Gramarye - the blog

Problems with Blogger comments

2009-07-01T09:15:00.003+10:00

Over the last month or two I kept coming across Blogspot blogs where I've written a comment and had it totally disappear - at first I wondered if it was awaiting moderation or just a glitch on my part, then lately I've found I couldn't even reply on my own blog to comments, so apologies if you have left a comment here and I haven't replied.

I went googling and found I'm not alone in this, (I found a post from Rurality with just this same problem and lots of her readers with similar)

It appears to be the blogs that have a little comment box under the post - which is called embedded comments.
No matter how I try to sign in to this box, with my google ID or open ID, just nothing works.

It has to be a Blogger problem and I suspect it has only recently begun to happen.

Which is why I've now switched to the full page view for comments, this seems to be the one that works best.

It would be interesting to hear if you have a Blogger blog with the embedded comments form - have the number of comments on your blog mysteriously dropped off during the past month? You might want to switch to the full page comments.

No Koala Prison !!

2009-06-28T15:12:00.004+10:00

Last weekend at the Winter Magic Festival at Katoomba we saw this group in the parade and decided to find out more.

A development application (DA X/1128/2008) has been lodged with the Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) for an animal exhibition space (described as an 'educational facility') at Echo Point, Katoomba. (a very popular tourist spot)

The applicant wishes to display reptiles and koalas.

The arrangements for housing and displaying the koalas are appalling.

According to the development application, two koalas will be imported from Victoria and housed in an enclosure in a basement-style room.

The koalas will not have access to sunshine or fresh air, and will be made available to members of the public for petting and photographing for an unspecified number of hours every day.

Potentially, the koalas could be handled by thousands of people every day.

The koalas are from Victoria, meaning they don't like to eat the less-nutritious leaves from NSW eucalypts, and so arrangements have to be made to get regular shipments of Victorian gum leaves to Katoomba.

The Blue Mountains Council has already denied the Development Application for this project so the developer is now approaching the next highest authority, the Land and Environment Court of NSW.

Sydney Morning Herald, Basement Koala plan savaged

More about it in the Blue Mountains Gazette

We signed a petition at the festival but were unable to get to the rally yesterday, I've been looking for information on how it went but haven't found much to date.

Winter Magic

2009-06-28T14:23:00.002+10:00

Last weekend we headed up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, for the annual winter solstice festival.
Previous years have had good clear sunny winter days, but this year it was bleak, grey, foggy and the rain kept up all day in light splashes.

It was looking very bleak as we reached the outskirts of town:

but it didn't stop the crowds, Katoomba Street was packed:

The Fashion Police were writing tickets for anyone dressed in beige:

The Grand Parade was interesting as always, lots of characters and colours

and bellydancers who didn't look the slightest bit cold

and zombies (there was to be a Zombie Ball that night)

and very cool steampunk

and a very sweet Mad Hatter serving coffee

and this is Bandit in her dragon costume:

I've met up with Bandit over the last three years of festivals, in her outfits, unfortunately her owner thinks this may be her last year as she has leukemia and is not responding to treatment, she is such a lovely patient dog.

There were several local issue groups, one protesting the closure of Katoomba Hospital - the maternity ward has already been closed then re-opened from public pressure then closed again, nearest hospital is Nepean, which is a 45 minute drive away (that's on a good day, with no accidents on the one road out of town which can tie up traffic for hours)

Another issue that we learnt about during the parade was the plan by a developer to install two koalas in a BASEMENT room at the Echo Point tourist centre for photographic and petting opportunities:

I'm going to make another post just about this, it is appalling treatment of our native animals

After the parade, we wandered up and down the street stalls, then headed off home pleased to be leaving the cold wet mountains behind:

Here's my video of part of the parade,

slow cloth and practical pottery - #8 the kiln

2009-06-03T10:43:00.003+10:00

Here's another little piece of my low fired embroidery series, the kiln, on rusted fabric

Technorati tags:
textiles embroidery

miniature hexagons

2009-05-08T10:20:00.003+10:00

Time to get back to something textiley -
I spent last weekend at the Sydney Miniatures Show (will post some pics in the next day or so)
Some of the miniature needlework on display and for sale was exquisite. I can't say mine was anywhere near their standard, but here are a couple of quilts started yonks ago and never quite finished (sigh....why is that not surprising)

This method is usually referred to as 'English Patchwork’. A most used shape is the hexagon, assembled by tacking patches over paper templates, then over-sewing the edges together.

Mal has been showing some of her hexagons here - Mal could easily join the exquisite ranks, she mentions using a ladder stitch to join the pieces, and you can't even see her stitches, unlike my hens teeth overcasting.

