mending the never ending story of a very good old jacket

Old Man Crow in his very good old jacket
the sleeves are turning into lace
left sleeve detail
right sleeve detail
collar detail
edge detail he wears it well

making my feet feel happy

it’s getting chilly here in the Land Down Under, my best slippers disintegrated last winter after 15 years of good wearing, had looked everywhere for a new pair but couldn’t find anything I liked so decided to have a go at making a pair
back in the late 70’s I made crocheted dancing shoes for friends & was amazed that my hands remembered how to crochet to bind the edge in silver Perle cotton. Nearly threw in the towel when the heels were way too short before adding the heel extensions and binding the edge in electric blue leather
if I do this again I would cut the heels and edging at the same time rather than guessing!
the finished pair, as they wear out I will patch each hole with more of the blue leather
happy feet !
felted grey cardigan, electric blue suede, sole leather, 1.5mm round leather lacing, vintage Klippans grey linen thread, DMC silver cotton Perle no 8,  blue Gütermann upholstery thread
PS design inspired by this pair of slippers  after an epic fail at making a pair of moccasins last weekend
see that little cut on the top left hand edge? there were two cuts to form the heel which were supposed to be in line with the opening… what was I thinking? also discovered that stitching leather with a contrasting thread colour is a job for the experts. I need to mark the stitching holes very precisely when working with leather, I know this from bookbinding but didn’t do it… on top of all that the cat scratched leather was too thin for the job and the whole thing went very wonky
a good lesson learned and made me appreciate all the work involved in making a pair of shoes that fit and look good!

how mending becomes lace with time

Old Man Crow’s old grey denim jacket needed more mending
the denim is over 30 years old and getting very thin, perhaps lace developed as an elaborate form of darning
lace as a timeline
the sleeves are getting quite ornate
an ongoing story of love over time
joining hearts and hands around the world with Jude Hill’s Mending Bee

a renovated bicycle helmet

The fine for riding a bicycle without a helmet is now $319 so it was time to make this old one wearable again!
I covered it inside and out with Italian glove leatherand blackened the flouro yellow straps with Inktense coloured pencil
legal & ready to roll again on my trusty old 3 speed Raleigh

Banksia integrifolia

immature seed pod of Banksia integrifolia scanned and then stitched in Photoshop
the seeds are wonderfully woody with lips and wings
old sketches from 1994 photoshopped for the xmas card in 2003
ongoing mending of  the good old jacket
it will become lace one day

The Hands of Fate

marking out my palm lines on an old pair of chamois evening gloves
right hand detail, the finger tips needed repair
left hand detail, the leather had perished in places
palms
backs
heart on sleeve detail
left hand wrist detail
left hand palm detail
right hand palm detail
The Hands of Fate Mo 2015
vintage chamois leather evening gloves, indigo and pomegranate dyed silk thread from Glennis Dolce aka Shibori Girl, indigo Derwent Inktense coloured pencils, Golden Titanium White fluid acrylic
more may be added in time but on the other hand…

PS the last time I had my palm read was in 1974 when I was 19
Eric Clapton was singing Please Be With Me
“wondering what I hoped to find deep within me”
41 years later… am happy just letting the magic of each day unfold and enjoy the surprises

mending

whilst mending the never ending story of a very good jacket this face appeared and I recognized it in this shell! our old lady of a house needed a little mending too the wall out the front was getting a bit too dangerous so we tied it together with some string & filled the cracks I made a new shell and string curtain to replace the last one which was nicked one dark and starless night… this one tangles easily in the wind but as I gently tease out the strands
I recite Henrietta of Thread Reading‘s wise mom’s words
“never cut a knot, always untie it. If you can’t figure out how to untie a knot,
you’ll never figure out how to solve your problems.”
I had always cut knots out before… you can see more of Henrietta’s inspiring stitching here

Dry walls at last!

Soon my bench will be able to move back to it’s spot under the window! Thanks to the wonderful handyman and his offsider on Halloween the problem is solved, we had a lot of rain last week and the walls are drier than they have ever been in the 6 years we have lived here, doing the happy dance we may well be here for a good while yet!
Yesterday arvo I propped up the ceiling with a piece of bamboo cut to fit in behind the curtain rail and prepared the walls and the hole in the ceiling by scraping back all the loose plaster & rotted paint, sealed it all with watered down Bondcrete (PVA), will let it set for a few days then give it another coat and think about how to make some spider web lace with string to strengthen the edges….
the xmas decorations are up and presents are waiting to be opened, I love the Silly Season!

the luxury of having a roof over our heads

Our beautiful old Victorian terrace house is like an old lady who needs a bit of help with keeping up appearances when we first moved in 6 years ago a couple of the ceilings were falling down, the bathroom was black with mould and the back garden was the local cat toilet but the rent is about half the going rate so we have repaired her as best we can but the back wall has always been damp. Early this year we hired a big ladder & had a go at fixing it but that didn’t really help the internal waterfall. The problem had shifted a bit but when we had a lot of rain back in August the ceiling collapsed over my workbench so we sent photos of the damage to the real estate agent in the hope that the landlady would pay to have to the roof repaired but we heard back from them a few weeks ago saying we should do the repairs ourselves. Well the next door neighbour didn’t want us climbing up on his roof as he reckons we are too old but he recommended his handyman who is brilliant, here’s some photos of the work in progress
really happy he brought an offsider along to help remove the rotten old fascia board
last week he measured it all up, the new fascia board was exactly the right length
he had some flashing made up to length as the roofing iron is a bit short and refit the gutter
an hour and a half later they were all finished & now we’re looking forward to some rain, wouldn’t it be amazing if that’s all that was needed after 6 years of the problem just getting worse & worse!?!