cliodhna’s wave

Hi! to enter the giveaway please comment on either this post or my facebook page GreenBirdDreaming…

I have decided its time for another giveaway.

Now to the theme of the giveaway. The Small Achievement Award.

I was thinking the other day about how I run myself down and always try to work harder and push myself further and think ‘oh, i am not working fast enough’ or ‘I am not being good enough’. I work with a Toltec teacher and part of this work is seeing myself and finding out who I really am, finding where I stop myself from shining but also just be happy where I am right now and accept myself. I, as explained above, push myself in this also and he tells me ‘but Cliodhna, you are great! you are an artist living in Chihuahua and you travel here and travel there and you paint beautiful things’ and I think, ‘you know he’s right, I have done a lot and i don’t give myself credit for what I have done, I just run myself aground on my thoughts of what I didn’t do or how I did it wrong’.

Thats where this post comes from, not the big achievements that are in papers or make news on the television but the little achievements we don’t give ourselves credit for, being a mother raising wonderful children, painting, making a cake, being nice to the neighbour, listening to someone, learning to drive, traveling, just being me, whatever you have done or do that you don’t recognise as an achievement.

I am going to officialy give myself a pat on the back for living in another country, learning another language, and on an even smaller level changing a lock in a door which took me a while to figure out but all finished and I had a perfectly working chub lock without calling a locksmith to do it! I was quite proud of that

Comment below to enter the giveaway and if you like, share something small you have achieved you would like to congratulate yourself for. Can be anything!

x cliodhna

I have just spent the last hour wandering through Kathy Yorks Art Quilts and being inspired and wowed. Her quilts are beautiful!

This one is incredible, the buildings are all 3d blocks. She describes how she makes them and how she puts lollipop sticks in them to reinforce them structurally.

I adore this one. Called ‘Falling through the cracks’. The bird fishing for the falling beads and the textures of the different colour buttons in the squares up on top. I love the subtlety of the colours.

This one is from Kaizer Krafts blog. I found it when I did a search for ‘goldfish quilts’ before I started my own one. ‘Wow’ is all I can say. She has other pics from the Tokyo International Quilt festival.

This is beautiful.. It is from the National Quilt Museum. The link is to their facebook page.

It makes me wonder when I see art that truly drops my jaw open. A part of me wants to compare and think ‘I could NEVER do that!’ but of course I could, it would just be differant thats all. I am inspired about the whole quilt thing. That is what good art does, it inspires you to create. Dream beyond your old borders.

I am slowly defining myself as a textile artist. Before I did textiles but I wanted to paint and when I went into galleries with my embroideries they would generally shake their heads and say ‘no crafts’. Now, I am starting to find all these quilt shows, textile fairs, arts and crafts festivals and other opportunities that I would love to do. I think getting into an international quilt festival would be a good goal to have!

x clio

ok, for starters this is the first tutorial I have posted on this wee blog of mine so any suggestions as to improve the following are welcomed with open arms

I make greeting cards and I decided for my first tutorial to post about them. They are simple and easy to make and the finished product is wonderful. I have received warm reports from these. I think its the hearts that do it but i do fishes also and angels for christmas and trees.. your imagination is the limit!

You will need

a sewing machine that has a drop feed dog function, sometimes its called the darning function, you have to drop the teeth under the needle so they are no longer pushing the fabric forward. Go check, see if your machine can do this, you will be surprised at how many of even the cheaper machines can do it. I worked on a 100 dollar brother for two years before it died, now I have a super cadillac smooth pfaff and I love it. You might also need a darning foot or a free motion machine embroidery foot, each machine is different.

Scissors, fabric for the hearts, fabric for under the hearts on the paper, threads, beads (optional), hand sewing needle and card paper. The card paper I order online with the crease down the middle already from Joes Supplies but if you live beside a paper shop like Daintree in Dublin see what they have. Deckled edges make for an extra nice card. Embroidery Hoop.

The fabric for the hearts (I am using orange felt here in the photo) you stretch on the hoop and make sure its taught. The trick with machine embroidery free style is practise. Move the needle fast and the fabric slowly and draw with the thread. Practise circles and spirals and writing your name and you will soon see how simple it is. I draw hearts on the fabric following a cardboard template I drew and cut out before, this just makes sure all the hearts are the same size, draw them freehand if you wish. I use fabric chalk to draw the outline and then I sew round the outline twice and then fill with spirals and patterns. I usually go over the lines I make twice, it gives a stronger line. The patterns are up to you, invent, be free and your patterns that you do naturally will emerge. Also I do six hearts at a time so as not to waste the fabric.

Cut the hearts out when you are finished. Cut a square of your other fabric just a little bigger than the heart. Place the heart on top of this fabric on the left side of the card (so its in the right place when you fold the card, make sure its upright!)

and then with more spiral patterns sew the heart directly onto the card through the underneath bit of fabric. You can make it as simple as you like, just make sure you sew the edges of the heart down. If its a fraying fabric I use lots of long stitches back and forth to catch the edge.

The heart finished sewing. I still have to tie off the threads at the back, pulling the front one through and tying it with the back one. Prevents it unraveling.

The inside of the card so far.

Now for the beads, these are optional but they add a sparkle that I love. Pick a colour that stands out a little from the backround colour, silver or gold beads are always beautiful. I have used a pinkish bead here that sets off the green gauze I have used and still looks good on the red heart. Sew these on by hand where ever you like, i generally put one over a spiral end and then tie off at the back.

The inside of the card at the end

The finished card, ready for its envelobe and, if I am selling it, its sticker saying my name and plastic protective sleeve.

I have these and other embroideries for sale at my etsy store ‘GreenBirdDreaming’ if you would like to visit!