I really do admire fine needlework, I could probably do it if I set my mind to trying, I just always seem to be in a hurry and hurrying doesn't gel with fine work.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this last one, it started to sprout in all directions at once, not at all 'quilty'

Geocities Nostalgia

2009-05-05T14:41:00.006+10:00

Yahoo is pulling the plug on all those free Geocities web sites - there must be millions of them out there, including three of mine which I'd practically forgotten (and it seems can no longer access, thanks Yahoo!)

It was back in the halcyon days of early internet - Geocities was the place you practised your self taught html skills (or lack of).

Suddenly everyone (teenager or middle-aged geek) with a computer and internet access could realise their dream of becoming a web designer and show the whole world their holiday slides and photos of the cat.

It was the place you found java scripts for cute things that followed your cursor around and made snow and autumn leaves flutter down your pages.

(see here for example if you use Explorer, never could get it to work in Netscape)

It was GRAPHICS personified - gifs that moved, jpgs, flashy backgrounds with Borders on Both Sides, how cool were we!

It was the home of halucinogenic colours and flashing lights and moving things and dreadful wav files of Strawberry Fields Forever.

And every little hobby group suddenly realised they too could become a world renowned force for good.....which is why I'm wasting time downloading ten year old pages and trying to persuade said hobby group that web sites are old old old - get a blog heavens sake! - we could even TEAM blog! (this is one of the sites I lost access to which is why the content is about 10 years out of date)

Back before Yahoo took them over, Geocities had their own little social networking system, our sites were in themed 'neighborhoods' then each neighborhood was divided into suburbs then into blocks and that's where you built your site. We had community leaders and it was all very pally and helpful.

I was trying to remember the name of my original neighborhood and found this old list of names - I was in Heartland/Meadows

Yahoo took over Geocities in 1999 at the height of the dot.com boom and immediately dismantled the neighborhoods.

Some would say that was the beginning of the end, but I think the end was helped along by the static nature of web sites in general, much more direct were the new social networks offered by blogs, facebook, YouTube and photo sites like Flickr

Somewhere I read a note comparing Geocities to an abandoned amusement park - perfect description, the ride is over, just waiting now for the demolishers to move in.

gggrrrrrr!!

2009-04-16T16:28:00.002+10:00

I am really p---d off!! - REALLY I AM!!

I set up some Google alerts, stuff like "textile art" "cloth dolls" just time wasting little things that let me know when someone has written something about them,
(like I need more blasted links to follow!!) (sorry Paula, lots of exclamation marks in this one)

anyways - one of the alerts I set up was for my full name, which lets me know if anyone mentions me by name - it very seldom happens, but today an alert came through with my name and a link to "sculptured dolls" - which when I clicked was a BLOODY PORN site!! (more exclamations)

It has picked up the meta tag description from my web site and used it to lure people in to their dirty little site - do they really think cloth doll people want to ogle hard sculpted naked bodies (don't answer that!!) (exclamation) I suppose you could call it anatomical research....

So I've just spent hours re-wording the meta tags leaving my name out, which involved downloading files then uploading again to the server.

I've been thinking about deleting the web page and just using the blog, much simpler to use, and the web site is so out of date, I need days to write new pages - this might have just been the push I need, we'll see.

Meantime, just watch out where your mouse is taking you!

Salvaged

2009-04-06T19:04:00.001+10:00

salvaged bag, originally uploaded by gramarye.

The Generation X'er broke the zip on her cooler bag - "I'm throwing this away mum, DON'T get it out of the bin"
"But it's still GOOD..." says the Baby Boomer mother

and so it was, once the zipper was removed, and the flap lid cut off and the outside patchworked.

and I've got a little carry bag for my little projects.

Voyages of the Imagination

2009-03-28T09:30:00.006+11:00

The textile group that I belong to has decided on a theme for their show next year.

"Voyages of the Imagination - journeys travelled or imagined into illusion or reality, resulting in exploration, questioning, challenge perceptions of reality - speculate and discover stories and techniques on a travelled journey limited only by your imagination"

Doesn't that sound fun!

This used to be a yearly show but has just gone to every second year, I've taken part in several of their smaller challenges but never the 'big' show, it always seemed to come around too quickly, so I thought, as I have the rest of this year to work on it, I'll have a go (of course that doesn't mean it won't come around just as quickly - or that my work will be accepted)

I am heavily into fantasy worlds with my reading so I started skimming a few books, as well as skimming the internet, all in the name of research I keep telling the family.

I landed on a name generator site and discovered that I am really Queen Silvercold of Elencia, which took my fancy.

