For centuries women have used cloth as a tool of comfort and as an expression of beauty within their homes. Creating cloth for warmth, cloth for shelter, our female predecessors embellished these linens with hand stitch using laborious and time consuming techniques thereby enhancing the functional beauty of objects which enveloped and protected their families. Inspired by these women I hope my creations pay tribute to and recognise the devotion expressed in cloth by our female ancestors .







''the use of traditional often time consuming process alludes to the devotion of a mother''. c K. A. Ruane 2007







Monday, August 4, 2008

New Widget!!

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed a new stat widget over on the right. I had a nightmare with site meter on saturday, couldn't access it at all. Being stat obsessed I nearly went into meltdown! So, I put a new one on and lo and behold site meter decides it's playing again. However, for some reason the new one gives me higher visitor numbers, I'm all for inflated ego's so I have decided to keep them both, the best of both worlds. Those of you with blogs, it might be interesting to get a bit of research going, do you fancy putting the new one on your blog aswell and we can see if it gives you higher visitor numbers than you get off your current counter? It would be really interesting to find out. I'm thinking, maybe the new one counts all those secretive people who come from google reader,bloglines etc.
Anyway, enough technology, I've got a headache now. Back to my crazy patchwork. I added to the main piece at the weekend and this is how it looks. I think I will definitely need more of everything, applique, cutwork, text and pin tucked fabric. At the moment the main piece measures approximately 69x40cm, about 27x16 inches and I haven't decided how big I want it to be yet. I will definitely make a panel of something else to add to it though, more about that when I have decided what to do.






Following on from your comments re my reclaimed cloths, (thanks very much) I have put these in the shop today. They may aswell be in there as opposed to being locked away in the bowels of a cupboard so we shall see how it goes.

and back to the tagging, no one mentioned a desire to be tagged in the comments last time but hopefully someone else will have followed Kaija's lead and tagged themselves from here. Check out her tags and her gorgeous blog here!


7 comments:

Victoria said...

Wonderful that you put the reclaimed cloths in your shop. I just checked them out, and I so enjoy seeing them in their entirety. Again, brilliant idea in patching and reclaiming!

Your new work is full of such wonderful texture, I would love to just graze my, (freshly washed and very clean!) hand across its surface!

Jane said...

I'll second that-whenever I look at it, I want to run my hands over it! It all fits together so nicely-how do you decide when it's the size you want?

Karen said...

I think if anyone ran their hands over it I would pass out!! but thanks for the sentiment behind the thought!
I decide on the finished size when I decide what else I am going to put with it, panel wise, and also I just get a feeling when it's big enough, not very scientific or anything I'm afraid!

Ulla said...

I would certainly keep my (washed and clean) rough skinned hands behind my back and my mouth shut if I could see the cloths in real life!

Anonymous said...

quite a nice display of cloths on shop... great. Your dilemma on site meters ... two always confusing!

Gayle said...

It's so exciting to see how you use vintage linens. I've been enjoying your blog so much.

Anonymous said...

what wonderful work, i love it all.