Iguana, and um.. Geisha

Another pillow... cause it is easier (and safer) to sew than to carve when exhausted.




Oh! I almost forgot the seahorse:

nautilus with blues and greys

I printed my nautilus lino block onto screen-printed canvas and made a patchwork with a couple of lovely spotted contemporary prints. The reverse is pin-striped grey with a label from a thrifted men's shirt.

Nautilus & Mermaid Pillow

New pillow! Nautilus printed on silk with some lovely contemporary fabrics of a suitably nautical bent, um... or faux-bois, because you cannot have too much faux-bois. 12.5" x 12.5 or 31.8 cm by 36.8 cm.







It's all about the tentacles, and the contrast with luxurious fabrics.

Science at Sea... with more kittens

The whole secret to doing marine science is cleaning. Sad, but true. See, if you are sending electronics to the bottom of the ocean, you need to place them in a sealed vessel. Sometimes these are made of glass. Ours are made of aluminum. The pressure vessels are sealed by metal-to-metal contact. They have really really flat surfaces and employ o-rings (like your vacuum cleaner, except we keep much better care of them). We wash these surfaces and the o-rings ad nauseam. We wash them with Kimwipes. These are 'delicate task wipers'. They have no fibres which could scratch our surfaces or o-rings. So much of my professional life depends on these Kimwipes. It irks me that my cell phone would not let me text 'Kimwipes' as it assumes (correctly, but that's not the point here) that I cannot spell. So, you'll understand the need to post the cat-in-a-box ... of Kimwipes.

waterlily

InkySpider, textile artist extraordinaire has featured my Frog and Lily print in her Trans-Canada Etsy Team round-up of gifts for CANCER - The Crab. Thanks Inky!

Edit: Oh, I wish I could spell.

Sense will always have attractions for me... and sea monsters? Why not.

I've learned from bioephemera that the sequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. The publisher boasts, "a new Austen to monster ratio. Instead of featuring 85% of Austen's work and 15% new text as in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters features 60% Austen and 40% additional monster chaos!"

So, what will happen to Willoughby?

Natural History

Ooh! I am featured in a Gift Guide on etsy! It's the Hot List: Natural History - for my radiolarians lino print.

Stripes and Spots pillow

So I made another pillow
yesterday, but it was too dark to photograph it.



This red and turqoise pillow is made of my lino block print of two zebras (Chevy and Burchell varieties) in black block printing ink on scarlet linen. It is in a patchwork with a contemporary print with a cheetah or jaguar, all spotted within spots.

I love how red combines with turquoise.



The back shows another contemporary print (ikea :) in red, orange and white with a stripe of brown suit fabric.

The pillow is 29.5 cm by 31 cm, or 11.75 inches by 12.25 inches.

Reflecting on the Moon Pillow

This month, the MSOE are honouring the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I am playing with the idea of reflection (to think back, refléchir, the reflection of light and reflection after a collosion). I carved a reduction print* lino block of the moon reflected in the sea. The way we usually see the moon, its light refracted through the atmosphere, is rather like trying to do astronomy from the bottom of a swimming pool - we can only really see a distorted image of our night sky from Earth, like observing the moon's reflection on the ocean. Actually going to the moon, allowed humankind a direct observation like no other.

The moon itself was formed, early in the evolution of our solar system, when a Mars-sized object collided with the young Earth. The object shattered and large amounts of the young planet's early mantle splashed up into orbit. Eventually all this material, both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial coalesced under gravity and our home gained a satellite we know as the moon.







*A reduction print involves carving a block, printing one colour, carving some and printing the subsequent colour or colours on top. It is not a technique a use often.

V is for vixen and viper

Another square in the ongoing alphabet quilt project: the vixen in the snow is block printed on an old button-down shirt in silver and rust ink; the viper (She: the snake, from the Chinese zodiac series) is block printed on a new cotton print fabric; V is a letterpress V printed on cotton. I also included the floral patterned cotton because it made me think of vines.

I only have U, X and Y left to make. Then I will have completed my quilt-top.

riding through Parkdale

I stopped to take some photos at the Dufferin jog (at Queen & Gladstone), and then again at the hoarding I photographed earlier at Queen & Dowling. I love that I know have some of its evolution in time:



You can check it out by clicking the photos, since all of them are geotagged, of course. You gotta love the naive Canadiana kiddie art and the flag of flags!

p.s. Oh, and as a proud Torontonian (seriously, we do exist!) I will point out that the garbage on the street isn't normal - this is two weeks into the garbage strike.

slightly less incognito

IMG_5192
Originally uploaded by jenluvzyou

but you still cannot see what I am drawing....

Found on the Craft Toronto flickr group.

TCA in the Park

Originally uploaded by rosalyn faustino

On Sunday the Toronto Craft Alert had a picnic in Trinity-Bellwoods park. Since most of my stuff isn't all that transportable, and I wasn't about to bring carving knives to the park, I brought a sketch book and some pencils. Rosalyn of stitchaday posted some great pictures on her flickr stream. This one, of the top of my head, makes me laugh. I am incognito and my sketches are top secret!


I took a couple of photos myself:

Vixen in the Snow

This is a detail of a lino block print on Japanese kozo paper, 9.2" by 12.5" (21 cm by 31.8 cm). Single block printed in rust and silver.

Summertime here in the Northern Hemisphere, yet I am thinking about snow.

The vixen is found here.

science scouts

Ooh! New Science Scout badges here. I award myself:



The “science deprives me of my bed” badge (LEVEL III).

In which your science, due to Lab work or fieldwork, dictates at least a full month away from your bed (KS).

and


The “I use twitter to spread science” badge.


Science in less than 140 characters is beautiful too (DN).


I get quantum mechanics, but I will skip the badge, as a reformed particle physicist.

Pretty self-explanatory.

Things you can do with a Fiat

1. Make a garden, like so:

[picture of MERCI – 111 boulevard Beaumarchais, 3rd Arrondissement, Paris by Karyn Valino via make something]

2. Make a tank/bulldozer, like so:

"The Fiat Cinque Tank, a dream bulldozer custom-built by ironsmith Kogoro Kurata, consists of an old Fiat 500 body mounted on the caterpillar tracks of a cheap secondhand tractor. The farm machine can only reach a speed of 3 kilometers per hour, turning a trip to the nearest convenience store into a 2-hour adventure, according to Kurata. But the classic look of the cabin no doubt impresses the neighbors, and the working power shovel comes in handy when obstacles block the way."

[via pink tentacle]