Elencia sounded vaguely familiar so I thought I should google it and not step on anyone's toes if it is being used.
On the Urban Dictionary site I found that 'Elencia is the rumoured nightmare/psychological "happy place" experienced in a coma'- well, that threw me for a moment (only a moment) and then I decided why not, sounds good to me.

I've decided on two directions of work.
First I need a means of travel to get to my happy place, so a boat sounds in order, to be heavily inspired I think by James Christenson.
Then I need a journal for the voyage:
either the "Expeditionary Journal of Queen Silvercold"
or "A Field Guide to the Flora and Fauna of Elencia"

With the field guide in mind I started this piece:

I'd picked this up at a remnant sale simply because I like the gathers which reminded me a little of shibori, it's some kind of elasticised synthetic, maybe it can be distorted and painted to colour that awful green.

Then I tried a few leaves and shapes with free machining on water soluble Solvy plastic, then painted them.

I made a cord by zig zagging thick rug wool, and draped it over my 'shape' - haven't decided just what it is yet - who knows what strange fungii grow in Elencia.
Then I tried to crochet some leafy bits to the cord.
In retrospect it would have been easier to add all the pieces to the cord before fastening it to the shape, but that is what hindsight is all about.

So here is the first trial piece for the Field Guide, I just have to be careful where I keep it, I have a feeling this is the sort of plant that spreads.

What If Wednesday

2009-03-18T08:33:00.004+11:00

I haven't had a What if for a few weeks so here's a double helping.

What if I take a piece of terylene curtaining fabric with embroidered flowers and needle felt through it -
On the front the embroidered threads just chopped up, but I liked this piece best - worked from the back of the fabric the embroidery merged nicely as the wool pushed through to the front of the fabric, and framed the one flower that was not felted.

and here is a very easy way of adding texture to paper,
paint a layer of gesso onto paper then rubber stamp into the still wet gesso.
Best with a large stamp without too much fine detail, here I used stamps that I had carved into erasers.

Icelandic Fairy Story

2009-03-09T10:30:00.006+11:00

I do love a good fairy story, especially when it is true.

From Iceland (via Vanity Fair magazine)

"Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant.

The first was the so-called “hidden people” — or, to put it more plainly, elves — in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe.

Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it.

It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman said, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.” "

slow cloth and practical pottery #7

2009-03-04T19:53:00.002+11:00

I'm still working on the "thunder of the gods" piece but think it may have gone as far as it's going - I'll put it aside for now (but you haven't seen the last of it)

Meanwhile I whipped up a log cabin, love the logs, they go together so fast, even faster when you don't measure or worry about straight seams!
The colours put me in mind of the red heat of a kiln and the dark bricks and smokey atmosphere of a reduction firing, so I played this by ear and just stitched

ripples of heat haze

and the flames rise higher

weaving cloth

2009-02-25T08:00:00.002+11:00

I watch the magic that Jude creates when she takes strips and scraps of cloth and weaves them into whole pieces and makes a story of them.

Way back in another age, I was taught to turn and finish and hide the seams... way back I had problems coming to grips with the raw unfinished edges on 'art' quilts, but the more I work with the ripped and torn, the easier it gets.

This little piece of weaving was just 'for' - not part of anything, not with a purpose, not to exhibit, no one to ask 'what is it for' - it was just for me, to stitch and touch.

It might turn into something else or it might just stay as it is and go into a drawer and years later I'll find it to touch again and be reminded that things don't always have to be 'for' or finished or turned and tucked.

a bag....or maybe not

2009-02-23T09:32:00.003+11:00

I started to make this little patchwork bag, really like the way the three fabrics were used in the pleats...and then I thought 'what the devil am I going to do with this bag' I can only just fit my hand inside it, it's way too small to put all my junk in, I don't go places where I need a delicate little clutch bag.....
but it does.. sort of..look like a cocoon
I seem to have a thing for cocoons lately, snug little nests, somewhere to crawl into and hide from the world ....nothing to do of course with the fact that daughter has just moved back home, VERY temporarily, and we are trying hard not to invade spaces...

slow cloth and practical pottery #6

2009-02-19T09:02:00.000+11:00

I added a couple of strips of rusted cloth to the bottom left corner but wasn't happy to leave them alone, so drew the outlines of more pots and coloured them with fabric crayons, then outlined and filled in with embroidery

slow cloth and practical pottery #5

2009-02-17T10:42:00.004+11:00

Here is a little more of my slow cloth project, I wasn't sure enough of my drawing skills to work directly onto the fabric, so made a couple of attempts on paper first, then pinned the tracing paper to the fabric and stitched through it onto the fabric.

