Tangential

I'm feeling in the mood for a little carving and block-printing session. The inky muse is sitting on my shoulder.

This must have been because I sorted out my workroom yesterday and piled up all my lovely white and creamy-calico cottons, plus some of the brights I dyed a few months back.

We'll see what eventuates!

:: This is the papercut picture I cut for Tracey, way over in Far North Queensland. As well as bloggers, we are longtime Scrabble buddies on facebook, and while we were chatting during one of our games (she probably whipped my arse as usual), we organised a swap: a papercut for some of Tracey's brilliant quilting.

Tracey started the ball rolling by quilting this quilt I'd made for a cousin's first baby in England, and she did an amazingly beautiful job ...

... all swirls and stars. Gorgeous! I'm expecting to hear from Brighton any day now to say the quilt has arrived, and that baby Jasmine will stay warm and cosy beneath it during the rest of their Arctic winter. Brrr!

:: I'm reading Someone at a Distance, by Dorothy Whipple. It's a beautiful Persephone edition I bought in Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon — isn't that an exquisite cover?

(I went mad in there - imagine, a bookstore starts in a shop on a corner, then it buys and expands into the shop next door, and then the shop round the corner ... and eventually it takes up an entire city block, on all levels; a rabbit warren of books ... sigh!)

Whipple (1893-1966) is a brilliant writer, subtle and fluent, with a perceptive eye for characters. She says a lot by understatement and quiet observation — admirable.

Here in Australia, we haven't heard of her very much, if at all, but I recall listening to a few of her short stories being read by English luminaries through the BBC Radio 4 website, and was blown away by her story-telling.

Someone at a Distance, set just after the end of the war in the early 1950s, is about a warm, loving, happy family and the effect of the arrival in their midst of a cold-as-ice, hard-as-nails French girl, who is to be a paid companion to the family matriarch.

It's fabulous. As someone on the back-cover blurb says, Whipple is the 'literary heir to Mrs Gaskell'.

:: I'm off now to carve some rubber.

All done

Finished (with three or four leaves discreetly re-attached!) and framed this papercut, a wedding present for a young couple with a big old Victorian house.

It was a stroke of great luck that their initials were J and R, beautiful letters to play with, with those lovely long curvy tails ... though now I look at this pic, I think the J is a poofteenth higher than the R ...

Today's brand-new project is to make four aprons for my best friend Belinda, for her to give as Christmas prezzies. Brilliant!

:: Thank you for all the queries about what happened to the moth in my ear! I've had no symptoms, no deafness or irritation, so I'm assuming the moth has ... disappeared.

Cuts

Been working on this one for a while. It's to end up in a big old Victorian house in Mt Lawley, so I had to get the feel just right.

There have been a few leaves lopped (they'll be invisibly fixed with microscopic dots of acid-free rubber glue), and I nearly went blind doing the grapes, but on the whole I'm very happy with it — hope you are too, Dace!

:: Went to see Julie & Julia last night — loved it.

Amy Adams is brilliant as the younger, present-day character, blogger Julie Powell. And Meryl Streep is an absolute joy to watch in the role of Julia Child. Before all the hoo-ha about this film, I'd never heard of this cookbook writer, or seen her on TV. Now I'm curious to find out more, having watched Meryl's amazing performance of this enormous (she was over 1.8m tall), vivacious, life-loving woman with her excited whooping and yelping and drunk-looking delivery.

And it's so funny! Meryl must have been chuckling all through making the film.

I was equally touched by the very great affection between her and her shorter, balder husband. Such a lovely man! All in all, a really fun, interesting movie — with blogging in it to boot!

More C stuff

A fairy. For the top of the C tree. She started as an angel, but I thought she had on too fancy a frock, so I've rubbed out her halo and given her a couple of holly leaves for festive ambience.

Hmmmm. Looking at her, I'm not sure about those wings ... a bit banana-like. May have to have a re-think ...

:: Bloody amazing weather in Perth today. Sunny, breezy and warm; it makes you feel g-l-a-d to be alive. Apart from the horrible, horrible news from South-east Asia and the South Pacific.

A snip too far

This one went wrong — but I do kind of like the vaguely sixties look, and will have another bash at it.

It was an idea I had for a friend of Shelley's, who has a big milestone birthday. Her name begins with K, so, liking the shape of that letter, I thought I'd try to incorporate it into this flowery design.

But I was being way too smart-arse, and when I got to cutting the bits around the K, parts of the design that were not anchored (duh!) fell off!

Anyway, after a night at work, I don't have the eyesight to cut today, so I'm on to the sewing machine.

