cliodhna’s wave

Fishes swim in the pool of our minds. Wolf watches the pool and listens to the fish. The Bird takes the messages form Wolf and carries them to the sky.

To listen to silence is a very rare gift these days. We are surrounded by so much noise we cannot hear the silence behind everything. A child can hear silence, can listen to the song of the world as it turns and the song of the birds.

A house on a hill. A garden with a pool in it with three huge old fish, two gold and one silver. A child climbing over the wall, silently, cautiously, he had heard too many tales about this house in the past,

To sit on a hill where there is no noise except birds and wind and crickets is to listen to the world as it was in the beginning when we were not here, when there were no humans, it is timeless. Listen, hear and the world expands in every direction. We are too used to looking we forget to listen too. So listen and behind the sounds of the birds and insects there is a vastness and a sense of something timeless that surrounds us.

We have lost this connection I think, living in our machine age. Our televisions, radios, mp3 players, there is music and chatter everywhere. In supermarkets, cafes, buses, lifts, we live our lives in a shell of aimless sound and gossip. Our attention is always hooked outside of us. And we allow this to happen because that silence is too scary to experience. That vastness is too huge and we, who have not faced our true selves and found the inner core that cannot be blown away, are too afraid to face it for fear of not being enough.

To connect to this silence for a few minutes everyday puts us back in connection with ourselves and who we really are. I have heard it said that only troubled people seek peace. If that is the case then I am grateful for my worries and my inner angst because it pushed me in a direction I would not have found otherwise.

The child walks through the garden his eyes and ears open, his mouth open in wonder. Trees shaded him from the sun, parrots squawked and flew in a flurry of colour, a fig tree laden with fruit offers a branch with ripe fruit. He takes one and eats it, startled at the intensity of the flavour. He walks on soft grass, cut short and tidy, a white peacock ambles across his path, not bothering to take notice of him. He walks, taking in everything eyes looking up and down and around and above him and below him. He comes across a pool, an ornamental pool, quite large, with a small wall around it. In the pool are three huge old fish swimming in slow circles, two gold and one silver.

They swim in endless circles, when the sun shines and the pool is a mirror of glass they swim, when it rains and the rain makes a hissing noise as it hits the surface of the pool they swim, when it is winter and the surface of the pool is frozen they sink to the deeper parts and swim even slower. The water is their world and is all they have ever known, this water, this pool, this branch hanging over head, this face that hangs over their pool twice a day and drops the coloured flakes that is their food. They rise slowly and with gulping motion of their wide mouths they swallow the red and yellow and brown flakes.

I have written a lot about mermaids,  not sure what the fascination is except maybe they are women who live in the sea and maybe because of that are the connection to our subconscious. Here is an older post about them. Maybe it is laziness on my part, easier to draw a tail than legs

Mermaids can bring wishes to the sea and make them real. She can find what we really want in our deep minds and tell us and bring it up to the surface for us to see.

This is my latest embroidery, the mermaid swims around a magical island. If anyone except the mermaid tries to go onto the island to take the fruit then the birds sing them to sleep and they are transported back home again

This took me a while to do, I beaded it more than usual and layered netting over a gauze over blue to get a depth in the colour. I love the fabric I used for the tail. I am enjoying doing some more detailed pieces before I have to get into production for the Christmas fair (fingers crossed I get a place!). I also bought more fabric for the quilt today so no excuses, get out the cardboard shape and get scaling!

xclio

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

The Dragonfly is the gatekeeper to the land of illusion. He holds truth and reality and illusion and if you want to break through an illusion and find the truth behind it then dragonfly knows the path.

I could do with some of that! it is hard finding the truth sometimes, or more exactly, it is hard to find the real truth hidden under layers of illusion. Sometimes illusion disguises itself as the truth. I am angry at someone cause they won’t help me, I think the truth is that I am feeling disrespected and ignored but really the issue is that I am feeling judgemental and guilty because my business/art/money isn’t going as planned and because I invest my self esteem into these things I berate myself when they don’t work. This means that I can’t deal in a calm manner with the original problem because really my mind is a war zone and I am a war with myself.

