Monday 31 October 2011

First attempt at embroidery...

 So here it is...my first attempt at stitching! And I loved every minute. I spent between half hour to an hour each evening for a week on it, and it paid off, for what I learnt. It's still very basic, but I'm gonna keep at it until I get good.
I began with the text. For the word 'Portwine' I used Back Stitch with black thread, and for 'Rose' I attempted a Split Stitch, though I realise now I should use four plies of a strand rather than all six, just to thin it out a li'l. Then I sewed the rose button on - easy 'nuff. Then the brown vines I did with a Stem Stitch. These were tricky, as I found I had to negotiate which side of the vine I was going to continue stitching on. If it was ill-judged it didn't seem to flow well, and looked gappy. My best Stem Stitch was probably the bottom left. After the vines I did the green ivy leaves using a Split Stitch, but with 3-4 plies, depending on the size of the leaf. This bit wasn't quite so complicated, though I had to unpick it a few times. But at this point, when you stand back and take a look at everything within the hoop, you can't help but feel a li'l proud of what you've achieved so far. I dunno...maybe I'm just simple :o) I finished with a star in ivory using - guess what? - Star Stitches!!! And also some dusky-pink dots for decoration (though they were meant to be French Knots, but I couldn't seem to pull um off; whenever I tightened the floss around the needle I either drew blood from my thumb, or I'd pull the thread through and it would all come apart, rather than holding tight at the front of the fabric. So I did it my way.
I have ideas for my next endeavour, and once it's done I'm gonna try hand-sewing it within a book, and stitching a little poem or ditty upon the other pages. Et voila! My tatty books! Here's to hoping it won't fall apart. And who knows...maybe one day I'll get as good as this...


Edith Piaf and Marianne Faithfull by Jenny Hart
*
'Portwine Rose' is a pet name for a character from my book 'The Thicket Dwellers'. She is also my muse, and is very much alive in my head. She mumbles and murmurs all. the. time. She has a port-wine stain around her left eye, hence the name. I wanted to immortalise her somehow, before I came up with the tatty-book ideas, just in case my book doesn't get accepted for publication. I've written loads of li'l ditties about her and the book itself, and hope to make a series of books using fabric from up-cycled and second-hand clothes, around the idea of her. 
Smiles! Nina x 

What Jas Drew...

I'm really touched that my good friend Jasbeer chose some of Katie's photos of Dan and I to draw. She's a very talented uber-chick who works in animation, and sadly is far away from me right now, but I think about her ALWAYS!
Check out more of her work: http://jasbeerfolio.blogspot.com/
 - Nina x

Wednesday 26 October 2011

When you're dreaming...


...Lights explode in your head like a carousel bursting into flames, least that’s what I remember, but everything was muddled and confusing. I vaguely remember parts of a dream I had that night, but I’d rather forget; it woke me up all melancholy and very wierded out.



Getting organised for a Halloween photo-shoot that'll be happening sometime this week; there’ll be witches, pumpkins, ghosts, black cats and disturbed dolls getting themselves ready for another round of haunting. Am very excited about it all, should help keep my mind off certain things that have been bugging recently. Hopefully it will be a treat instead of trick, touch wood *touches head*.  
                                                                                                                                                                    -Katie  X

Sunday 23 October 2011

Everythingrilliant begins with B!!!
Buffy and Books and Beer and Bed and Bath and Bees and Bojangles (dog) and Brownies and Big sister (she's taller than me...) and Buffriend. All featured in my sunday - should be changed to Bunday! :) 
- Nina x

Saturday 22 October 2011

What Alice Found




That weekend we went native, we also went vintage shopping :) that stretch on Christchurch Road between Pokesdown and Boscombe is the best for vintage, charity and antique shops, with a brilliant regeneration programme going on, so now it's gone from grotty empty squat-shops with to-let signs, to an up-and-coming bohemian high street. And it just happened to be en route to the forest! And down this wonderful little road is our beloved What Alice Found...



I bought a vintage nightdress there as Katie and I were looking for diaphanous ghost-nighties for Kevin's party to play at vampires/deranged sisters/madwomen in the attic (I only found one in the end so I went as the escaped lune - like what I did there? - from the asylum and Katie as a scary doll wearing bloomers from Hetty and Dave's - another vintage shop further down from Alice), but we both tried on a few amidst the enchanting twinkly lights of the changing room where we stole away with a few cheeky photos of ourselves and our surroundings ;)  


Meanwhile Katie bought a birdcage with a butterfly thrown in (or flown in?) as it was stuck to the bars, poor thing; so we took our treasures down to the woods, hung up the cage in the tepee - watching the shadows it made in the dark amidst the candlelight - and played at wood nymphs after finding a bivouac near where we'd spotted fallow deer grazing. Our limbs became slightly doe-like, and we felt ourselves completely free and at ease in the forest. Until one of the other tepee residents drove past and we had to hide behind logs until they'd gone.


