Keeping it in the family

I thought you might like to see the latest shot that my brother in law put up on one of the photo groups he and my OH belong to. I think it must be in the genes, this eye for a good pic.

I'm still beavering away with the finishing touches to the C&G and although it's out of sequence I thought I'd put up my last final piece as I was rather pleased with the pic, a great rarity for me as I'm married to such a good photographer.



This little bag was inspired by the shirts worn by the Plains Indians who wore them during the performance of the Ghost Dance. This was a ritual dance that they believed would help them bring back the old ways of a life of hard work and peace which they had been used to before they were confined to the reservations.

The circles represent the earth and the stars the heavens, I constructed it from indigo dyed muslin, discharge dyed cotton for the circles and Procion dyed cotton scrim. The lining is Indian cotton and the stars are silk organza. The beads are polished stones.

It will contain special items that have a significant meaning and power for the dancer. It has been constructed with the idea of it being made by the dancer’s wife in the spirit of protection.

The piece is small enough to tie to a belt at 11cm x 8cm.

I will post up more pieces as I get into the marathon task of photographing all the work for an on-line assessment, thank goodness I started blogging in module 3 as at least I have good documentation from then on.

St Teilo's church

As promised in an earlier post I now have the pictures of the medieval church we visited at St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff. We were completely amazed to see the finished paintings inside this lovely little church that had been lovingly relocated and restored at the museum, this is what it looked like when they found it, you can read the rest of the story here.



And this is what the outside looks like today.



We had seen the start of the paintings inside the year before, so when we entered the church last year and saw the finished work we were thrilled and astounded at the result. Apparently most medieval chuches were decorated like this as the majority of the congregation couldn't read and often the serman was give in Latin anyway, so the pictures had to tell the story, like this one.



And this one.



This is what the inside looks like from the back wall.



And then of course there were all those wonderful patterns just waiting to be used in a future art work









And lastly.......



If anyone is in the vicinity this little church is so well worth the visit and to make things even better, the museum itself is free to enter as it's funded by the Welsh government.

For our friends in Australia

In an effort to cool down some of our friends in Australia who have been suffering ferocious temperatures over the past weeks I thought I'd put up a few pics of our unusually cold weather conditions in southern England, we haven't had snow like this for about 20 years.



This is what it looked like at midday today, poor old Rosie (the dub) hasn't been too well lately and this must be the last straw, after being called an 'old bus', by a motorway patrol cop when we had to resort to the hard shoulder on the way back from Cardiff because she lost power completely, well she showed him anyway because after a short stop she shot off at 70mph!!!!!
I think she's really upset with all our talk of getting a bigger van next year.



The poor old dog won't go outside unless I go with him and the chickens haven't been out of their coops for two days.



The sheep seem to be totally confused, they walked all the way across the field up to their bellies and then went back again.



And as for the birds, well they're just in a feeding frenzy, and now it's freezing again out there, so goodness knows what the weather will throw at us tomorrow.

Knitting

As some of you, who have been watching my blog for some time will remember, this time last year I bought the wool and pattern for this cardigan. Well I never got round to starting it till June, but due to this bout of Arctic weather and recently joining a knitting group, (yes, yes I can hear you saying, "but she said she wasn't going to take anything on till she'd finished the C&G, but this is my reward for a hard day beavering away at samples'), I've finally finished it, and the that's what I wanted the buttons for, that I bought at Hoobycraft.





Anyway here's the result, Oh, and I'm sporting a new hair do, created at the hairdressers, I'm afraid my version is a lot less posh and controlled, still it got me a dinner out ot on Friday courtesy of my OH, he must have been impressed:-)



I knitted the scarf as a challenge from one of the group members as she could't get on with the wool and offered it up to anyone who wanted it, or the cat would have had it. The only thing is she was so impressed that she wants me to knit her one with the other ball she bought.

Birthday weekend

Just thought I'd share the lovely weekend we had with our DS and his lovely DF in Cardiff Bay.
It was My OH's B-day on Saturday and before Xmas when we were visiting we noticed that the Scottish Royal Ballet were performing Sleeping Beauty at the Wales Millennium Centre on his actual B-day, so as it was 20 years since we last saw a live ballet I decided to make it his B-day treat.

