This little ditty

Punchneedle embroidery has been referred to as thread painting because of

its ability to create intricate designs...

...the concept is simple ~ thread or yarn is punched through a fabric with a pencil-shaped hollow needle,

leaving tufted loops on the top of the fabric.

Viewed this close, don't the loops look large, akin to a hooked rug?

They're not.  They're itty-bitty.  And I wish you could feel the texture of

this.

So fine!

It is embroidery thread...masses and masses of embroidery thread
and much softer than I had imagined...

A thousand  THANK YOUs  to Penny for creating this little ditty bag
and for hosting such a delightful Spring Giveaway over on her blog, Art Journey
(where my name jumped out of the winner's hat.)

Truth be told, I couldn't wait to pull out the contents to see what Penny
had hidden inside...

...that's when I discovered how meticulously lined it was,

with delicate hand stitches all around the top edge

and circumnavigating the entire wee handle.

One awesome ditty bag, wouldn't you say?

Penny has been working on punchneedle pieces for some time now.

I have been fascinated by her blog posts describing her process

and progress through experimentation with loop heights, design choices and color mixing of threads.

If you'd like to see more of what she's up to, hop on over to Art Journey

and do a keyword search on "punchneedle."

Two of my very faves are this one (love the button)

and this (love this button even more!)

With much gratitude,

this little ditty has found a good home...

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Next exit...

This is the exit I'm taking this weekend...

see you there?

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My Other Self...

While visiting the other day over at Kate's blog, Chronicles of a Country Girl, 

I became intrigued with a challenge she'd taken up...

seems that a fellow blogger, Karen at This Old House 2,

has invited anyone interested to answer this question:

"What does YOUR Other Self look like?"

Thought I'd play along...

***None of the photos are mine - please click on the highlighted word in each caption for credits.

My Other Self bravely roams the wilds of the earth and then

writes the most  heartbreaking  painfully beautiful poems

to tell the tales...

she has so much strength she is

powerful enough to free Tibet...

She is also clever enough to learn time travel...

she'd go back to 1777 so that she could wear this dress 

if only for one day...

(ohh the voluminous fabric, all that exquisite bead embroidery!)

She would study drawing with this man in 1474...

and being tireless, she would then wander the desert with O'Keefe

for a long, long time.

My Other Self strives harder to put the world to rights...

and makes sure every dawg has a home.

 

My Other Self  always  maintains an interesting and positive perspective, 

even if that means standing in the darkness awhile until her eyes adjust

or extending herself beyond what she ever thought possible.

: : : : :

If you'd like to join in the fun, please do.  Just link to Karen at This Old House 2.  Lots of good reads over there from many 'Other Self's...

Hope you've all been enjoying a lovely weekend,

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Intertwined

Does this look familiar?  It's over there, on the upper right side of my blog...a detail from my avatar.  I've used that image ever since joining Blogger.  Probably well overdue for a change but I'm quite attached to it at this point.  I can be loyal to a fault.

I decided to tell you more about this beaded piece today because my dear beadiful friend Robin, once told me that this was one of her favorites and since she was majorly responsible for setting me on the blogging path to begin with and oh heck, for setting me on the beading path to begin with, it only seemed appropriate.  

We were doing a bit of catching up on the phone last night.  So much has been happening for both of us, it's been easy to lose track of time.  Robin's mom recently passed away (a lovely post about her mom on her blog here) and through the grieving some quiet steps forward have begun.  One of these steps is to "lighten my load," as she described it, something Robin learned from her mom about traveling lighter in later years.  To that end, Robin has decided to part with some of her own original beadwork.  Golly.  

Here is the link to her very upbeat blog post about this decision - if you've ever yearned to own a Robin Atkins *one-of-a-kind* this is quite an opportunity.  She's parting with many of the miniature technique samplers she beaded for her book,  Heart to Hands Bead Embroidery - 22 of them (although many have sold already).  You can check them out here.  Many more goodies to come, too.

So back to this piece...my August page for the 2008 Bead Journal Project, Three Shells, following on the year-long theme of exploring my relationship with where I live.  Using beads and found objects collected during that particular month, I hoped to reveal what my island life is like...

and in that process, increase my connection to it...

...all about tides, sea glass, multi-colored beach stones, layered reflections of sky, sea foam.

Looking back on it now it seems a kind of beaded poem to my home.  And three years on I see that I have become much more a part of this place after all.

Lovely to have you visit, my friends, till next time...

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So different, yet still the same?

Years ago as a child, I used to keep scrapbooks (didn't we all?) and later in junior college, journals  -  a proverbial mountain of them.  Oh my, I was filled with so much angst in those days - I'm so glad they're over.  Then it was off to art college and my whole life was recorded in sketchbooks of some form or another.  Each of those venues was about the record-keeping, having a spot to put things one didn't want to forget...or was inspired by...a place to capture an idea before it flew.  For good.