Nearer the tepee we found a stone stairway leading to a raised grove of trees that looked quite haunted and reminded me of a scene from Northanger Abbey. Leaves were falling in the mild wind and sunshine glittered through the gaps in the trees as the boughs danced, so we took pictures there which came out seemingly possessed, which we liked. At the end of our play I came back with thorns in my feet from the chestnut shells that I kept stepping on, but also one half of a pair of antlers that Lubix and I bought from the gift shop in Burley, so we kept a part of our fallow-selves after all.


                                                                  - Nina x

Monday 17 October 2011

Girls Around Fires


Last weekend we went native: my sisters and I. Lubix gave me a groupon voucher for Avon Tyrrell in the New Forest, so we decided to keep it sisterly and go at the heart of autumn. Bix hadn't seen my red-heart-atrium-room yet, so she stayed round the night before in my chamber with Katie.
 
The next morning we went vintage shopping down Christchurch rd, then I drove us all to Bransgore where we were to camp in a tepee for the night. After realising we'd come a bit unprepared we drove quickly to Burley to get some tea candles, so that we wouldn't have to go to bed as soon as the sun went down. We made it back just in time to go for a paddle in a canoe on the lake, followed by a go in the kayaks, which was incredible as there was no one else around, just the distant sound of screaming kids and the flight path from Hurn above our heads. Sometimes I paddled into the lily pads, then let myself drift as the leaves stroked the sides of the kayak, and I stared hard into the forest. 
                               
Afterwards we explored our local area, collecting sweet chestnuts as they were EVERYWHERE! Even dropping on our heads, the darn squirrels.

We found ourselves on the top of a hill just as the sun was setting, and the sky was so dramatic and moody with colourful Jesus-loves-me-sunbeams. We stood and watched in awe and took photos, and watched rabbits chasing each other, and then on the way back we stumbled upon a single deer, a fallow fawn I think, in the distance but not too far away, and it stood and stared back at us for a split second before it bounded away; but the moment, however brief, was magical and innocent.
 

We sat, witch-like, around the pot-bellied stove outside our tepee and magicked a fire. It was so occultish as though we were old hags crouched outside our ancient caves, with the moon rising, making silhouettes of the trees and the ritualistic objects and talismans that hung from the branches. We felt tribal, summoning the spirits and tapping into our animal totems.
The sky cleared up considerably, and we watched shooting stars from the meteor shower when it was dark, and ate our food and roasted chestnuts. Then we wrapped ourselves up in white duvets and stood in an open, moonlit field to watch more stars fall, and the strange, night-time cloud formations.
I slept well in the tepee as it was a mild night, and thank gawd Mum had put the old duvets in the boot destined for the charity shop, as me and Katie forgot our sleeping bags! In the morning me and Katie stole into the woods with my new vintage nightie and took ghost-like, madwoman-in-the-woods photos (though this episode is a blog post in and of itself!) and on the way to the bivouac we'd found abandoned we found a whole herd of fallow deer grazing nearby, closer this time. I froze, deciding to reject the decision to try to take a photo, instead to just watch for as long as they lingered. Another incredible moment, though short-lived, as they're fast. Deer is definitely my animal totem, especially as they feature so much in The Thicket Dwellers (also set in the New Forest, though a fictional village).
We then packed away our stuff and drove to Burley, where the ponies roam freely, and we ate a huge slice of carrot cake between us, then went for a walk on the heath. The sun was so warm and we didn't need our coats. It was perfect.
One shop sold antlers that fallow deer shed each year, found by foresters and brought in to sell as souvenirs. So me and Lubix bought a pair that were found on the same date, so therefore probably from the same deer, and we each took one home, which is quite special between sisters. (Unfortunately for Katie, deer don't have three antlers; but as she bought a ridiculously lovely birdcage the day before from What Alice Found with a butterfly that was thrown in (or flown in!) for free, and with my money, we felt she had something quite special already and we didn't feel so bad.)
Then we went to The Queen's Head for food and a pint, and though we had to wait for nearly an hour, the food was good, and ended the weekend on a high. <3 Burley and The New Forest <3
                      - Nina x x x

Thursday 6 October 2011