purejuice

I need a needlebook, and thinking of a design, noticed how often ravens and blackbirds have been looking me in the eye lately. Ravens are power animals, and blackbirds have their medicine too. This blackbird, from Carry Akroyd's very special linocuts for the John Clare Society edition of The Wood Is Sweet, is just the blackbird I was looking for.

www.johnclare.org.uk/Wood_is_Sweet.pdf

The needlebook will fit into the candy tin and might could be the same color, with gold trellis. A small pair of scissors on a handmade blue kumihimo cord, a larger sewing bag for my smocking stuff, with perhaps the entire lower half of the blackbird lino appliqued on it.

We'll see.

Here's about 1000 free needlebook patterns. Love the intarnets.

Learning to smock -- joined the Smocking Arts Guild of America today -- and the local Zia Sun Smockers group, where the project is the sampler you see here -- is part of the regime of learning fine handsewing for the Godzilla Room. This particular skill will be deployed for Godzilla Pillow #8: Harajuku Girl.

I'm completely psyched about the work of Sophie Callaghan, who has put her finger right into the nexus of craft, ritual labor, voodoo, dreams of travel/songlines, deconstruction/recycling/resurrection/ and punk globalism.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sophiecallaghan/

I hope you'll look at her pix and buy some of her stuff.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5367564

I'm still working on my essay about this, and perhaps some day will finish it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/purejuice/tags/harajuku/

This is seafoam colored spangled fake chiffon from JoAnn's, and seafoam/lavender cotton plaid also from JoAnn's. The plaid was destined for a different Godzilla pillow until I realized the other night it would be perfect for this one.

I want to make a ruched seafoam chiffon pillow cover and was wondering what to put underneath.

I decided, in keeping with one of the themes of the Godzilla room of fine femme handicrafts, to smock the plaid to make a pillow cover to go under the ruched chiffon.( Read more... )