I really like the shadows and lines that the stitching creates in the fabric, a bit like digging furrows in a field.

really cute

2009-02-07T18:43:00.002+11:00

Want to see something really cute - these photos are not mine but have been circulating around my friends and their friends - we have been having incredible heatwave conditions, it's our turn in NSW this weekend but the southern states of Victoria and South Australia have really been hit hard the past week.

This little koala wandered onto someone's verandah trying to escape the heat, so she put out a basin of water for it.

New curtains and cushions

2009-02-07T18:34:00.004+11:00

Oh waily, waily, waily,
it's SO HOT!!
....and everyone from UP THERE keeps posting their snow pictures!

I decided to tough out the heat in my sewing room and make a new kitchen curtain - none of the squares line up because it was too hot to measure the window first, (well that's my story) I just kept adding bits then holding it up to the window.
I'ts really hard to get used to not looking straight out the window so I added a couple of lace squares as little spy holes - and it stops short of the sill so I could show off my teapot collection.

then I remembered some UFO cushion covers started yonks ago, so I finished them off by adding the back and some inserts and ticked that off my list!

slow cloth & practical pottery #4

2009-02-04T10:38:00.002+11:00

I decided to start numbering the embroidered pottery entries to keep track of them.

After beginning the lettering I thought it needed some colour, so I added a nest of pots using fabric crayons directly onto the material.
Another way of applying the crayons is to draw on paper then place the paper face down onto the fabric and iron, this transfers the reverse of your drawing onto the fabric - I've never had much luck with this method, maybe I haven't had enough crayon on the paper, but it always seems to be a very pale image.

I outlined the pots in stem stitch then filled in the colour with running stitch using matching thread.

then started the stitching on the background - I'm just using running stitch at the moment, similar to kantha style work.

Slow cloth and practical pottery

2009-02-01T09:45:00.004+11:00

"...and here we are, back with the gods,
whose thunder and whose thunderous tones
dwell in the plasticity of our clay"

I found this quotation scribbled in one of my clay notebooks but with no attribution.

A search came up with a book by Mary Caroline Richards called
"The Crossing Point - selected talks and writings".

Richards was a potter during the 1960's, she relates creating pottery to personal development. She speaks of 'a hunger deep in people all over the planet for coming into relationship with each other'....and isn't that just what we are all doing here as we visit each other's work.

This 'crossing point' she says is like the image of centering clay on the potter's wheel, we work the body of clay as we work the body of our mind, we make a big vessel of living water that we all need to drink, and we all need to help to make so that it will be big enough to hold us all.

In the chapter called 'Occupational Therapy' she connects clay and song "the inner ear and the moving hand"

She found that the German word for Sound is ton which means both tone and clay, and the common quality of tone and clay is their stretch, their plasticity.

Their ancient root is TA: to stretch. We hear it not only in tone, but in tendon, tension. The Latin word 'tono' means to resound, and 'tonens' is thunder, the thunderer, the thunderer God Jupiter - and here we are, back with the Gods!
Isn't that an interesting connection!

This was a fascinating book which I am still reading, you have to love the 'innernetz' without it this would have remained a nameless quotation.

And on to my slow cloth, which has me so obsessed it is not slow but progressing very quickly.
I cut a pattern from freezer paper which is supposed to represent the heat flowing around a kiln.

Using a piece of the fabric that I had dyed with rust and iron oxide, I ironed the paper to it then outlined the edges with a Shiva paintstik, This was worked into the fabric with an old toothbrush then ironed to set the paint.

After the colour has set, the freezer paper is peeled off. It can be used again.

Now on with some stitching.

What If Wednesday - melting moments

2009-01-28T14:11:00.002+11:00

Wow, Wednesday came around again so quickly!

I thought I'd stay with things that melt and show what happens when you iron cellophane paper.
This is the heavy type of cellophane used by florists to wrap flowers.
Place between two sheets of baking paper and iron, experiment with heat settings and length of time (usually only a matter of seconds)
Although it doesn't give off the fumes like tyvek I'd still advise a well ventilated room.
After the bubbles have formed on the paper you can brush over a metallic paint.
Whilst you get a similar appearance to tyvek, these papers are not as hard wearing but can be easily stitched to fabric by hand or machine.
Don't overdo the machine stitching as it could cause the paper to rip away easily.

The reverse side with the bubbles down also has a nice texture when brushed with a little paint.

The next piece was silver cellophane ironed then free machined onto a piece of tulle, the tulle was cut away in sections leaving open lacework of machined stitching.

