Ant then two come along at once.....

Blog posts that is.

A lovely surprise this morning when these arrived in my mail. They are the ATC's from the Cyber Fyber International Random ATC Swap. They are so exciting in their variety.

This one is from Sazan Widecrantz, she doesn't appear to have a blog but I tracked her down on Quillting Arts here just scroll down to the Seahorse.
This one is from Arlee Barr of Albedo ,she , as I already knew, had a blog and was one of the invited artists for Cyber Fyber Lucky me!


And last but not least this unusual and exciting ATC. Unfortunately I have been unable to track down the artist. it is called Hope and signed J H Mitchell, no blog or e-mail so all I can do is say thank you wherever you are.

Thanks Again to Susan for all the organisation which went into to Cyber Fyber.

Did you see...

the white collection by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel with stunning hats made from paper by Japanese milliner Kamo.

No copyright breach intended.
Drool here and here
I think it speaks to the Virgo in me!!

Fabric book and a couple of links...

It has been a while since anything in Cloth, Paper Scissors has sent me running to the workroom but I just had to have a go at Belinda Spiwak's "treaures fabric book". Here is my take on it.




Made entirely from stash.. hurrah

Thank you Julie for this link The Quilt ShowSouth Africa, lovely spontanteous, uninhibited song. Something to try at the bext EG perhaps and to Au Fil du Jardin for this link to pictures of the stunning traditional costumes of Valencia,Spain.The little boys are taking their responsibilities so seriously. I want a dress like that.

I watched the inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday and was very moved by the hope and expectation. Often in history one man has been able to influence the world for evil, let us hope this one can do that for good.

The opening titles made me squeal with delight because what were they......Dots... the pictures kept dissolving into red white and blue campaign buttons. See I told you, they are everywhere..... Great stuff.


you can see it here but only for the next five days.

We had a little mix up on Calendar Girls and I had to reluctantly send on Sandy's card but the sadness only lasted until I received this from Carol,

a great card with terrific depth. The January cards have nearly all been posted by now and you can see them in all their glory here. so many techniques from one source of inspiration.

Spots before my eyes.....

Is it my imagination or are "dots" the "in" thing? Or is is just my hightened awareness because of the dots in the wonderful aboriginal art we've been studying. They just seem to be popping up everywhere, Jude of Spirit Cloth has been working with dots and circles for some time. There was the cover of Quilting Arts
and then this morning there was this beautiful picture of a starling in its winter plumage taken my my friend Tony,

Dancing Crow has some wonderful dotty things and Paula has a superior "chook" with dotty feathers.

Big thanks to The Land of Lost Luggage for this link
Watch in full screen if you can.

Ring out the old ...

Ring in the new! Here is the first card for my GG2009 collection. I love the way Sandy has caught the feel of the storm. A wonderful start to the year.

as a bonus it came wrapped in this great piece of vintage fabric.

And here is the Old Year, I have been wondering for some time how to keep and display them, and this is what I came up with. This is the cover, front and back


It is made from corrugated card covered in moulding paste, painted and gilded. The decoration is a collection of shrink plastic tags with the names of the girls.

It can be opened as a conventional book

or displayed 3D

and here it is in its full glory.

Thank you girls.

Off we go.....

Here is my interpretation of the Shane Pickett painting which Debbi chose as our inspiration for January in the Calendar Girls 09 exchange.You can see the original here

First of all I must thank Debbi for her choice. As I said below this was a completely new world to me and I have loved exploring. This site gives many in depth explanations.
I was at a loss how I was going to interpret the picture, then when I was looking at a Christmas present from my son an idea popped. The present was a set of mica flakes,

I have eight little pots like this and as you can see they are of different grades of thickness. I thought this might help me give and impression of depth.
I put three bands of medium and tried to show the swirling of a dust storm.I then built up layers of Golden Liquid Paints. Lastly I added the dots. I have to say I am quite pleased with the result. I feel I have learned a bit more about the use of paint and mediums. There are already some great cards on the Calendar Girls Blog go, see.

Brrrr.....

Severe frost with patchy freezing fog is the weather forecast for today, this is what it looks like in my garden

So something to amuse......

One of my big problems with altering books is that I love books...I now have a large box full of books which I bought to alter and then couldn't touch them becase they were interesting, beautiful or charming etc. Before Christmas I bought a book purely for it's size, about 7x5 inches and only about a third of an inch thick. Perfect. But, at home, on looking at it closer I found that it rejoiced in the title of "Better Done in France" by Lucille Devoy, intrigued I sat down to read...and I feel I have to share. The Foreword starts with the words "In these days of rigid economy as regards time and money", no change there then. It was published in 1947, so I hope I am not infringing any copyright, if anyone has an issue with this leave a comment and I will remove the posts.
So 1947 not only a different country but a different world. This is a little digital collage I made to accompany the extracts.


FRENCH WAYS WITH SILK HOSE
"To obtain extra wear from silk stockings, to ensure them keeping soft, and to prevent shrinking, use "sock boards" when drying the stockings after washing. These sock boards are made by pencilling around a new pair of hose, and from the pattern cut out,make or have made a pair of flat "legs" in thin wood or strong cardboard.
The newly washed hose are slipped on these wooden flat legs immediately they are laundered and hung from the line by a hook or loop".

So remember this next time you are disentangling your tights........Watch this space for occasional tips on what to do with to do with grey silk hose, butter in hot weather and other useful tips.

This is the next best thing to being able to visit the
Cyber Fyber video exhibition.
Thank you to those kind people who left comments

Wonders...

This arrived for me today, I have been picking it up and peering at it, running my fingers over it and just gazing in pleasure.

This is my last card of the Calendar Girls 2008 challenge from Lynda of Purple Missus. It has been a wonderful year of learning and sharing and I feel priviledged to have been part of it. If you haven't looked already give click here you will see that a couple of the girls have already completed January.

This year instead of working from one calendar for the year we have each made a choice and each month it will be a different calendar. For January Debbi chose Australian artist Shane Pickett, I knew nothing about him so did a little research and found a link here and here Wonderful stuff. The picture we are to work from is called "Wanyarang Storm Against the Wind. I looked up Wanyarang as I thought it must be a place, but no, it means Autumn and this (confusingly was April and May) Traditionally was a time when "those who have recently matured to adulthood pair up and prepare their homes for courtship. Meanwhile, nature prepares itself for the next cycle." This information found here and this is the picture.

Fabulous but help!!!!!


This wonder came from Russia found on a via a link by Ullabenulla just look at the wonderful details both inside and out here


Last of all don't forget Cyber Fyber and Lynda and Carol are running Fibre in Form, Textured Surfaces again on Friday.

CYBER FYBER....

The Cyber Fyber postcards are on display and they are well worth a visit. A huge bouquet should go to Susan Lenz for the idea and for the incedible amount of work it must have taken to put this all together. It looks wonderful, at one time I was hoping we just might get there but in light of recent events with my beloved(who is now recovering slowly) it is a good job we hadn't booked anything, as long haul flights are definitely out!!



This is my own offering and I am delighted to see it, as I lost the picture when my machine crashed last year.

I managed to get some ATC's away so I hope they get there in time for the swap.