The Duddingston Kirk Flower Festival kicks off today and runs until next Saturday. There are floral installations representation some famous folk associated with Duddingston. It is part of a year long celebration of worship at Duddingston Kirk. I designed the cover and used tiny rubber stamps to create the floral arch and pots. Mostly peg stamps from Rubber Stamp Tapestry. I have seen the floral installations and they are stunning so it is definitely worth a visit.
In the summer months I tend to be out in the garden keeping up with the weeding, dead-heading and blogging about what’s on my mind about the state of the garden and the wildlife (or lack-of) that I find there. The pigeons have been pecking away at the honey-suckle that is trying to grown over an arch so I made a wind-spinner that moves and spins in the breeze just to see if that might deter them a little. It has worked so far but maybe they will get used to seeing it there and start pecking at the leaves and buds again.
There are plenty of you-tube videos on how to do this but you can pretty much make it up as you go along and make it as big or as long as you like. It uses up any left over yarn, doesn’t take too long and you can make them for charity. This is made with acrylic yarn left over from a blanket I made ages ago. I might make the tassel for the next one longer and not quite as thick, or make some other little dangly thing instead of a tassel.
Back in 1999 I was looking for a sewing machine that I could use that didn’t require a foot pedal as being paraplegic my lower half is paralysed roughly from roughly the bra line. While I was in the Singer shop I asked to see how a certain foot pedal worked to see if I could come up with a solution. It basically worked by air pressure. The more pressure you put on the foot pedal, the faster the machine would run. So I asked them to take the foot pedal apart and I was able to use the air bubble (that was inside) with my right hand, squeezing and releasing to do the same actions as a foot pedal would do.
This worked for years and years until I started getting arthritis in my hands. My fingers can no longer bend around the air bubble so I couldn’t use my machine any more. Just recently I found a place called REMAP on the internet. They are a voluntary organisation who come up with solutions to problems that disabled people may have, that would enable them to carry out everyday functions or be able to maintain their hobbies.
I put in my referral and Paul came out to visit and go through what my actual needs would be and we brainstormed a few ideas. Initially we thought that as the machine used air pressure then I may be able to use a mouth part to blow air through to run the machine, however, I have Sjogrens syndrome which affects the mouth and teeth so I asked if he could come up with something else. At the next REMAP meeting where all the volunteers discuss the cases, Paul put me in touch with Benjie. The very clever Benjie was able to make an electronic solution to fix my problem.
Benjie made an ‘L’ shaped bracket, that slots under the machine, that has a slider control that I just have to nudge with my hand or finger to adjust the running speed, and has an emergency stop button.
For the reverse stitching he added a button that I can press as I pull the reverse lever down. This is just attached with blu-tac so I can remove it if it gets in the way of material going through the gap. As all the electronic buttons are removable I can still get the sewing machine lid on. He made up a small electronic program where he could just adjust the air pressures required to allow the machine to run and put all the circuit boards and other gubbins very neatly into a clear box and viola – I can now use my sewing machine again!
Just to get some practice I made a square cushion cover from a pillowslip so it would match the rest of my bedding.
If you have a disability, infirmity or illness and have a problem that you think REMAP could make or adapt something that would help, you can use their online referral form
REMAP is a voluntary organisation and need donations so if you want to volunteer or make a donation please don’t hesitate to get involved.
I am finding it difficult to get motivated to anything right now. The weather is just cold, wet and miserable and the craft room is too cold to work in. I am in a bit of a rut so I went through some old art journals and sketchbooks that I have for inspiration. The next few pics are from an old small 9cm x 14cm hard cover sketchbook (maybe a Talens Art Creation book). They are quite good little books but as I open them out to do double pages the spine takes a bit of a bashing. I used quotes that I liked and tried out multi media and methods. So I am feeling inspired to do more of the same.
There is a youtube channel called ‘Put some colour in your life’ so using mainly acrylics and pastels and some posca pens I made this colourful double page spread.
For this one I collaged some clips from magazines and an old page from a book. I highlighted the words ‘craft’ and ‘tinkering’ in the book page as when I am feeling a bit lost I like to just tinker and play in the craft room rather than go full steam into a project.
One of my bug-bears of painting is that it uses up a lot of paint and supplies which is expensive and I used to worry that I was wasting not only time but all of my art media if things didn’t turn out well. This quote helped me change my attitude to that way of thinking. Paint is only wasted when it stays in the tube – so true.
