rubykittyruby

  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...

  Another grey Yorkshire day and I've already spent part of it outside, rummaging in the green recycling bin.  I'd bought someone a present that (a) is electrical, so there's always the chance it'll develop a fault, and (b) she might not like it, so I want her to be able to sneakily exchange it.  Which meant I needed to keep the receipt, instead of lobbing it into the bin, along with loads of cans, cardboard, glass and plastic.  No idea what the neighbours thought of my bin-diving, but the receipt's been successfully retrieved, so that's one thing to tick off my 'to do' list.   Talking of things I'm ticking off my list, I've decided to see December 2024 out by trying to finish lots of little crafty projects that're lying around.   I sifted through these shelves, tidying and grouping things together, and used several freezer bags to sort WIPs out.   The last of the embroidery's now finished on this heart.   These partly-complete...

  And here I am again, full of baked sweet potato and veggies.  I thought I'd post this before I start on my pudding.  (Natural yoghurt & blackberries, possibly chopped apple too.  I'm trying to stay away from the really indulgent puds until we get into the full swing of Christmas, to avoid the waistline expanding too much!)  I've been carrying on with my Ulva Ugerup inspired stitching today - more of that in a wee while - but first thing after breakfast I was digging around in the recycling for cardboard.  I found Amazon packaging, which was perfect.  I wanted to make the covers for a fabric book, you see.  It's going to be for the stitchy things I make in the class I go to at the Art Gallery.  I cut the cardboard to the size I wanted, and used thin polyester wadding to add a padded feel to each cover.   Stretched over the wadding, and stitched & double-sided-taped into place, are a piece of scrappy patchwork and my embroid...

This story has roots that go back years.  I've a book called 'Contemporary Quilts', first published back in 1994.  It is, as the title suggests, about modern quilting, and despite it being a slim volume it manages to pack in a lot of inspiring photographs.  The quilts are a mix of abstract and figurative, and two in particular caught my eye.  One - which has nothing to do with this blog post - was by Deirdre Amsden, and if you haven't seen her Colourwash series of quilts then do yourself a favour and google 'em.  The other was a glorious quilt by Ulva Ugerup, from Lund in Sweden.  She'd sewn a stunning wall hanging, 175 x 150cm (that's 70 x 60 inches), with a scrappy background and lots of machine embroidery.  The 'Girls of Glory' wall hanging features 90 'girls' who are remarkable for many reasons.  We've everyone from Mary Wollstonecraft, Sonia Delaunay, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Edith Sitwell, Golda Meir and Aphra Behn.  I've alw...