Lately,  forced into a stretch of "down time" away from all my usual life activities ...you know, that spot of trouble with my right hand I've mentioned before...I've had a lot of time to think.  Unable to do many of my most loved things, I have finally been able to type so I decided to use this big chunk of time and catch up with the art world in general and more specifically my three main passions: photography, textile art, and beadwork, all via the internet.  Guilt free research.  Heaven.

I'm going to blame what happened next on Robyn over at Art Propelled (go over and look at her blog, it's gorgeous) because she started a Tumblr blog  (Tumblr...huh?...what's that?)  I came across it by trawling one late night and one thing led to another, some correspondence started, questions were answered and before I knew it, Robyn had persuaded me to start one of my own.

She has not steered me wrong.  It's been fantastic!

All the images I'm posting today are from my Tumblr collection and can be clicked over there to enlarge.    The globe can be found here, girl in the dress here.


The outcome of this leap into yet ANOTHER blog (good grief, I can barely deep up with this wee blog!) is now I have a scrapbook, a journal, and an idea sketchbook all in one spot.  Hopefully I will no longer be losing links to wonderful things I see online.  Best of all?  My image library is growing into a veritable encyclopedia of inspiration...

Images above:  wagga by India Flint here, painted leaves here.

When I sat down to write this post, I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it.  Generally, I love to share images, you all know that by now, but when I pulled up my Tumblr Archive today's theme almost shouted at me.  Funny what happens when you mass together a group of pictures that strike a chord.  You begin to see yourself more clearly.  You begin to see how you see...

Images above: feather from Normandy, France, here;  17th century Ottoman tent here.

My penchant for spirals cropped up repeatedly.  I must have a good twenty bookmarked so far.  These two - a macro & an aerial - are favorite extremes...

Images above: spiral lacework on velvet here, Richat structure in the Sahara Desert here.


More extremes, real and imagined...

Images above:  bridge here, illustration of precipice here.


Knitting - sharing some cell structure with trees?  It's all about relationships really....

Images above:  lace weight knitting here, photomicrograph of juvenile pine here.


Ann Wood creates the most fantastic owls from repurposed vintage clothing and bits of old quilts, utilizing antique buttons for eyes, paper mache feet and hand stitching details.  The boro patching on the right was utilitarian in nature, traditional.  I love these two photos together, contemporary alongside timeworn...

Images above: owl here, sashiko stitching & boro patching here.


Images above:  cloud tree here, flowering tree here.

I think these two are quite extraordinary together, right down to the matching high collars..

Images above:  woman with medallion here, Thomas Dodd's 'Brainstorm' here.

As you reach the end of my post and see these last two photos, you may be asking yourself, "what on earth...???"  Up on the left is an inflatable bicycle helmet for the fashion conscious.  And on the right?  Well, that's my hand, after yesterday's surgery on the infamous finger that drove me to all this in the first place.  My very own finger helmet.

So different yet still the same, don't you think?

Be sure to let me know if you're on Tumblr and I'll come by your place for a visit  :>]

Images above: bicycle helmet here and here.

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.

— Dorothea Lange 

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Prayers

in the snow...

on the wind...

continuing.

Photo credits:  top; A Buddhist priest prays for the souls of the victims still not found in the rubble, Yamada, Japan (c) European Pressphoto Agency.  Middle;  prayer flags (c) mendhak.   Bottom;  Japanese lantern lighting for the souls of the dead  (c) gomattolson.

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Don't drink the tea...

...when you can stuff your tea mug full of fabric scraps and end up with some *antique* color instead.  These bits & pieces sat for three days in a strong dilution of Rooibos tea which I used as a natural plant dye.  Mind you, I wasn't very tempted to drink it anyway - something about the smell really puts me off.  Although I'm aware of its medicinal qualities (very high in antioxidants) and I generally love any plant material that comes from South Africa, this is not the beverage for me.  But for dyeing?   It serves a whole new purpose...

All these scraps were WHITE (or had a white background)...natural fabrics only, no synthetics.  I was pleasantly surprised by how differently they absorbed color.  Let me put them into groups so you can get a better feel for the differences:

100% cotton

Rayon/silk blends (top & middle), linen (bottom)

Silks

The cottons took the least color but they do have a pleasing old-world feel, much nicer than their previous stark white selves. The silks took on the most color, by far, and are my hands-down favorites.  Look at that bottom one, now an absolutely gorgeous bronze!  I don't know silk varieties very well but I believe that's an organza...

Rooibos literally means "red bush" so I was hoping for some of those elusive pinks that many of us have been striving for of late.  After the dyeing is over, one is left with these...

Is it just me or do you find those stains on the teabags interesting too?  Seems I am not alone - look what I found out amongst the cyberpixies...

abstract tea bag collage, by Armen Rotch

Tea Bag Quilt, by Charlene Hughes

by Valeria Burgoa

Should any of us be in need of more caffeine for the day, imagine this...entire walls constructed of used tea bags.  Bottoms up!

Poetic Justice, by Tania Bruguera

2003 installation at the Istanbul Biennial

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