I think the next quote was by Suzanne Vega. ‘Money can buy: doctors but not health, clothes but not taste, make-up but not beauty. ‘ More collage work using collage papers and a napkin £20 note.
Always worrying about things not turning out right will stop you doing anything, so you have to focus on what can go right and not what could go wrong.
Don’t strive to be perfect but just making progress is good enough. Embrace imperfection uses acylics and stamps. I used to use this little book to list all the media (stuff) that I had so that I wouldn’t buy doubles but that never worked so I painted over the pages to use it as an art journal instead. Here I have left some of the writing showing through the paint. It is a nice wee reminder that it isn’t about what you have, but how you use it that counts. Wabi sabi comes to mind as the Japanese find beauty in imperfections.
Fear of the blank page (or anything else in life). this quote sums it up nicely. ‘Fear is not the enemy. Waiting to stop felling afraid is’. I don’t know where some of these quote come from, maybe a pod-cast I was listening to or a TED talk? Mainly acrylics in this one and a bit of collage and stamping using found objects.
Using napkins with bright autumn leaves on and gel medium, I added this quote; ‘Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.’ Oh if only we could just let things go.
So I still have plenty pages to fill up yet just need some more quotes.
That is another year gone. Where did all that time go? I am so good at procrastination and wasting time that I have become quite an expert. This isn’t what I wanted become an expert in so I will have to change that and utilize my time more efficiently in future. I am not going to answer my phone (text/emails etc) while I am doing craft-work, and I am going to set boundaries to make sure I am not interrupted. I often feel that the universe is out to thwart my attempts at getting some craft time: the numerous bleep alarms for taking meds/eye drops, tea times and pee times. As soon as my hands get hold of a pen or paintbrush somebody comes to the door. I just set up my craft table to do some macro photography only to find my husband has put his washing on. Great you might think – he has put his own washing on, however, the washing machine is just in the other room and the vibrations mean that, despite using a tripod, I can’t get my subject in focus. Ok enough with the excuses!! Here is a wee doodle I did to make a greetings card.
I love Michael Lang’s large abstract paintings and decided to have a go following one of his you tube videos and I enjoyed learning his blending techniques although I didn’t exactly master it. I found it difficult to keep my circles round and my straight lines straight but it looks ok from a distance. I also couldn’t get the drippy technique – partly due to the buckle of the paper (he used a flat board) and I just couldn’t quite get the right consistency. I used mainly acryics and acrylic medium, but also pens and finished with gel pastels to brighten a few areas. The camera didn’t pick up the aqua colours and made them look a bit blue.
Here are a few photos of some of my layers:
Well I think I am finished the painting. It will probably sit in my folder and I will pull it out every now and then to see if I want to add anything else to it.
You know that feeling when you are anxious and overthinking and you just want your brain to stop. Mindfulness and breathing are useful tools, but then doodling can be pretty good too, at allowing yourself to be in the present moment. This is what I was doing yesterday after watching linaforrester on instagram. I loved the colours she used (bright green and yellow) but I wanted to try my own colour combo. I have a few Ecoline liquid watercolours that I haven’t touched in years so I made up an orange and a purple and gave it a go. Sadly my ‘Delicate surface Frogtape – low tack painter’s masking tape’ ripped my paper in a couple of areas when I was very carefully peeling it back. It may be that the paper pad I was using was too old (the cover had come off so don’t know what it was) or that I was leaning on it too hard while doodling. Hey – ho these things happen. It was fun to do.
It has been a while since I last did anything in the way of art so just to get my little grey cells thinking creatively again I got out an old art journal, that I hadn’t filled, and randomly put down some colour for the background across 2 pages. Next, I doodled about with some black lines and filled some areas in. It was way too black so I brightened it up with white dots and just had a play. It isn’t quite zentangle but it was fun to do and a good way to get me back into doing some art.
This little guy (couple of cm )was found in amongst a pot plant that I was photographing the other day. It is all dried up but I loved the texture. The black background is black velvet – gosh is that tricky to get properly spotless. I have never tried stacking photography and I think would have looked much better using that method. Nothing is properly in focus so I will give it another go.
I was just playing with my camera and phone again in the freezing cold craft room.
