| Thursday, February 01, 2007 |
| Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz |
We are working on a new research proposal, so I have been a busy bee this week. It is just amazing how much time and work goes into the process just to apply for research funding. This is for a medium sized project, with 6 partner organizations (besides us) in 5 different countries. I am off to Munich with my boss and a couple co-workers this afternoon so we can meet with some of the partners for dinner. I then get to somehow keep track of every point that gets discussed while they debate all day tomorrow on what should be done and how. But I don't want to think about that right now ;)
 Now I get to take a little break to say hello to all of you and show you the pretty little things I made. This week was the deadline for an ATC swap on SwapBot and I had kinda forgot. Luckily I remembered in time and whipped up the two you see here and sent them off. I don't make ATCs as often as I'd like to, mostly because I find once I start I think of all these things I want to do with it and end up spending way too much time on them. But then, maybe if I didn't I wouldn't be as happy with how they turned out. The first one is called 'We will wake up soon' because I have had spring on my mind, and all the little sleeping flowers who I am wishing would wake up and bloom. We have been having all sorts of icky grey weather and I am longing for some colour. The second ATC is called 'Catching a breath of fresh air' and think of it as the beginning of the story of a hot little lace slip gone AWOL :D It made me really happy to cut out all the little technicolor bits and fiddle with my lace to find a part of the design that was really skirt-like.
 Oh, I just remembered that I never explained what these ATCs were. I probably should have, because they look sort of wierd, but the meaning behind them is actually quite romantic. The first one is called 'Diego, mi corazon' which is Spanish for 'Diego, my heart' and is a detail from Frida Kahlo's painting The Two Fridas. She painted this after their divorce, showing a strong, whole hearted Frida comforting the one without Diego's love, with a heart broken and bleeding. It is a very powerful image of her immense love and despair. I added new veins of red yarn to try and show the heart as beginning to heal, that love would come again. The second ATC is taken from Diego Rivera's painting The Hands of Doctor Moore. Most of Rivera's painting and murals were political rather than personal, but here he shows his love and concern for Frida and his fear of her having to be amputated (she had many health complications due to a bus accident in her youth). He portrays her as El arbol de la vida (the tree of life) a popular symbol in Mexican art (and a favourite of mine). Here again I tried to introduce an element of healing, taking away the cutting hand of the doctor and drawing in new, live roots over the dead root/leg, as well as adding flowers blooming in the tree branches. I greatly admire these two artists and am also inspired by their great passion for life and for each other. Although, as I mentioned, they were divorced, they could not live without each other and were later married again. But there was a lot of suffering in both their lives and marriage, which can be seen especially in Frida's paintings. It has always been my rather romantic hope that they have both gone on to a place where there love no longer has to fight against the many problems they had while they lived.
 Labels: Life, Other Craftiness |
posted by tatjana @ 12:17 p.m.   |
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| Saturday, October 21, 2006 |
| A backlog of craftiness |
Ok, I'm a bit behind on crafting and even more behind on picture taking, but rest assured I am working on things! I finally decided to put my sweaters on hold in favour of some quicker knits using my accumulating handspun. Look, here's another skein now....
I love how this one turned out, I'm a total sucker for warm tones. I haven't decided whether or not I want to put up some of my yarn for sale on etsy. I if I do, this will be one of the first skeins, even though I love it so much. Maybe even because I do. Somehow, I like it just the way it is. I wouldn't want to make something out of it. But someone else probably does, and every good yarn deserves to be made into something, dontcha think?
Still on the wheel is a single of a space dyed roving in various blues which will soon be a 2-ply reminiscent of the Twilight yarn from this post. But much more exciting, is the super fun rainbow yarn I made especially for fun kiddy knitting:
This is already on the needles, on its way to becoming mittens. It's about 180m altogether, so it should be enough for a matching hat too! Can you tell I desperately need kids to knit for? ;) No, not really, but it's fun knitting these nevertheless.
I also finally decided what to do with my Canadian Fall yarn, it's going to be a scarf with leaf pattern. I'll post a pic as soon as I have a bit more of it done. Tomorrow I will try to find some decent lighting to take pictures of fab thrifty finds. I went to our local and fairly new charity shop and totally scored! I found a bunch of adorable doily type things (much more shappy chic than tacky grandma) and a couple other pieces I wasn't expecting. They really must be shown off, because back home I was a champion thrifter, matched only by my mother, the finder of the $5 Prada bag (I shit you not). Alas, here there is little thrifting joy to be found, so when there is some, I must shout it from the hilltops for all to share! Here be bargains! Of pretty things no less!
