cliodhna’s wave

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!

Ok, to officially open my new store at Etsy I am having a promotion and having a draw for an embroidery. I am giving away one of these three items you see here (the winner chooses). PLease visit the store at GreenBirdDreaming or click on any of the pictures. The pictures will bring you to the product page of that item and to get to the main store there is a little word ’shop’  beside the avatar under the words ‘GreenBirdDreaming’

so back to the promotion, please visit my store and have a noodle and then in your comment please tell me one thing you like about it and one thing you think could be improved. Maybe the pictures don’t strike you, maybe the product descriptions need outlining. Whatever!

For those unfamiliar with Etsy it is a worldwide online store for handmade crafts, supplies for handmade crafts and vintage items. there is everything here, from soaps to jewellery, from strange pictures of cats to king size beds. Its the best online shopping anywhere!

I put a treasury together on etsy.. called ‘Queens’ its a collection of queen related items from cool shops.. check it out and let me know what you think!

Queens on Etsy

Does anyone else have this problem?

I want to do big stuff, then I want to do small pieces,

I want to do huge quilts that cover a wall and then I want to do tiny stuffed birds with beads hanging off them.

I want to make skirts, underwear, felted hats,

I want to dye my own fabrics with the plants in my surroundings and I want to save time by buying the already wonderful luscious fabrics that exist out there

I want to do commercial pieces that will sell and make me money and i want to do one off exclusive squares of beauty that take days and days and you can’t possibly sell them for enough to recoup time, materials and emotional input

I wish there were four of me….

Balance Clio, balance, and of course the word I am still improving on…. patience

i am in the process of getting my etsy store back together. This time under Green Bird Dreaming. I have been doing some embroideries for it, these are smaller.

The leaves are out on the tree in front of my workroom window. Now I work in a green shaded room with those squawky black birds that always remind me of dinosuars fighting in the branches.

Its hard here to find places to sell art work. I am joining a sunday art exhibition in a Park here in Chihuahua. Like what they have on Stephens Green except a lot smaller. Hopefully fingers crossed!

i am going through a reinvention, again… I am thinking of changing my etsy shop name and actually doing some advertising to get some sales… simple stuff yes but a side of things i am quite hopeless at. I am doing some small embroideries I can sell on the store and then the shopping bags of course.

I have found some stores here in chihuahua I can put them also, at last!

Also, now a new game for driving around chihuahua, keep the kids happy and its educational at the same time

Its called ’spot the traffic infringement’ and you choose a traffic violation like breaking a red light or not using indicators or turning left across three lanes of other traffic all going straight or pulling out veeerrrrrry slowly in front of oncoming cars or speeding and zipping in and out of cars. Each one has points based on the severity of the rule breaking, seeing someone actually cause an accident garantees a win. The person who sees the most (or gets the most points) of their violation wins. I am still sorting it out and it will be out in the stores come june.

I know I am being flippant about this but chihauhua is filled with terrible drivers! I am on my gaurd 100% of the time driving around here and I expect the unexpected constantly. The speed limit is completely ignored, i have come to the conclusion that the only cars that do go the speed limit are old and can’t go any faster. If you want to stop at a red light you had better make your intentions clear because up to three seconds after the light changes to red its still fair game to sail across. I see accidents everyday at traffic lights.

two new pieces, both small, 4 inches by 8 inches each one.I am still working with the feathers, and these are one note each of a song. The feathers are so soft and light and feel delicious. It is almost a shame to have to put them behind glass. I have a few framed now, in gold and and copper mat boards and frames and they look wonderful. I love the metallic threads I am using. Finally I have a sewing machine here that can handle them. The last machine I had here, a cheap brother (which for the price was an excellent machine) didn’t like them at all and would break them immediately.

and a photo of my workspace. I had to take one for a festival I am applying for. Fingers crossed! There are numerous festivals in new Mexico and Arizona I am looking at but a lot of them want booth shots, which of ourse I don’t have until I actually do a festival.

I have started using feathers in my embroidery. Exploring the texture and general fluffiness and yumminess of them with gold and silver fabrics. Trying to capture in visual terms bird song, the richness of a note that hangs in the air for a second and vanishes.

My latest embroidery of the greenwitch. I have been finishing off and tidying up my work recently, putting borders and names and backs on things that have been sitting half finished. When I go back to ireland they shall be ready to be presented hopefully to galleries to look for an exhibition.

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.