There was a cat in my swimming pool a while ago, trapped for the night until the next morning when I went to investigate the mewling. It was only a kitten but when I tried to catch it it was fierce and hissed and spat at me and its fur was on end. I was impressed by it, it was so small yet willing to defend itself to the death. When I did catch it with my cardigan over it it got loose and bit me hard on the thumb, teeth going through nail and all, a mighty crunch from a small fierce thing.

I remember ages ago a dream I had when I had to choose between two kittens and one was soft a cuddly and domesticated and the other was smoke grey and spitting at me furiously. I knew I should probably pick the nice kitten so i would have a cat I could have sitting on my lap but a part of me really wanted the other one, the wild untamed one, the one who would walk by its lonesome like in the Rudyard Kipling story. (maybe I will post it).

So when this cat bit me I have blood trapped under my finger nail and it is growing out slowly. I thought that maybe its a sign that I have until the blood grows out to learn the lesson of the fierce kitten in the swimming pool. Where did my fierce independance go? my willingness to fight off intruders from my space? to stand up for myself even though the other might be a lot bigger than I was? I must remember it. A courage to be different, to stand alone and be myself.

I have had discussions with the boyfriend about it too over the last while. I stop being the little girl and start getting my own life together and this threatens him and he figures I am leaving. Of course there is a fear in me that he will leave, to go and find some more obedient girlfriend who will do what he tells her and doesn’t do pesky things like soul searching and strange workshops. But you know what, the happier I am with myself the happier I am in my relationship. We are getting married next christmas so I have this feeling like if I am marrying him then I had better show him who I really am so he knows what he’s doing (hi Paul! x)

I am off to Galway today to put posters and leave fliers for the workshops I am organizing. It’s funny doing this, It is reminding me of all the times I would have done it for gigs we were doing. Book the venue, do the radio interview, put up the posters, tell everyone we knew and then when the night of the gig arrived we would do the sound check, and then sit back and wait for people to arrive. Sometimes they would arrive early and we would relax and enjoy and sometimes nobody would come for ages and we would have visions of playing to three people, but eventually they would trickle in little by little and we would always have a full house to play to.

Same feeling here, putting the fliers out and spreading the word and waiting for the response. I am feeling responsible for getting people and a part of me wants to push and control it and thinks that if I don’t do it right nobody will come and I will be to blame. This is where, I think, doing your best comes into play, that if I do my best and give it the energy it needs and deserves then no matter the outcome I will know I did what was to be done and I couldn’t have done it any differently, where-as if I had skimped on time and attention I will always wonder what if?

Of course the other side of that is my wonderful judge who will try to make me feel bad no matter what I did but I try not to listen to him.

I remember putting up a poster for Reiki in Guanajuato and having this wonderful realization afterwards that I didn’t need to worry about it or try to control it, if there was someone who needed my energy they would find me so I could relax and let the universe do its stuff. Nobody did arrive but I figured I had put up the poster for me to have that revelation, to not be attached to outcome and then I can take the risk of doing something new.

I am sitting in Peters pub waiting for rachel to arrive. i found a free internet hotspot and so I sip my beer and tap away. She has just arrived…

I asked Rachel if she had anything to say for this post and she said its april fools day today and someone left a poo on her chair and all she thought was that her new puppy had somehow managed to make its way into her work and climb up on her chair and do the poo. She was quite confused for a few seconds until she realised it was fake…

ok, time for a toasted sandwich and pint of Paulaner, its so good to be back in good beer land again… though I miss the margaritas!

a wet cloudy day in the mountains, it felt like being back in ireland! I went for a walk and took some pictures, it is so different in the rain, much cooler and refreshing after the hot sun.

lots of faces… in watercolour, fabric and oils. I got some big canvases the last time I was in Chihuahua and painted some huge faces and it was great!

Faces are for seeing, for revealing who you are, for validating what i do (as I paint there is someone watching me) for exploring who I am.

I finish a face a realise it’s sad or happy or has a sense of purpose to it and it surprises me.

Faces i suppose go all the way back to babyhood when its the first thing that catches our attention. Our mothers face. A baby reacts to things that have the same structure as a face. They will look at faces quicker than anything else.

….is a very special friend

well, ok, its not actually animate and it doesn’t say anthing and it doesn’t actually do very much but after three years of lookig for hot water bottles in this country I went and bought my first electric blanket yesterday. I plugged it in, low, and preheat and then a few minutes later got into bed and oh what bliss and luxury!! this morning I woke up still cozy snuggly and actually quite reluctant to get out of the cocoon of warmth.

You see generally I have beside the furnace that is better known as ‘Paul’ but he isn’t here at the mo and It is cold here at night and my poor feet take an age to warm up.I will be taking it back up to the mine with me too. Paul gets so hot he throws all the blankets off and I am left shivering with breezes making their way on through the gaps.

But now I have my shield of protection,my layer of heat, my upgraded next level of the technological scale from the hot water bottle/bed pan… the electric blanket…

all hail!……

My new years resolutions/aims/goals are

to be healthier, to eat healthier and do my yoga more often, join a gym and learn how to run. To do the next reiki level and start offering it to people and accept the changes that come into my life from taking this step forward for myself.

to keep creating my art and move forward one little step at a time, I will take the opportunities that are given me but I am going to stop pushing and pushing like I am forcing something into creation. I don’t have to make something happen, all I need to do it ask and I will be given the opportunity. Also I accept the pace I am going at right now.

I welcome abundance on all levels into my life. I live connected to my heart and the knowledge that we are all one and living and constructing this dream together. Be happy in my life with myself and with Paul. Explore life and welcome all its changes and forms.

happy new year everyone! x cliodhna