Years end

 

Konar's Quilt

What have we done this year?

A few things here and there managed to get done......

In spite of the summer tree shearing

Door swag

Name tag

Cinch belt

A bit of embroidery was done

Tarot Embroidery

Crazy Quilt basket

Mother Goose hat

Spirit doll bead pins

Baltimore album

A silly hat and a few pins

Chatelaine purse

                                                                                                            

I pieced together this 27 year old Baltimore Album Project                                                                                                                               I still think it needs more borders and blocks

The purse got its chain and now hangs from its  chatelaine

An Idea for later

And I have this Idea for the coming year >

And I need to finish my youngest's Ellie, 

preferably before next chrismas!

Big Ellie

I thought

 for sure     I could finish it this year!

Looking forward into the new year. may it be better than last.

Seasons Greetings!

Happy Yule Tide Everyone!

 

This year I am grateful for Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift.

I think these two smart, capable, talented women are, single handedly, saving the countries sanity.

I'm pushing 60 and whilst 60 hasn't started pushing back too hard yet, I look at Dolly.                       Who at 80 is still going strong. I look at what she has accomplished in her long glorious career and marvel at her energy. The people she has helped, lifted up or just brought a little joy to, with her charities, her music, her movies and TV shows and Dollywood which revitalized her home town and brought overdue jobs to the area so her people could lift their own selves up.  

If that doesn't inspire you There's Taylor.                                                                                                She is herself everyday and shows her fans by example, how to navigate in a world not made for women, to be strong in and they love her for it.                                                                                            I love her determination to be herself in front of the world, which is cruel to it's icons, doesn't accept imperfections and usually tears them to shreds for the slightest mistakes. Taylor has been open and honest about her struggles, she shows her fans the "warts and all". Who in spite of her labels betrayal of selling her masters out from under her, got the best revenge, in the history of revenge and looks classy doing it.  At 33 she is very smart, the savvy way in which she is navigating the world has been a joy to watch, her fresh face, creating anticipation and community for her fans, having fun doing it and she is just getting started.

This is what two very strong willed smart, talented women are able to accomplish, in spite of the social system they grew up in. None of their accomplishments were handed to them either, they fought hard for the right to be themselves in an industry that likes to exploit their talent for the biggest payday, then toss them aside bent and broken, instead of nurturing it. 

Now imagine a world where everyone got the support they needed to accomplish their joy, not in spite of their surrounding society but because of it? If we gave every one the support they needed to succeed, what couldn't we accomplish?

 Personally Fame looks exhausting to me, all the running around to do and promote and get yourself in front of ears and eyes and attention spans the size of a goldfish. It's the kindness with which these women do what they do, that I see. The kindness to their fans and the people around them, it's not "part of the act" They are genuinely themselves, thoughtful and kind.

Our nation needs them so much right now, I need their bright shiny goodness to go out in the world as an anodyne to the hate trying to tear it apart. It's a bit much to put on their head alone, we need our bright shiny people, To show us a better way. Let us protect them so they can continue to be shiny.

Goldwork froggie

 Here's the Finish

Well almost

Hes not to lumpy

Front view

Top view

He will be a pin someday

of frogs and felt

This is a felt form for goldwork

can you guess what it will be?

Well yeah, just testing.

So this will be my first fore into my own design based on Clara Worschauer' s cleaver tiny frogs, which I ordered the kit for but was too impatient to wait to get, so I started my own.

This is BTW the way most of my adventures start.

I see something I really like, draw a sketch of it for later, then it morphs from there, whether I understand the technique or not I just wade right in and go for it!

Which is why The finished project, 

if it is ever finished,

Is usually lumpy, misshapen, some odd color

Because I didn't like the ones available,

Bigger or smaller than the original,

And generally serves as my mock up.

So anyway I learn as I go.

No instructions    No pattern

Just have an Idea aaaand .....GO!

Sometimes it works out

This might be one of those times where

It's a process

I mean he does't look thA bad so far, right?

 

Chatelaine Purse

Here is the whole thing in it's last few stages.                                                                                                                                        The Design is Ann Beck embroidery's.                                    I fell in love with that little bird and cribbed it from her web     page and boy what a page! Go look!                                                                                                                                                       I used a sticky side embroidery transfer page for the design                                                                                                               I don't know if I recommend them or not                                     The pro's are; You can trace the design easy-peasy                  peel and stick, and re-stick a couple of times.                         if you screw it up the first time, even then it hangs on well to the fabric.                                                                                          The cons are;  it also stickies up your needle as it goes through the fabric, making it a bit of a challenge if that fabric is a all slubby or thick like this one is.                                                                                                                                                    I used this stuff on silk and velvet with cotton floss and didn't have as much of an issue with it as I did here, using all silks both fabric and thread, so keep that in mind.                                                                                                                                          

SO!                                                                                                                                                                                                            All the embroidery is done,                                                                                                                                                                     I loosely back stitched all around the final shape I wan't it to have                                                                                                                                                                                                     all it needs now is the lining and a bit of machine work

              

I sewed the lining and main fabric all around the top, since it has a specific shape to fit the purse frame                                                                        Which has to be sewn into it by hand                                                                                               before, very awkwardly, sewing the right sides together at the bottom, leaving a space for turning then sewing it closed by hand                                                                                                                    < As you see here, I took care to knot each hole                                                                                        So that if one frays the whole thing doesn't fall off the frame, how embarrassing!

