Category Archives: Art Craft and Beauty

Communion

15 Sunday Feb 2009

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Some days it seems like the world is really alive. Beauty is illuminated, and friendship recalled.

The window is veiled, we cannot see into the world outside, and yet it is inexplicably present, revealed in a moment of light and shadow and colour. The sunshine-yellow Daffodils bask in the light of the lamp, reminding me of friendships forged in this place that is home. Below, almost unnoticed, a wooden bowl that was once my Mother’s has travelled with me since I left home, now contains treasured pebbles from a nearby beach, an empty crab shell, and a Dotee doll, each reminding me of delight, death and the beauty of community.

Hiding at the base of the lamp, a small bendable creature grins, an impulsive gift from dear friends, reminding me to smile.

Ruby the Woolly Dotee

07 Saturday Feb 2009

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Ruby now lives in America. She was the first Dotee I made successfully. The previous two may make an appearance later, but they’re still shy. Ruby came into being for a red-themed Dotee swap on swap-bot, and as the weather was getting all shivery, I thought perhaps she’d have a nice warm cuddly coat…

And a hat and scarf in a lovely fluffy green to remind her of home. I actually crocheted the hat freehand! Its made of the softest yarn I’ve ever found, and Ruby herself is made from a red flannel (which I bought especially once I realised what her story was, and that she should really have a nice wooly coat of her own).

Here she is all snuggled up cutely to her hat. She does love it so!

I took a picture as I waved her goodbye. She was off to find a nice warm bubble envelope to curl up in while she travelled to her new home! I was sad to see her go, but pleased she would be meeting lovely new people and bringing smiles around the world. I still smile when I think of her.

Here is the portrait I sent with her:

Sadly, I’m having trouble finding her story… I’ll add that when I discover where it got scanned to! Suffice to say, Ruby wasn’t always woolly… but she did get cold, and she was bright enough to realise that sheep had woolly coats that kept them warm…

One World One Heart ~ Giveaway!!!

03 Tuesday Feb 2009

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty

≈ 162 Comments

Tags

, ,

Photo

Comments are now Closed!!!

Thank you everyone for commenting, I’ve had a lovely time lookingat all your blogs and its been really reassuring to see so many people interested in my little Dotee doll.

Thank you.

I will now go and choose a winner, watch this space!

Random Number generator says: Number 29

AlwaysInspired

Congratulations!!!

Please get in touch with me by Monday as you haven’t left any contact details! If I don’t hear from you I will draw again on Monday.

Thanks again to everyone for participating!

(Also posted in a new post)


Hello wonderful people! Welcome to my studio 😀

One World, One Heart is a wonderful invention by Lisa the Whimsical Bohemian (Thanks Lisa!) Click on the logo for information, but basically its a way of networking, and a big pile of giveaways!!!

The rules:

Leave a comment to this post with your blog and/or email address in it.

On Thursday the 12th I’ll put all the names in a hat and pick one.

The person who owns the name I draw wins:

Imbolc!

Photobucket

Snow and roses.

Inspired by Dot‘s Dotee Art Dolls and my day on the 2nd of February, the calender Imbolc, the marker for the beginning of Spring. Imbolc is a small sized Dotee doll hand crafted by me with love. She’ll arrive carefully wrapped with her own portrait, bringing dreams of the summer and memories of the best bits of the winter…

I look forward to meeting you all!

~Haloquin (Wales, UK)

PS: Turned off comment moderation! Yay! Multiple links make comments still come up as spam though, so I’ll keep checking.

PPS: Thank you for the comments on the photo that is the banner, but I can’t actually claim credit for it! Its a stock photo that comes with the layout of the blog. I do intend to change it, its just picking a perfect alternative from my many photos. I agree though, its a beautiful picture!

*********************

UPDATE: I’m overwhelmed by how many people would like to give little Imbolc a home! Thank you everyone! Just one thing though… please make sure you leave some way for me to contact you!!! Not everyone has and I’d be sad to pick your name and have to redraw because I can’t tell you.

For the drawing, I will close comments when I get up on Thursday the 12th, and as I live in the UK, this might be a bit earlier than some people (although as I’m also a student, I’m not sure that’ll be the case!)

I will randomly generate a number, using an online integer generator, and the person whose name goes with the number will be the lucky winner!

I’ll post on this post who won, and contact them if I can. If the person hasn’t left contact details I’ll wait until Monday for them to let me know what their email is. If they have, I’ll wait until Monday for them to send me posting details.