Next was a cellophane Doritos packet, ironed, stitched and painted.

Finally,
not paper but tin, this was a piece of heavy aluminium foil, flattened and hammered to create texture. We held it over a flame which was supposed to give the metal an anodised look but mine just went black. Machine stitched to fabric. Probably not a good way to treat your sewing machine as it was very heavy going, if you try this, keep your blunt machine needles just for doing this.....if they weren't blunt before, they will be after!

The Whatiffers Movement

2009-01-21T13:20:00.009+11:00

There seems to be a growing movement of "WhatIffers" amongst my textile contacts.
Sara Lechner has started a new blog called Whatiffing Around and a Flickr group of the same name.

I was first introduced to the "what happens if" by Carol Wilkes, an Australian textile artist, can't remember how many years ago now, but it was at the now defunct "Camp Creative" which was a full week of playing at Katoomba, they had workshops in everything from textiles, drumming, art, blacksmithing, sculpture. Friends and I would rent a cottage in the main street and have the most amazing week.

A couple of years ago I started putting my "whats" experiments in a little notebook, (if you don't write it down, it is too easy to forget the secret ingredient), so I thought I might show it here.

It's a bit of a mixed bag but mostly textile related.
I'll start today with tyvek:

There are lots of web sites around with information on tyvek, enter the phrase "using tyvek for art" into google and you'll find loads of information so I won't repeat all of it here, but will say do it in a well ventilated space, there WILL be fumes, and when you paint it before melting you can add paint fumes as well - not a healthy mix.

There are also different weights and grades of tyvek, what you get depends whether you shop with an art supplier, hardware store or post office.
The first two pictures are the thin sheets bought from an art supply:

painted and stitched before applying heat with an iron (put it between two sheets of baking paper before ironing)

this was a thin sheet painted then cut before ironing

The next is a piece of tyvek from a pair of painters disposable overalls bought in a hardware store - much softer and pliable fabric but didn't appear to melt as much.

Next is a FedEx bag received in the mail from the US - I haven't checked the Australian Post Office but I'm pretty sure we don't have tyvek bags here.

The first piece at the top of this next page was brushed with puff paint, which puffs up on heating - don't ask where to get it! I've had a bottle for about 15 years! (Part of my "Use It and Don't Buy Anything New" programme for this year)
Heated with a heat gun.

the piece in the centre of page was coloured with metallic oil pastels and ironed.

next was painted with Lumiere paint, then melted and sewn in place with free machining - be very careful doing this - you can see the little opaque white bits, they have turned into pure plastic blobs and will break needles. Of all the different grades I tried, the FedEx bag seemed to have the hardest surface when melted.

Next is I think my all time favourite piece of tyvek - without any help it seemed to form a goddess shape:

It is thick puff paint on a piece of Fed Ex bag, heated with a heat gun, then dark blue acrylic paint with highlights of gold Lumiere paint, hand sewn after I broke a machine needle on it. Isn't it yummy!

And here's a few more:

then if you are wondering what to do with all these little pieces, you could work it into your embroidery:

phew!
If you want to see any of these larger, click to go to Flickr, I've made them all small to fit in my new 3 columns template.

I have lots more What Ifs but I think this was the biggest - I might make it a regular What If Wednesday, which should get me working!

Lilly Pilly with needlefelt

2009-01-19T22:32:00.003+11:00

I've been playing with my needlefelt machine, took a break in the garden and found my Lilly Pilly is flowering, they are similar to a gum nut flower but much smaller and delicate

new blog template

2009-01-15T12:57:00.013+11:00

It is SO HOT, this is our third day of temperatures in the very high 30's (Centigrade)
I haven't resorted to the air conditioner yet today but it won't be long.

my pumpkins are melting in the heat...

I found a tutorial on changing the blogger template to 3 columns so have been having a fiddle around with it - easier than I thought it would be, even though he recommends starting with the Minima template and I was using the Minima stretch, but it was very easy.
Some of the pictures on earlier posts might run into the side columns, I'm not sure, I will have to go back and check...another day

Is anyone else using Twitter - I just started but finding it very hard to follow, and who wants to know what we are doing every minute - you'd have to be a real twit!!

Off to clear some space in my sewing room - one of my friends just bought an embellishing machine which reminds me that I promised myself to experiment more with mine, first have to find a permanent space - it's really off putting when you have to move something to make room for something else.

Summertime!!

2009-01-05T17:05:00.001+11:00

Summertime!!, originally uploaded by gramarye.

I've swapped a husband for a grandchild for two days - they are doing father/son bonding/fishing - we are swimming (well one of us is!)