Shrines, Shines and the Keeping of Teeth

Well, the video seems to have sorted itself out. Someone emailed me to say that Google video (where the blog videos are held) was down for a while yesterday, so I expect that was the cause. When the blog is uploaded I don't think the platform (mac or pc) used to view it makes much difference.

I'm sorry not to be going to Harrogate, Kate. I'm teaching for the next few days so won't be blogging until Sunday. The sad thing is that Jane Lemon is not very well, so she won't be going either. Ruby Lever has been wonderful and I can't think of anyone better to set the exhibition up. She will have Val's girls, too, so make sure you say 'Hi'. Val's daughter, Sarah, was so taken with the Embellisher that I have talked Janome into lending them one for the show. Hope that they take photos.

Sharon: Molding mats are unmounted rubber stamps, made by Colorsnap (www.colorsnap.com). In the UK they are sold by Art Van Go or Rainbow Silks. Dale has them in Oz. They are not too expensive and come in lots of designs. Moonshadow Mists are walnut ink mixed with a lovely bit of glitz. If you Google Moonshadow Mists you'll find lots of stuff on them.

The blue metallic paint was Metallica by Jacquard, Wendy. I did add a little blue Pearlex-like stuff called Primary Elements. They come as a powder in little pots and you can see them, below.

Doreen - do try with mesh or water soluble paper. It makes it so much easier to integrate with a base fabric. This is my favourite piece made with this technique. I used a feathery molding mat with lots of WS paper, painted while wet. The background fabric is embellished organza on felt and there is a silk pod stitched across to make a divider.

Hi to Carole in BC. I love Canada and so want to go back again. The trouble with my life is that there are no longish chunks of time to travel. Glad you like the Stitch, Dissolve and Distort book. I feel so sad that there won't be another book with Val. Yesterday Batsford sent me two choices of cover for my Image to Stitch book and I so wanted to ask Val what she thought. I have to say that they were both great covers - hence my dilemma.

I am starting my next set of 'outings' with a talk on Celtic Inspiration at Basingstoke. I do enjoy giving talks. Clive does the history part of this one and, as part of the research he got very into shrines. These were, as I'm sure you know, used to hold sacred relics or books. One of the shapes was a house shrine like this one. Based on the churches which were very simple house shapes.

Clive made this shrine - he even did the stitching on a machine called a Poem which linked to a computer. The software was so horrendous that Clive (who used to be involved in computers before he accepted the job as my minder) was the only one who could make it work.

The technique is one that I used in my Raising the Surface book and involves pasting tissue over plastic canvas. He inked it and then we waxed it with metallic wax. He did a good job, didn't he? If I have to have my tooth out perhaps he'll make it a tooth shrine. Yes, they did have those!

Yesterday's dental happiness was short lived. When the dentist filled the tooth he said it might not last, but that we should see how it went. In the event it went very quickly so I'm off to the dentist again this morning.

We had a power cut yesterday evening so I didn't get my Celtic stitching done. You'll have to see that next week.