 And here she is all together!

Chatelaine Purse

I found myself a chatelaine last year                                                                                                            I have a few things in my collection on it already                                                                                    The design is from Ann Beck Embroidery                     if you haven't looked at her site                         whotin'ell  ya'doin here?  

but it needed something                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                A little pop of color                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  This green silk has been in my scraps for a while                                                                                                    It is just the right size                                                                                                                                             and this is the perfect project for it 

On being societaly un-productive

 Despite being an atheist I can not seem to get rid of my judeo-christian work ethic, which demands I make money from something before I can enjoy it. Why am I like this??? 

I love my hobbies, every, single, one. has brought me the joy of creation, learning, expanding, extreme time loss, beauty, knowledge, whether I am any good at it or not.

What precipitated this little bout of unhelpful self-reflection? 

why my credit card bill, of course. duh

I am determined to kill my JDC work ethic, to death. It's throwing off my groove.

Ace of Swords

I forgot the intervening steps, 

                       again

Oh well

We can't always be diligent and organized

I did a bit of gold and silver work on this one for the crown and the sword, there is a garnet bead in the pommel also

 

Ace of Swords Manifesting your thoughts into action

The meanings don't always have to be deep

as a matter of fact the more vague they are the better

This is so, I have always thought, when reading the cards for a someone who wants to know

They can imbue the meaning for themselves and plug that meaning, into where ever they need it for themselves

And the strength card

Don't they all look nice together on their shelf?

I also finished the Strength card

She's a fun one.

Her meaning is the gentile application of  help or persuasion

She is so calm, in the face of the pointy murder floof

Who is also so calm. This is his person, whom he trusts for pets and corrections. He is allowing her to what?

is she opening or closing the lions mouth?

if closing did she just give him a pill?

he's just a good kitty.

So that's all done for now

I have started a new thing,

 

Don't you just love that yummy green woven silk? 

Now that I have finally found something to do with the last little scrap I have of it

which will eventually become a small purse for my victorian chatelaine

 The victorians may have ruined a lot of things being all proper and colonial but my goodness were they an innovative bunch.

Addendum:

Several of you have asked where you could obtain a template for these, I did not use one, I drafted mine from the cards themselves, having several decks. 

The book Tarot made easy by Nancy Garen has line drawings in it of all 78 cards in the rider deck if you want to try that.

Thon Lizard

Whilst visiting BlueBerry Beads my favorite bead store in downtown Bothell,

I ran across this marvelous little bracelet on display made all of green a white duos

and I thought, as one does, it would make a wonderful lizard, so I did!

Unfortunately I didn't use the right thickness of thread so it kept breaking apart in odd places.

The silly thing is, I was trying to put this fellow together before renfair 

so I could wear it as part of my costume 

aaaaaand didn't re string the whole thing 

so

parts kept falling off. 

And I would redo thAt part.

Renfair appropriate to have a lizard leaper, no?

No, I didn't think so.

upshot is the head fell off, after living on my purse, just fine as it was BTW for a couple of months, 

so yes now I must re make it. 

 A lizard barely alive. We can rebuild them. We have the technology. We can make the better than thon was. Better, stronger, faster, than before ..................cue the music

Ace of Pentacles

Hmmm

From drawing to done in one simple step! woo!

Not really I just forgot to take progress pictures.

I do that a lot sometimes.

This time I decided to make the hedgerow out of french knots

ten million tiny little french knots.

What was I thinking?

I'm not crazy yet, so that's something but this took for f*#%ing ever

Looks good though

The Pentacle is made from a piece of appliqued gold lame and gold thread  

Ace of Pentacles new beginnings will manifest your potential from a place of security

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Gobble, gobble

Ace of Wands

So wands are next

I have gathered all my stuff

even though blogger appears to be behaving itself this go round

I will be brief

There is only so much explaining satin stitch one can do before it becomes repetitive and frankly boring

I thought i would use a different color for the under stitching on the clouds  since clouds refract light in some truly glorious ways lets see how that comes out

The meaning of this card for me is,  the practical application of knowledge in the world.

Wingardium leveosA!

 Here it is on the shelf

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!