As we were spending the w/e we went up to Cardiff on the Friday and had a great afternoon at the St Fagans, National History museum, which I shall blog about later as I took some lovely inspirational shots of a beautiful medieval restored church.


Here's one to whet your appetite.

After a lovely afternoon I had to visit the new hobby craft in Cardiff and bought these wonderful buttons, for a project I'll show later.



When we arrived at the flat we were treated to a delicious Paella which our, soon to be, DIL made for us as a lovely start to our w\e.

On Saturday we went for a long walk around Cardiff Bay and tried out the new barrage walk along the harbour. It was quite blustery, but very excillarating. Here's me between my two boys!



And here's our lovely hosts.



Before we went to the performance we were treated to a spelndid meal, which was a surprise treat from our DS and his DF, thank you both very much.



Just before we went into the millennium Centre I just had to have a go at this night shot, it was such a stunning display in real life, I'm afraid my pic doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.



The inside of the MC is really modern and very stylish. The actual stage area isn't as large as you'd expect from the outside of the building but that helps to give it a more intimate feel I think.



Just before the curtain went up I managed to snap this shot of it as I thought it looked amazing.

The performance was absolutely super, I loved the fairy costumes and the intricate way the traditional story had been woven to suit a modern contemporary audiance.


One of the good fairies


The wicked fairy and her daughters responsible for trying to kill the princess.


The wonderfu princess (sleeping beauty) and her prince. They both danced magnificently together and seprately, bringing a lump to my throat with their tender interpretation of the story.

It certainly was a memorable evening.

Of course we had to round the w/e off with our usual vist to Craft in the Bay on Sunday for huge slices of cake and hot chocolate.

So a big thank you to Our DS and his DF for a fantastic w/e.

Australia

I went to the cinema with 2 of my DD's ( my poor youngest couldn't come out to play as her baby son had a nasty tummy bug, maybe next time), on Saturday and saw the amazing blockbuster, Australia.

It really is a 'must see' film, the scenery is amazing, the plot keeps you on the edge of your seat and the acting is faultless, especially that of Brandon Walters, who plays Nullah, "......a mixed race Aboriginal boy left orphaned by the inhumanity of Australian law"

Having just been doing a very small amount of research into the Australian Aboriginal culture I was completely captivated and horrified by this side of the story.

I had no knowledge of the "........Stolen generation when mixed race children were banned from living either with their Aboriginal families or within the white community, but were taken from their homes to be brought up in church missions" and was shocked that such cruelty could ever have been allowed to happen.

Having said that, It's a good thing for us to be educated in such things and I think this film handled it with sensitivity.

On to other things, I now have my official finishing date for my C&G, March 13th, so please excuse me if I'm an absentee blogger for a bit as I have 2 modules yet to do and am trying very hard not to panic!!!

January CG PC

This year the Calendar girls have each selected a favourite artist's calendar page as a design source for the month.
Debbi has started us off with a painting by Shane Picket, who as you will see if you follow the link is is one of the foremost Nyoongar artists working in Australia today.

I was fascinated by his wonderful work and by the Nyoongar, who are an indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia.

I did some research on the net and discovered that they have a very special relationship and respect for the land on which they live.

They beleive in the "The Wagyl (alternative spelling Waugal or Waagal) which is, according to Noongar culture, a snakelike dreamtime creature responsible for the creation of the Swan and Canning Rivers and other waterways and landforms around present day Perth and the south-west of Western Australia."

Also, "In Australian Aboriginal mythology, the The Dreaming or Altjeringa (also called the Dreamtime[citation needed]) is a sacred 'once upon a time'[1] time out of time in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation."

I found these accounts fascinating and wanted to illustrate my PC using some of the imagery that I found on another website,
here. I didn't realise at the time I was surfing that this artwork was on a freeway in western Australia.

The BG for the PC is a mixture of hand printing and digital manipulation, and the whole piece was printed onto print ready canvas.



I really enjoyed researching behind this artist and would have liked to have had time to explore the Nyoongar culture and myths, so thanks Debbi for such an inspirational start.