I have been busy beavering away at my newest bird in (what's apparently becoming) the woodpecker series; and have many times thought I should do a new blog showing my progress. For instance, (I'll check later); but I don't think I even showed you the final incarnation of the prior woodpecker. 

What's been holding me up, is that I haven't found anything I wanted to talk about in particular. I know that in years past when I was blogging about my work, I usually talked about the process, what I was doing, how I was doing it, sometimes even what inspired me to do it; but with these pieces I'm just embroidering, and not even doing any fancy stitches - I remain fascinated by the "limits" of what straight stitch can do. 

So anyway, doing that has meant that I have to trawl the interwebs looking for pictures of my work. My early  work in quilts and art, should be on this very blog, but two things have conspired against me. One, that I kept hopping from blog to  blog (anyone remember the now defunct "Diva Quilts"? I even had it as a website at one point.) There was also "Cornflowers in Leslieville", and two or three more. I don't know what I was on about, but as I deleted those blogs and sites before finally settling here; I also deleted all of that work. 

How many (many) times over the years, have I been scolded and told "art should be pretty!" 

Beautiful Monster (a piece about fast fashion) is not exactly political in nature, but does indeed make a statement, and perhaps not one that people are willing to hear, and so it gets a few vague "likes" and "loves", and two closed comments that do not invite further discussion. 

Currently, for instance, The American Quilter's Society has pulled two pieces it deems "controversial" from the exhibition Color in Context: Red. One of the censored pieces entitled "Origin" by Yvonne Iten-Scott could be said to depict a vagina and labia; while the other, an abstract depiction of the Red Cross, by Laura Shaw, entitled "Your Mother, Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You", was also pulled. (Link to one of many articles, here.) The exhibition was one produced by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association - an organization I formerly belonged to, and may join again after this!); who pulled the entire exhibit in protest. 

Of course, as the article points out, this is not the first time that the AQS has pulled pieces - I remember specifically Kathy Nida's piece "I was not wearing a life jacket" being pulled in 2016 from an exhibit. She and I are professional friends, and this act was devastating and angering to her. 

So. 

I am proud to say that my piece, "Written on the Body" was hanging in the halls as part of an exhibition at the 2012 Republican Convention, in Tampa, Florida. 

The piece represented a commodified woman, crucified by legislation, political platforms and the words used to describe us, written on our bodies like tattoos. 

Since 2012, I have, unfortunately, had the distinct displeasure of continually adding more legislation around the cross; and I suspect, under the current administration, there will be much more to come. (More pictures likely forthcoming as I update.)

If art cannot be used to engage one another about important issues, then what is it for? 

And if we women cannot open our minds to those who use the "gentle arts" to discuss important issues in the same way, then where are we? And who, exactly, will we be in one year, two years, three years, four years? 

No answers here, just speculation.

 So it seems I am in favour of feathers, after all. 😁

I was too lazy to dig fabrics out of my stash, so I grabbed some cotton and painted it with acrylic paints in the required colours. An hour of drying time, and I was ready to cut some feathers.

It was so quick and easy, it really made me wonder about the point of my stash in principle. 

All of we sewists, crafters, makers, take a certain amount of pride in our "stash"; the amount we have acquired admired by others (#goals), and then we hoard it away like so many dragons.

How many paintbrushes will bring me happiness? How many mop brushes, in all sizes, do I need, to win The Game of Life?  

I have just been buying to buy, happily, needlessly, mindlessly, consuming as every "good" Westerner should, right?

So all of this seemingly innocent "stash boosting"...is it really just a symptom of toxic capitalism? Are we encouraging each other to consume for the sake of consuming? Pushing each other to buy more and more, in a never-ending silent competition to be sitting on a pile of the most stuff? 

Yes, we need to have tools to hand and materials available for our use as we create our projects. 

But how much of our compulsive collecting is for this, and not for that? 

Why do I need to have an entire bin full of black fabric "for my art"; when I can put some black paint on single roll of white fabric, that I can also transform into any colour and pattern I want/need at a moment's notice?

...where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness...What he opposed in it, he must attack in himself.

Salman Rushdie - Fury

Just some things I'm pondering at the moment. 

Next up, I'll need to stitch those feathers down. 

Maybe I'll work on that tonight. We'll see!

'Til next time. 

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*I don't actually believe in heaven, but you get my point. 🙃

I spent all day yesterday studiously ignoring what was happening south of the border.

We are in a polar vortex currently, so it's too cold for my little presh. But I took Riley for a quick jaunt.

After I brought her home, I went skating. Dearest reader, I haven't skated in literally decades. I fell a couple of times, brushed myself off, and popped up like Gumby, (not wanting to attract unwanted sympathetic attention); and even at the time, my ankles were quite screamy, but my body hurrrrrrrts today. 

A re-introduction to skating at 60 when I wasn't good at it when I was young, was certainly distracting.

And listening to the hockey players on the rink trash talking each other was quite amusing as I went round and round.

Then I went home and made my lunch - comfort food - tomato soup, grilled cheeze, and pickles. While drinking a big pot of tea, I scrolled my socials. Everybody else had their heads in the sand, too, which was comforting.

Then I had a long nap (3.5 hours!)

Then I made dinner - seasoned tofu steaks, rice, sauteed mushrooms and onions with a little onion gravy over.

Then I stitched a bit on this new bird, which is apparently going to be a series.

It seemed like a normal day.

But it didn't feel like one. 

Underneath it all, I was, I guess praying? I don't know to whom, I'm a pagan, and I mostly pray to trees, the sun, grass... Perhaps I prayed to Gitche Manitou, an internal whispering.

Asking that despite what our governments try to enact upon us, that humans turn to one another, and find in one another kindness, safety, help, strength, amity. A renewed belief in a social contract that encompasses all people in all their forms; that we quietly decide for ourselves that we will not only stand up, help, be a voice and a hand when the opportunity presents itself, but that we seek out those opportunities.

A whispered prayer that we decide to care about each other.

It's the only way through. 

Last night I sat down in front of the TV, teed up The Moonflower Murders (not as good as The Magpie Murders but still enjoyable); made myself a thermos of tea, and set up a little TV tray with my sewing machine on it, and another with my iron and a towel as an ironing pad on that one.

Rather oddly, I find myself making a quilt. 

I was beavering away, sewing tiny pieces of wool together, listening to the TV and occasionally looking at it. At one point I looked up, and discovered I had an audience. 

She is SO. CUTE! ❤️

 lol I just checked the "historical posts" on my blog (because it's been literally years since I posted here); and the piece I'm going to talk to you about today is one that I started whittering about in 2018. 

Six years ago!

Anyway, I've been working on this piece on and off as the mood struck me, with the bulk of the work being done in 2024. 

I did the last stitches earlier today, and thought it was "done"; but maybe not?

I'll explain as we go. 

So, if my math is correct, 15 years ago I bought 4 little bird panels from Linda Kemshall. (Or maybe it was Laura? I can't remember.) I bought them because I loved them, and initially intended to just frame them; but when I actually received them, I was like..." I could do something with these."

Then I went through this phase about 10 years ago where I was printing watercolour on fabric. (I really need to get back to that; it was one of my very favourite things to do.)

And then, six years ago, I was sorting through allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of my various personally hand-dyed, hand printed, hand painted and watercolour printed fabric (I hope the abundance of "els" really concretizes the unbelievable amount of such fabric I had); and decided to either earmark it for an actual project or donate it. 

In doing so, I managed to decrease such fabrics to 2 bins. 

And in doing so, I found some watercolour printed fabric* that perfectly matched Ms. Kemshall's (Laura or Linda to be determined) birds.