Or maybe printing.

Certainly not dusting, hoovering or cleaning the loos ...

Progress

I've finished the mother-wren for Marnie's birthday. It just needs mounting and framing ready for the weekend party.

After all the deliberations about the border, I decided on simple leaves. And in the bird's breast is an image of her two little ones in the nest!

Today, I started the flowery pic for Edith at Mum and Dad's village.

I can work on it for two to three hours then I need to get up and move about, so Yoshi's getting lots of walkies in the park between sessions.

Bird

Time for another papercut, this time for my daughter-in-law, who has a big birthday approaching and — as I may, ahem, have already mentioned — is also pregnant (again with the yay!).

I love to draw, but designing is not my forte, and this poor little wren was subject to a lot of rubbing out and fiddling about.

Too finicky? With all that vegetation in her beak? It must weigh more than the bird does — and the border's getting a bit OTT ...

And what should I put in the strange heart shape? Does it need anything at all? Why not just the heart shape?

Would the composition be better if the M was on the other side?

Could the bird hold Marnie's name in her beak?

Ugh — looks like she's eating a worm!

Time to stop faffing about and just start cutting, I think.

Done

Finished and framed and off to Albany tomorrow for my mum's eightieth birthday.

Now I can see how wonky the tree trunk is, and all sorts of other dodgy bits ... oh well!

Back soon.

Getting there

This is the side I'm cutting ...

... and this is how it will look.

I have to be careful not to prune as I go. Or clip wings — as I think I may have done to the topmost bird. .. oh well!

Listening to One Giant Leap — and finding it hard to keep still to some of the tracks.

Reading, after hearing Shelley talk about it, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (A Novel), by Reif Larsen. And loving it so far.

Watching 30 Rock, Time Team, and the DVD set of the entire BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's North and South, bought for me by my excellent husband.

Off now to cook a Thai fish curry. Or at least, a Thai-style fish curry.

:: Why are so few of you blogging (ignoring that this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black)? Are you all bloody well twittering?

Snap out of it!

Pointy bits

These are my papercutting knives, and the new swivel-headed one is the tiny one in the centre.

It cuts like a dream, though you have to control it so you don't just woosh off the line.

The orange one fits over the index finger — as you can see on the wrinkly old lady's hand in this pic! — so you get a good grip. It feels quite comfortable and secure, but takes some getting used to when you're cutting.

And this is a picture of winter in Perth!

Doings

Thought I'd try my hand at some more papercut pictures.

Working in black this time, as you can see, so I have to sit outside where the light is sunny and warm. It's a slightly bigger version of this one that I made last year. Only without the name.

I made a pact with myself that I'd never do anything that featured owls, bambi-deer, or robots, as they are everywhere at the moment. There are lots of birdies, too, but at least mine are up a tree!

At the art store yesterday, I found a fantastic knife that has a tiny blade that swivels, making it a lot easier to cut accurate and smooth curves and circles.

I also found a two-kilo pack of paper clay, so when the light's not so good, I can get cracking with more angels. At long last!

Finished
Take a shiny gold-painted frame that's just the right size, and spray-paint it matt black.Finish the papercut picture I started a while ago.Et voila!And, to top it off, it rained — yay!

Bladework I've been admiring paper-cut silhouettes for a while now, seen in galleries while I was away and in blogland. Cuban artist Elsa Mora does amazing things with the technique, and can work on a really small scale, which must require a confident hand. I'm a great fan of her work.
Lily's boyfriend Nick has a real beauty hanging over his drawing table, so I was able to study it up close. I love silhouette pictures, and, done well, these can look really effective and a lot of fun. With a few kiddies' birthdays looming over the next few months, I thought I'd give it a whirl (a) to see how tricky it is and (b) to make some birthday prezzies. It took me a while to get the right thickness and weight of paper, that would cut easily, without tearing, and allow me to cut curved lines. And at the same time I had to find the right sort of blade for the knife, and then the right support.
I ended up cutting on the reverse side of the mat I use to cut my patchwork. It was hard on the eyes, concentrating on a cut line, but as with everything, practice will help. So this was my first attempt, once I'd sorted out all the above. I wanted to make a tree full of birds for dear little Elle, who turns one next month. I worked from the top down and got quite a bit more comfortable with the blade as I got towards the bottom branches.
There was quite a bit of accidental defoliation and deliberate swearing, until I got a system worked out and also left more substantial twigs and branches. I'm happy with the birds and leaves, but don't think Elle's name works at all. So we'll see how we get on with the next effort!