And if that wasn't enough backlog, tonight I will have to complete the pendant I made in a jewellery workshop today so I can show you all tomorrow. It's a crazy, abstract piece of silver that I cut and filed and soldered (sorta, there was help) and polished all by myself! It was very fun. But it's already getting dark here in Deutschland, so there can be no picture taking til tomorrow, and anyway, the pendant needs a bead for colour and they didn't have the right one at the workshop so I'll have to raid my bead stash. I hope I have something in the right size and colour....wish me luck!
  Labels: Knitting, Other Craftiness, Spinning, Thrifting |
| posted by tatjana @ 6:06 p.m. |
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| Sunday, October 08, 2006 |
| I feel another craft coming on... |
I had so much fun at the stained glass workshop! I think this is totally something I could enjoy doing a lot. A lot of people who work with stained glass (from what I've seen here, at least) tend to cut specific shapes and put glass pictures together using patterns. Things like flowers, butterflies. Since this class is part of a publicly run night school type programme, they were on a bit of a budget, so instead had as use our imaginations and make up stuff with a collection of broken glass, in all colours and shapes. Personally, I found doing it this way a lot more fun. You don't even need a lot of supplies to do this sort of thing either. Just a couple of special pairs of pliers plus a soldering iron, foil and solder for soldering. Oh, and a glass cutter :) I still need to work on making my soldering look a bit neater, but I'm pretty happy with my first and second tries. Plus I was the only one who managed to make 2 things! Granted, a couple people made larger, more involved things, but other were still struggling with fairly simple things. One woman in particular took forever because she was determined to have all pieces fit together perfectly in exactly the order she wanted them. I felt bad that she seemed completely tied down by this expectation, and instead of enjoying being creative, just made herself really frustrated. Let that be a lesson to you all! No craft must be perfect! It's usually no fun, and often better with "faults". Anyway, since you're probably wondering, here's what I made! This is what I made today when I realized I was done and still had loads of time left:
I happened to find a couple of curved pieces that reminded me of a sunset because of their colours, and decided to use them as a tealight holder. I didn't bother making the pieces exactly even, so it's a little wonky looking, but the colours are really pretty. Sorry about the dark picture, I will try to take some outside, which will probably show the colours better. The piece I'm really proud of is the one I made first, and spent more time designing and making, a mirror with sunrays along one side:
The glass is shades of red, orange and yellow. Again, I'll take another picture outside in daylight asap. The soldering isn't perfect, but I figure that just takes practice. All in all, I'm just totally stoked about the idea that you can make such cool things so easily. The possibilities are just endless! I was just thinking aloud when we got home and said it would be really cool to make a chandelier with colored glass. Not an electric one, but on with wire holders for tealights behind shields of rose coloured glass. It would give off such a cozy glow. Sigh. What on earth am I thinking?? I don't even have a soldering iron yet. I guess first stop tomorrow on the way home from work is the hardware store. LOL!
 Labels: Other Craftiness |
| posted by tatjana @ 9:00 p.m. |
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| Thursday, August 31, 2006 |
| Inspiration everywhere |
Although I initially revived this blog mostly to talk about my knitting, and really, it's been quite a while since I worked on much else, over time I find it harder and harder to resist all the millions of craft possibilites out there. On the one hand, it's terrible, becuase knitting-wise I have so far to go. I really want to work on designing more and better patterns, and I won't be satisfied until that includes fair isle, something I haven't even touched yet. I don't expect this to come any time soon mind you, I realize these things take time and practice. But I really do believe that given time, effort, and often just as important, a little faith, you can learn anything. Without this conviction I wouldn't be knitting, sewing or spinning (all things that bring me so much joy!) and I wouldn't be so eager and excited about trying other things.
I don't always have time to make long treks into blogland, but when I do I love taking a peek at all the wonderful quilters, softie makers and bit of everything crafters, always check the fascinating tips on Sharon's blog so that I'll be prepared when I start embroidering, and I love this project she's doing, the results so far are gorgeous!
I've been wanting to play with textiles a bit more, in a more artsy way. I had an infatuation with nervousness for a few months until the site went on their seemingly endless hiatus (they are still in the process of getting things back to normal). Inspired by random themes and the encouraging atmosphere, I made a few things that I was really happy to both make and look at afterwards like the ATCs above. The one on the left was made with various yarn scraps, and the other has a satin background with paper and novelty yarn (Click on pics for a bigger image). I glued the feathers individually, alternating gold and bronze, and the texture was really neat. I had to send both away since they were for swaps, and I was sad to part with them :( So I should make more for me then :) My first aim though, is to make all fabric 'collages' (art quilts??) like my first textile art foray here, which I thankfully kept.
It's a little rough, but alright for a first try. I have a lot to learn technique-wise, but I think this is something I could really enjoy. Not quite yet though, with my backlog it's not the best time to start on whole new crafts, but at least it's something I can have fun pondering while I'm waiting for the train :)
Labels: Inspiration, Other Craftiness |
| posted by tatjana @ 10:49 a.m. |
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