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  Okay, I know this looks weird, but the creative urge can take you in all kinds of strange directions, can't it?  The prompt for day four of Abstractuary was 'Totem'.  I googled it and the meaning I went with is ' a person or thing regarded as being symbolic or representative of a particular quality or concept '.  That got me thinking about a wall hanging I made a while ago - and previously blogged about on here - based on textile art by Ulva Ugerup.  (Look her up if you've not heard of her.  She's fab.)  Ulva made a wonderful textile work called 'Angels of Wrath', and I used that as a basis for my own stitched piece.  So, for Abstractuary I thought I'd make a kind of stylized doll similar to my stitched angel of wrath.   She's got a black felt body, the front with red material appliqued on it, a felt oval for a face, and is stuffed with fabric scraps.  I used thin copper wire to make the crazy hair, and threaded beads and broken j...

If, like me, you're not familiar with the work of artist Rex Ray then here's a brief intro via the wonders of YouTube.   Why am I showing you this?  Because, if you stopped by yesterday's post you'll have seen info about Abstractuary.  The arty prompt for 2nd February was Rex Ray, and I took inspiration from his collages and tried making my own.   Hmmm ... me and collages don't get along.  I tried cutting out painted papers and glueing 'em down, then switched to colouring pencils and tried that.  But I always end up with stuff that looks like a primary school kid made it.  So instead I took up needle and thread.   It's not finished yet, but it's a fabric postcard-sized bit of stitching, and is meant to represent one of his paper collages.  I think I'll eventually make a fabric book based on this Abstractuary challenge, and this will form one of the pages.   Today's prompt is 'print' and as I haven't hauled out the gel...

  Goodbye January, the month that feels like it's stretched out to be extra-long, the month we have to plough through to get to February and real signs of Spring.  You may know, if you've wandered by this blog before, that I'm beavering away at Ann Wood's 100 day stitchbook challenge.   That's still going strong.  Three pages done and I've started page four.  But I've also stumbled across another monthly challenge, and this one originated with Tori Chatfield, a.k.a. Kool Kooky Kreatures.  You can find her on YouTube and Facebook, and she runs something called Abstractuary.  Tori's produced a list of prompts for each day in February, and the idea is that you produce something arty or crafty based on those prompts.  You can stitch or paint or collage or use whatever kind of materials you want. I won't commit to following these prompts every single day of Feb, but I'm certainly going to use several of them.  Tori's also produced a Pinterest...