dan's crappy old iron, I knocked over a mug of peppermint tea. I stopped ironing to rescue stuff and when I'd mopped up the last of it under the table I went back to my ironing only to discover I'd left the iron on the tea towel and left a lovely brown iron-shaped burn ..... words cannot express my displeasure

New Year's Day and getting on with things

I have finally produced two dishcloths I'm a bit happy with for my installation in May.

One of them is only the second thing I've successfully crocheted (!) I'm v excited about learning something new. I need more cotton yarn tho' - Masons' selection is rubbish. I think a trip to John Lewis is called for...

The other one is part of my continual struggle to create a knitting pattern using text that I'm happy with. I think this is the closed I've come to it so far but it could still be improved...

It's the first day of the year and I'm happy to be back in my studio. The noisy children have left a wonderful emptiness in the air, broken only by Timothy's naughty barking out in the garden.

There is such a lot to do this year. I feel the business creeping in. I must resist!!

Praying and thumbsucking

So someone asked me to do an illuminated Lord's Prayer for them...

I prayed and thought about it for a long time..

Then I started work.

I'd said the Lord's Prayer nearly everyday between the ages of 4 and 11, parrot-style, along with my classmates, not hearing the words I spoke and not believing the truth contained within. Consequently I have to work very hard at really seeing and hearing what Jesus is praying in these verses.

But it's the first two words that always knock me over. 'Our Father'. This is what I can never get over. That the God of the universe, the Maker of heaven and earth wants me to call Him Father. I will never recover from that.

But not only that! As my niece Grace would say 'There is more!' Jesus tells me I must become like a little child. Jesus said this is how you should pray, 'Our Father...' It's no coincidence that people who're especially close to God (think Heidi Baker) have a childlikeness about them. It's Heidi who says, 'it took me a long time to get this simple', I think.

So I chose Linus to illustrate our simple, trusting, childlike praying. And when I wavered God showed me that his name, Linus, sounds a bit like 'lion in us', which is a clue I think, to the truth that, in a Chrisian, greatness comes from humility.