Happy Hallowe'en!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Minouette has chosen her costume; she's dressed as an angry box this year. I'm going to busy this evening, so I won't have as much opportunity to see all the little monsters dressed in their costumes, so it's sweet my darling cat has decided to dress for the occassion.

Neighbours might be interested to see the giant papier maché Totoro at Grenadier and Sunnyside. He's as large in real life as he was depicted in Miyazaki's films. Seriously.

bats, mushrooms & jellyfish - on pillows

As I attempt to convalesce at home (I am a bad sick person), I'm running a little minouette sweatshop. Here are some of my latest pillows (tip o' the hat to Gqueen who suggested a bat pillow):






Block printed bat on cotton with block printed fly agaric mushrooms on silk in a patchwork with wool and cotton fabrics on the front of this pillow. The reverse is a gray printed linen (airplanes, dots, and stripes) with a pin-striped cotton and red tentacle minouette label.





Block printed jellyfish on cotton print, in patchwork with printed and woven (including handwoven Nepalese) fabrics on front of pillow. Reverse is printed city scene and tweed. The pillow is 37 cm by 32 cm (14.6 inches by 12.6 inches).

By the way, I hope everyone is having a fabulous (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

Bats

The Mad Scientists of Etsy October challenge (in time for Hallowe'en, of course) is one of my favorite echolocating, mammals, the one-and-only flying bats!

An opalescent, silver-coloured bat linocut is hand-printed on deep teal Japanese unryu paper, in this first edition print. The edition is limited to 9 prints. Each print is 7" tall by 10.3" wide (18 cm x 26 cm).

I love unryu paper and the gorgeous, yet unpredicatble fibre texture. So strong and lovely.




And, just for you, the block:

I is for iguana, and insect, and indigo

This is the latest panel in my alphabet quilt-in-progress. It is a hand-block printed iguana in green ink on an old (though high thread count) cotton shirt in gray. The 'I' is printed with a vintage letterpress block. The insects were screenprinted by Smoking Lily - they sell scraps of fabric with prints they don't use in their clothing line. The insects in blue (on tee shirt material) are reverse appliqued onto the black fabric with one white fly.

What do you think? Maybe 2009 will be the year and I will actually finish this quilt.

I need to finish the 'N' and 'O' panels, which are in progress. I have to start 'Q', 'U', 'V', 'X', 'Y' and 'Z'. Then the actual quilting process can begin.