The life of a poppy

 A bud full of promise.

Ready to get the show on the road.

Delicate beauty for just a few days.

Second flush, petals gone but glorious.

Almost over.

 Such beauty from such tiny seeds, sprinkle on the ground and complete the cycle but save some for your bread and cakes.

An unbelievable thread installation by Mexican Artist Gabriel Dawe, photographed in Como Italy  .

The threads look like prisms or rainbows, the scale, complexity and beauty is stunning.

A wonderful concept

www.gabrieldawe.com

More lovely crochet.

More lovely crochet from www.attic24.typepad.com

Ripple crochet. I just love the choice of colours in all of this work, so cheery.

Imagine snuggling up under these on a cold winters evening, eco heating at it's best.

Good old granny squares.

So pretty in this mass produced age.

The colours in this cushion would brighten even the greyest of days.

Thank you so much to Lucy at Attic 24 for her wonderful inspiration.

AND

The winner of the Give Away is number 27 Rachel Capovila.

Congratulations Rachel if you email me your address I will send your vintage pack.

Thank you to all of my followers for your support.

Have a snuggly weekend. 

Midweek meander

Unknown source. (please let me know if this is your work and I will credit you thanks)

Just recently I have taught myself to crochet, for some strange reason I wasn't able to get my head around it until now. To be fair though crochet used to be really boring unless you were into crochet doily's, now though it is great fun and inventive, in the same way that knitting has turned itself around with modern yarns and beautiful colours the same has happened to crochet. It's early days for me and I'm still on the easy stuff but I love it, a relaxing pick up and put down craft.

Whilst judging the handicraft at our local flower show I came across this lovely blanket.

Aren't these cute.

These images are from a great crochet blog www.attic24.typepad.com

Maker unknown.

Attic 24.

This lovely work is from Lesley Gifford and you can buy from her on Etsy.

Crochet flowers Attic24.

Now I'm getting silly!

Artist Theresa Honeywell.

Joana Vascocelos

Piano Dentelle.

Joana Vasconcelos is a French born artist who now lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. She has exhibited her works around the world in a number of group shows and many solo shows. She primarily creates sculpture and installation pieces.

Many of her key works apply white crochet patterns to a variety of objects like computers, sculptures, pianos and even bridges. The works are completely covered in the crochet, with only the form and negative space to identify the object, ‘piano dentelle’ is the aforementioned crochet covered piano and gives a good impression of the detail in these works.( Text, thanks to www.designboom.com)

No one can deny that these works are beautiful but the work that really does it for me are the large colourful textile instalations. I had often seen the crochet work but had never come across the work below until recently. Its great seeing these 'domestic' skills being excepted as art and being put forward by artists as serious ways of expressing themselves and their art more and more often recently. Finally they seem to be being acepted by the art establishment! 

Contamination. Joana Vasconcelos

I Will Survive.

Sorry for the long post but I just couldn't choose, they are all so inspirational. Want more www.joanavasconcelos.com

Have a great, colourful weekend.

And the lucky winner is!

THE GIVE AWAY.

ROS DYSON.

Well done Ros, thanks for supporting my blog get in touch and I will send you your little needlecase. I hope that you enjoy using it.

Well a little bit about me this Friday. I have become interested in tea, the colours that it produces as a stain or ink, the marks that it leaves on paper and the tea bags themselves. Part of what is interesting me is the very British attachment with tea and the way that we view it as a 'cure all' for what life throws at us, in situations of stress a cup of tea is always offered by someone trying to help! From a British point of view tea could be seen as a metaphor for coping, I don't know whether any other country takes this view or whether it is traditionally a very British thing to do. Another strand of my thinking is about recording the passing of time, tea is a daily ritual for a lot of people and the first task performed every day! So with all this in mind the starting point for me is to investigate what I can do with tea.

Herbal tea bags.

I love the shape and colour of these little tubes and the fact that these are usually discarded without a second thought. It's strange isn't it what we place value on and what we consider as valueless, at one time this simple commodity was very expensive and wars have been fought over these simple things that we now take for granted.

Colours and stains from different types of teabags. 

Layered teabag collage.

Beautiful rubbish!

Tea pot on, cups are waiting.

Favorite chair anticipating.

No matter what I have to do,

there's always time my friend

for you.

 Unknown.

Beautiful embroidery.

Well I thought that I would show you some more work to inspire you and get your creative juices flowing. I have chosen the work of James Hunting, James is a good friend of mine who's work I admire immensely, however it is not just his work, it is his whole approach to his practice. Like myself he believes in sharing his knowledge and experience with those who have a genuine interest and thirst to learn.

James usually leaves his work untitled as he prefers the viewer to bring their own understanding to the piece, he explains his art with these words:

 'Through mark-making, colours and textures each piece is representative of moments of time, either the past, present or future.

As  an extremely experienced embroiderer James has a great eye for detail, his embroidery and use of colour in these pieces reference textiles from many different cultures but 'steal' from none. A great lesson for all of us, be inspired but use what you learn to inform your own creative ideas.

 

I was lucky enough to meet James whilst we were both studying, we critiqued each others development work and ideas and were both hard task masters; challenging and questioning each others decisions. It was stimulating and at times difficult but always constructive. This is how you learn, always pushing at the boundaries, questioning your own perspective and being open to constructive criticism. It is both scary and enlightening but the rewards are wonderful and enable you to grow as an artist. 

If you want to see more of James's work visit http://www.jameshunting.com/

James has developed a new body of work which is very different to the work that I have posted here, it is quieter and more contemplative in nature - watch this space!

Inspiration on a winters day.

I've been busy clearing out my studio this week and it really needed it, its been a while! The good thing about sorting stuff out is that you come across all sorts of things that you had forgotten about. A few summers ago a friend of mine went to Morocco and gave me these wonderful photographs, just the sort of thing you want to find on a cold, gray winters day. 

What an interesting back view of these women, it makes me feel quite boring in my jumper and jeans!

Dye powders and print blocks at the market.

More things for colouring cloth.

These images are so uplifting, what I wouldn't do for a market like that! When you think of the quantities of dye stuff that we can purchase in this country, well need I say more.

I found I could say things with colour and shapes

that I couldn't say any other way.......

things I had no words for.

Georgia O Keeffe. Artist.

Photography Jane Eastwell