I hate being inside my head sometimes, I want an off switch, and toggle that goes to ‘happy’ and I don’t have to do any work to get there… and even using the word ‘work’ in this context. I am obviously equating being happy with work, its not easy, its work… you are not working, better get busy!

So, finding my way to the other side of illusion is a slow process for me, gently picking away at the things in me that hide the truth of me from myself. Finding my way to just being happy and then everything else gains perspective and falls into beautifully balanced place.

I remember working in a store on Georges st and standing at the doorway on a slow afternoon when it was sunny and bright and fresh outside, and two dragonflies came circling and dancing through the air down the street. Iridescent blue and green they sparkled in the air as they flew and I watched them until they danced onwards and dissapeared.

x clio

A girl stretches upwards to reach for the moon; through the red earth and the stones and the hardness of pushing through she stretches and feels for the silver coolness of the moons light pulling her into the night.

The night is cool and dark and welcoming. It is not scary in this night, it is full of life, full of the life that comes out in the darkness and out of the heat of the daytime sun. Animals watch her coming forth, they are witnessing and waiting and encouraging with their breath and giving her energy to complete the journey.

I was reading the other day about a dog who was helping a war veteran with his panic attacks and I have always thought that dogs were such unconditional love beings. We are lucky to have them in our lives. This is Pala who is a sweet loving snuggle monster. Her fur is soft (and sheds everywhere!) and she likes most of all to be curled up in a lap or an the bed beside me. I spoil her.

We are surrounded by animals giving us love and encouragement, even the small creepy ones or the ones that bite.. they are just trying to tell us something, its not our fault if we don’t understand them.

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!

Congrats to Rachel!

and thank you so much to all who took part! and for your wonderful comments! Very encouraging and inspiring. I will take into mind the suggestions about presentation also, it is hard to sell things with just pictures I think, especially a textured art like embroidery. People want to touch and feel and see things up close and art is such a personal emotional response.

I put the names of all who had entered from here and from my facebook into a basket woven by the Tarahumara. They weave the most beautiful baskets, and they smell like the grass and pine needles they wove them from. I have loads of them in the house now!

I closed my eyes and fished around, looking for paper and picked out Rachels name! so congratulations and which one do you want?

Cats don’t know how to fly but then birds don’t have two wide eyes and four feet of claws.

Bird says ‘I can can fly and I have feathers that are as light as the wind and that carry me where ever I want to go. I see the tops of trees and the caterpillars seeking the heat from above the leaves, I see the snow on top ofmountains and the start of streams that gush freezing water down the rocky slopes. The wind is friend and the rain is worm bringer. My eyes are black beads that shine and flit constantly, my body is small and my heart beats fast, when you hold me (if I let you) you can barely feel me except for a vibration and heat in the cup of your palms.

Cat says ‘I bask in the heat of the sun and my fur is warm and soft to the touch. Bury your fingers in my stomach and rest your ear on my chest to hear the thunder that is my voice. The wind shakes the branches and distracts the birds so I can change in an instant from sleepy warmth to huntress and mistress of all I see. Sudden death in a flurry of feathers and I jump and trap. I dream of grassy oceans and dark forests and stalking, ever stalking the light that shines from the sky, the quick rustle in the undergrowth and the presence of another heart that beats.’

While in a sushi restaurant recently I was staring (as I usually do) at the fish in the big fish tank near the entrance. It contained four large goldfish and I thought for possibly the umpteenth time of how pretty and amazingly and satisfyingly balanced the pattern of their scales were. How gold and shiny and marvelously put together they were as they glided back and forth.

‘A quilt’ thought I, ‘a quilt of goldfish scales that shimmers and shines’ and I set out on the long journey towards quiltdom today. I have made a quilt before, it was complicated and took way longer than I thought it would so I am marignally more prepared now than I was the first time of the nature of my commitment to this quilt.

I made the pattern and sewed the patches and i am doing it the old fashioned way of sewing the patches onto a paper backing and I will stitch them together by hand. It holds their shape better and makes curves easier to sew than on a machine.

Onwards onto the path of quilt!