If I don’t hear back from the winner by Monday, I’ll draw again and repat said process.

Hopefully we’ll manage this together first time! 😀

Knitted Rucksack!

29 Thursday Jan 2009

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

,

Finally lined this. I spent all of the winter holidays knitting this from a pattern in Stitch ‘n’ Bitch, although I skipped the intarsia as I wasn’t sure what design I wanted to use, and didn’t take any wool other than the red with me anyway. I plan to embroider a design on it eventually, but to all intents and purposes it is one completed rucksack!

Photobucket

See the way the white makes the zip look like a mouth? So far I have 2 votes to add eyes and turn this into an odd little rucksack creature… I’m not entirely sure,  it might be a little creepy.

Turns out I’m not very good at following patterns particularly well. I miscounted some of the measurements and ended up having to do some  grafting on the gussett and some creative sewing in one corner to get all the pieces to work together. I also sewed the body together before knitting the straps… which are supposed to be sewn into the seams. Oops. Turned out alright though, I grafted them on instead so now they grow out of the back 🙂

Photobucket

And here it is with my current, slightly more adventurous, project peeking out. A stripey hoodie. Pattern also from Stitch ‘n’ Bitch, wool is a silky brand called Debbie, and my choice of colours are red, orange and purple. They looked so yummy together! Despite being in the sale, they still cost a whole pile of money, (Thank you, Dad and S. Birthday/xmas present has already given me hours of joy!) but its so nice to work with, and I’m hoping the cost will encourage me to actually finish it sooner rather than later. I’m using bamboo knitting needles, which are so much more pleasant than metal or plastic, I think I’ll have to amas a collection of them… The black and psychedelic patterned box in there is a pencil-box in which I keep all my little knitting things, like tape-measure, stitch counters, tapestry needle, etc. It makes me smile when I look at it because the patterns so funky!

Photobucket

The hoodie so far… wish me luck!
This is the back piece, the purple stripe will be about 4 inches wide, with another inch wide orange stripe and then more red… with, hopefully, a red hood and pocket and purple sleeves (probably with an orange stripe or two as I’m not sure I bought quite enough purple :P)

Space and Colour

24 Saturday Jan 2009

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

The preceding three posts, Dreamer, Starstruck and Touchdown, were the result of a wintertime jaunt into the big city. Nottingham to be precise. I went hunting art galleries, and after several hours it seemed I had failed.

A chance turning proved me wrong and I found myself in the Castle Galleries.

Here I followed my usual pattern and, immediately on entering the door I turned Left and followed the wall around, down the stairs and back again, soaking up the beautiful art pieces on display (all for sale at far beyond my current means!)

As I gazed on the muted colours and play of light in these paintings I found myself returning to an old thought… my tendency towards saturated colours lets me down. Couldn’t I do so much better? Couldn’t I uncover so much more depth in my art, if I conquered my urge to use bright strong colours and mute them, make them subtle, make them soft?

I felt disheartened, somewhere deep in my heart I knew that while I may indeed find muted, muddy colours useful one day, and I certainly would love to have a more striking sense of chiaroscuro in my works, I adore bright colours! Love them. Would hate to part from them.

You can imagine, then, how turning the corner then and coming face to face with Peter Smith‘s “Pick Me” was a delight!

The colours! The pure happy, joyful, colours!

I left the gallery with a sense that I was on the right path for me. What a relief that was.

I also, in the same visit, found myself admiring the use of white space in one artist’s work, how it told the story, and how it was perfectly fine to have a single figure with no specific background, something I do but an never sure I’m right to. I remembered my 15 year olds forays into drawing angels as emotions, and begun to mull over what would happen if I brought these things togather again. White space to tell a story, colour to make my heart sing, and my angels, as not just human and yet intricately, intimately connected to humanity. And so these three pictures were born.

Its always reassuring to see artworks that reflect something of what you do in your own works, especially when you’ve been doubting yourself. It reminds me of that thing I know I know, but sometimes forget… art is what you make it, there is no wrong way, only your way.

The Dreamer

24 Saturday Jan 2009

Posted by in Art Craft and Beauty

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

dreamerI am a dreamer. A dreamer I have always been. But what I have learnt, despite those that tell me I should stop and live in the ‘real world’, what I’ve learnt is that if I dream hard enough if I carry those dreams with me as I walk in the world, my dreams, they become real. My dreams become the real world. And the real world is that much more beautiful for it.